Following his breakthrough at the 5th Sydney Biennale in 1984, Ralph Hotere (1931-2013) took up an artist residency at the University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts. There, he formed one of his most enduring artistic collaborations with the printmaker Marian Maguire, a relationship that spanned over 20 years.

Hotere and Maguire formed a strong bond over lithography. He had already experimented with screen-printing since the early 1960s, and attempted to apply his angle grinder to etching plates. But through lithography he found a new medium for expression which he exploited for its characteristic oily blackness and inky depths. Round Midnight 'July', 2000, was produced in collaboration with Maguire. The suite of prints totals thirteen works named after the months of the year plus one additional image. It took Hotere almost a year to complete the series, and the works were not created in chronological sequence.

Instead the title derives from a jazz composition by the musician Thelonius Monk called 'Round Midnight', suggesting the intuitive and syncopated rhythm of Monk's arrangement. Round Midnight 'July' consists of black on black, yet is distinguishable through two main motifs: the double-barred Lorraine cross and the Latin cross.

The cross reappears in untitled, 2002, this time forming an 'X' shape. Hotere was notoriously reticent about his own work, and provides no guidance about their visual relation to window frames, points of convergence or Christian crosses. Rather, both prints reiterate his refusal of words, taking solace in their monastic simplicity and sumptuousness of gesture and mark making.