Ray Parker (1922-1990) was known as an Abstract Expressionist painter. During the 1940s, his paintings were heavily influenced by Cubism. In the early 1950s, however, Parker became associated with the leading Abstract Expressionists of the day, including Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning. Parker soon began to simplify and refine his works, realizing that through abstraction and color his paintings could convey emotion. He is best known for his work of the late 1950s and early '60s called Simple Paintings. These paintings are characterized by discreet cloudlike forms of clear and intense colors set against a white or an off-white background. Parker's paintings utilizing this method of stacked, clearly colored lozenges and floating forms are straightforward and basically geometric in shape. Parker's works relate to and predict the minimalist and Color Field paintings of the 1960s.