Painted in Paris in 1961, the central focus of Yellow Croquet Second Wicket (1961) is its colour. Baber considered herself an explorer of colour, someone for whom paint was an independent, living thing, something which morphed into shapes and operated differently once activated by surrounding colours. Here pinks, yellows, oranges, reds, and greens are simultaneously distinct sections of indulgent colour and shifting biomorphic forms. Layered above and below one another they are cellular — mutating, merging, and breaking away.

Evolving through continuous experimentation with staining techniques and a growing interest in translucency and movement, Baber’s practice pursued what she called “color hunger” — a process-driven approach in which pigment, light, and emotional response were inextricably linked. Working in parallel to the Abstract Expressionists also investigating the properties and effects of colour, Baber differed from contemporaries such as Helen Frankenthaler and Joan Mitchell in her rejection of the gestural style of painting that characterised much of the Abstract Expressionist movement. Because of this, Baber’s practice can be described as more observational — an empirical endeavour to represent both the scientific and emotional power of colour, a power to excite, calm, and comfort. “When I first conceive of a painting”, she once explained, "I must feel it, I hear it, I taste it, and I want to eat it”.

Far removed from the figurative and still-life works with which Baber began her career, this 1961 painting is an early example of Baber’s commitment to abstraction. A pursuit she first set upon in the late 1950s, Baber would continue to investigate color relationships within abstract painting for the rest of her life.