From 1985 to 1989, Frank Stella produced his series of thirteen large-scale prints, The Waves, inspired by Herman Melville's novel Moby Dick. The series was a technical tour-de-force, combining diverse printmaking methods such as screenprint, lithography, and linocut with hand-cut paper collage and hand-coloured elements. The series was published by Waddington Graphics in 1989.
After completing the edition of sixty, with ten artist's proofs and four printer's proofs, Stella decided to use the remaining compositional plates and collage elements to explore further hand-painted colour arrangements and printings. He went on to make approximately ten unique colour variants of each design, of which the present work is one.