Seeking an alternative to representing objects in paint, Duchamp began presenting objects themselves as art. He selected mass-produced, commercially available, often utilitarian objects, designating them as art and giving them titles.

Anamorphic art is art that appears distorted upon first glance. When that same piece of art is viewed from a particular angle, or with a mirror or lens, the image becomes “normal”. There are several types of anamorphic art, and two types that use mirrors. Conical (cone) anamorphisms views an image from the top down.

It has been in the collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) since 1998. SFMOMA describes the work as a "drawing [with] traces of drawing media on paper with a label and gilded frame." Some consider Erased de Kooning Drawing a Neo-Dadaist conceptual artwork.