Biederman was born in Cleveland and studied at the Cleveland Art Institute before enrolling at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He also lived in Paris, encountering and befriending leading abstract and cubist artists of the time, such as Piet Mondrian, Constantin Brancusi, Hans Arp, Joan Miró, and Fernand Léger, who was a particularly strong influence on Biederman.

Biederman moved to New York in 1934, and two years later he was included in the show Five Contemporary American Concretionists, which also featured Alexander Calder, John Ferren, George L. K. Morris, and Charles Green Shaw. This exhibition helped establish Biederman as an important modern artist.

Biederman returned to Chicago for a time before settling in Red Wing, Minnesota, where he remained for the rest of his life. He abandoned painting relatively early in his career, subsequently exploring three-dimensional reliefs—such as the present work—that had first began to interest him upon his exposure to De Stijl and Russian constructivism.