Perehudoff’s broad canvases, brightly saturated colours, and neutral “fields” were informed by American abstraction as well as his Prairie setting. He was heavily influenced by the colourful abstract works of painters like Kenneth Noland and Amédée Ozenfant, and in the early 1960s Perehudoff attended several of the Emma Lake Artist’s Workshops held by Noland and Clement Greenberg. Greenberg was an enormously influential art critic who advocated for “formalist” painting: abstract works that explored colours, forms, textures, and compositional space rather than representation. Noland was a prominent American Colour Field painter. In the 1960s, Perehudoff’s bold colours, abstract shapes, and neutral grounds showed the influence of these workshops. Through the 70s, Perehudoff further explored the interaction of colour and form with the Thalia series. Thalia #10 is the largest effort in the series.

Thalia is one of the Nine Muses in Greek mythology, specifically the Muse of comedy and idyllic poetry. She is often depicted with a cheerful expression, holding a comic mask or a shepherd's staff. Thalia is the daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne (the Titaness of memory), and like the other Muses, she inspired artists and poets, particularly in the realm of humor and light-hearted literature. Her name means "the blooming" or "flourishing," reflecting her association with joy and laughter.

“Color is what these pictures are about. it is always inventive and often extraordinary... they are energetic but carefully balanced configurations of intense colour, with piles of bars like springboards, hurling discs across the canvas." -Karen Wilkin, William Perehudoff: Ten Years (Saskatoon: Mendel Art Gallery, 1981)

"Arrangements of brilliant, clearly defined geometric shapes, to evanescent sheets and bars of pulsating color… [Perehudoff’s works] are characterized by… a meticulous concern for design - manifest in austere layouts - and an unabashedly romantic quest for the beautiful - in the form of ravishing color and surfaces.” – Karen Wilkin