McFee was a student of Birge Harrison in Woodstock for two summers beginning in 1901 and remained in Woodstock for the next twenty-five years. His loyalty to Harrison's method of painting immediately waned when Andrew Dasburg introduced him to the works of Cezanne and cubism. Consequently, both McFee and Dasburg became early leaders of the American modernist movement.

McFee found solice in the Woodstock landscape which he painted frequently, using dark, earthy tones typical of the Woodstock palette. The present drawing illustrates McFees indebtedness to Cezanne's aesthetic theories. Through carefully orchestrated lines, light and shade McFee fragments the Woodstock landscape, yet retains its realistic features.

As a key member of the Woodstock modernist group, sometimes referred to as the 'Rock City Rebels', McFee was instrumental in widening the gap between the traditional landscape painters of the Harrison/Carlson legacy and the emerging, more progressive artists of the Woodstock colony.