Eyes in the Heat heralds the poured paintings Jackson Pollock initiated in the winter of 1946–47. It is part of Sounds in the Grass, a series of seven canvases that also includes Croaking Movement (1946) in the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. Pollock had moved to a house on Long Island, New York, in 1945, and early the next summer began using one of the bedrooms as a studio. Visible effects of the move from New York City to the more rural environment of East Hampton were a lightening of palette and the introduction of themes alluding to nature. Pollock no longer applies paint with a brush, but squeezes pigment onto the canvas directly from the tube, pushing and smearing it with blunt instruments to create a thick, textured crust. One’s gaze is carried along broad swathes of color that swoop, careen, double back, rise, and fall rhythmically over the entire canvas. The watchful eyes of creatures concealed in the paint appear here and there, in their proliferation mimicking the restless movement of the viewer’s eyes.