Critics and historians have called Grace Hartigan both a second-generation Abstract Expressionist painter and a forebear of Pop art, though she was not satisfied with either categorization. In explaining the content and purpose of her work, Hartigan once said: “perhaps the subject of my art is like the definition of humor—emotional pain remembered in tranquility.” Hartigan painted intensely colored, gestural figures, inspired by coloring books, film, canonical painting, and advertising. She was a disciple of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, and also studied with Isaac Lane Muse. She gained early critical attention when in 1950, she was included in Clement Greenberg and Meyer Schapiro’s “New Talents” exhibition. In 1958, Hartigan was hailed by Life magazine as one of the best young female American painters.