Still Life was a gift from the artist to Frank Almy, director of the Hackley to Frank Almy, director of the Hackley Art Gallery in Muskegon, with whom Dickinson exhibited in 1933. This painting relates closely to Still Life No. 1, formerly in the Ferdinand Howald Collection at the Columbus Museum of Art. Two other works, Still Life with Plums in the Smith College Museum of Art and Still Life in the Cleveland Museum of Art, are also similar in theme. This work deftly combines the cubistic and precisionistic influences that are apparent in Dickinson's work in the twenties.

A letter from the artist to Mrs. Almy accompanies the lot, as well as a letter from Richard Rubenfeld of the Phillips Collection dated June 19, 1992 discussing the painting and its history