Though he began his career as a documentary photographer, Aaron Siskind turned away from representation and towards abstraction in the 1940s, using his camera to capture the graphic patterns, shapes, and forms he observed around him. By carefully framing his subjects, he would transform strands of seaweed on the sand into calligraphic brushstrokes, peeling paint into low-relief sculptures, or graffiti on a wall into a Franz Kline canvas. Siskind influenced and was influenced by the Abstract Expressionists, his photographs frequently exhibited alongside their paintings.