André Emmerich, a key figure in promoting abstract painting in the mid-20th century, had a deep interest in Pre-Columbian art. His gallery was one of the first to deliberately co-exhibit Pre-Columbian artefacts alongside modern abstractionists like Kenneth Noland, Morris Louis, and Helen Frankenthaler. He saw in ancient Mesoamerican and South American textiles, ceramics, and stone carvings a kind of proto-modernism—geometric abstraction stripped down to its purest form.

Whether natural pigments or synthetic dyes, the chromatic intensity this textile finds a counterpart in the ethereal colour fields of Rothko or Frankenthaler.

Emmerich’s exhibitions implicitly suggested that abstraction was not an invention of the 20th century but something with deep roots in human visual culture. By placing Pre-Columbian objects alongside contemporary paintings, he demonstrated a timeless visual language—a continuity between past and present where simple, resonant forms and colours hold profound symbolic power.