Martial Raysse is undoubtedly one of the most talented and inventive artists of his generation. By establishing a new relationship with reality and incorporating manufactured items into his compositions, he presents himself as a true ‘archaeologist of the present’, in the words of Pierre Restany, author of the declaration of New Realism signed by Raysse at Yves Klein's home on 27 October 1960.

Using photographic images, bright colours, collage and spray paint, Martial Raysse stands as a true historical counterpoint to Neo-Dadaism and American Pop Art, following in the footsteps of his contemporaries Robert Rauschenberg, whom he met in Paris in 1961, Tom Wesselman, Marilyn and Andy Warhol.

Green on Green is part of a series of paintings that the artist created in memory of France, his native country, which he left to settle in the United States, and in tribute to his wife, whose name was France and whose photographic portrait is used here. The composition illustrates Otto Hahn's thoughts on the artist's visual language: " Raysse thus provides an image of the compartmentalised, partial vision that characterises our modern vision, where the eye is drawn to make-up, the curve of a leg, the fold of a lip. Martial Raysse turns this dispersion of the gaze into visual clichés: a single detail is enough to make the whole present. Each part functions as a signal and refers back to the whole."