Born in Portland, Oregon, but raised in the Ingleside Terraces neighborhood of San Francisco, Richard Diebenkorn was deeply rooted in the Bay Area. In the abstract works he produced in his "Berkeley" series (1953–1956), he used the gestural energies and formal rigors of Abstract Expressionism to evoke the atmospheric and visual qualities of the Northern California landscape.

With its tripartite division into three horizontal bands reminiscent of landscape topography, "Berkeley #3"—like many of the works from the Berkeley series—distinctly evokes the sense of an environment viewed from above. A related drawing and small oil study, both depicting a reclining female nude with an oval head and prominent breasts, suggest that the artist may have perceived parallels between the curvature of the female form and the topographic contours of the natural environment.