The Paper Relief ae based on six configurations from the painting series that employed relief elements, the Polish Village Series of 1971-73. Stella and Kenneth Taylor worked with papermaking experts John and Kathleen Koller at their paper mill, HMP – Hand Made Papers in Connecticut.

The first nine reliefs from each mould were used as trial proof, Stella worked with these while they were still wet to develop the color dyeing and paper collaging for what would became the edition image.

All of the paper relief were hand painted by the artist in his New York studio between September 1974 and November 1975. Although color conforms to the geometric shapes in relief, the staining of pigment into the wet grounds causes color to bleed – the first appearance in Stella’s art of accidental, not controlled, gesture. The Paper relief project was a breakthrough for the artist: the first use of gesture in the prints.

The titles of the Paper relief name sites-cities, settlements, districts and shtetls, in Poland and the Soviet Union where wooden synagogues were destroyed during Holocaust.

Cotton-pulp relief, collage, hand-coloured with dyes and dry pigments, 1975, on white HMP handmade paper, signed and dated, published by Tyler Graphics Ltd., Bedford Village, NY., 63×53.5×3 cm (24 4/5 × 21 1/10 ×1 1/5 in), framed 72.5 x 62 cm.