Terry Frost was one of this country's leading abstract artists from the late 1950s. In 1960, the year of this work, he had his first one-man exhibition in New York. In later life he was wryly amused to find himself, formerly a radical artist, a Royal Academician and knighted by the Queen. The title 'Three Graces' refers to a recurring theme in his work. When he was a student he studied Rubens' painting of 'The Three Graces' as voluptuous maidens and the three forms here allude to them.