John Graham’s background was as colorful as this canvas. Born in Ukraine, he served in Tsar Nicholas II’s Circassian Regiment, later telling the tale of his imprisonment as a counter-revolutionary. After fleeing to Poland, he arrived in America in 1920, changing his name from Ivan Gratianovitch Dombrowsky to John Graham. The artist relocated to Baltimore in 1925, but by the time he painted Bowl of Cherries, he had moved back to New York, where he was associated with the emerging Abstract Expressionists. In 1942, Graham organized an exhibition at the McMillen Gallery that set Jackson Pollock among influential European and American modernists. Graham remained close to Willem de Kooning, Lee Krasner, and Stuart Davis, among others. Here, Graham used experimental materials —enamel or house paint — to depict a traditional subject, seen from a standard frontal point of view. The painting’s frame is original.