Oklahoma born printmaker Dennis Beall began working abstractly with color lithography as a student at San Francisco State College in the early 1950s. A friendship with printmaker John Ihle led him to working in intaglio in the late 1950s. "Eos" was done in 1960 using a combination of intaglio techniques to accomplish this AbEx composition.
These dynamic, abstract images were shunned by the art market at the time and Beall, like many of the Bay Area AbEx printmakers, was more interested in the process than the commercial success it may have. This composition was inscribed "1st State" but was never editioned. Titled "Eos" beneath the image he also titled it "Esso" in the margin.
Beall was registrar at the Oakland Museum of California briefly in 1958 before becoming a curator at the Achenbach Foundation for the Graphic Arts in San Francisco, working with Gunter Troche. He held that position until 1965 when he began his teaching career at San Francisco State University where he taught printmaking.