Marshall was barely 16 years-old when he made Untitled (1971). His desire to master a variety of materials and techniques is already apparent here through painting things like still-lifes, dolls and skulls using oil pastels and watercolours. Those were the kinds of works he put in his portfolio when he applied to Otis College of Art & Design in Los Angeles.

The two men depicted behind bars in Untitled (1971) are early comment by Marshall on injustice. From the age of 14, Marshall followed various summer classes at Otis and after high school he obtained, in 1978, his Master's degree in Visual Arts. During these years he also studied art history and met other artists who would come to greatly influence him. Significantly, this included the African-American artist Charles White, who was also one of his teachers. For Marshall, it was the first time he encountered art in which black people were not stereotyped as either exotic or as slaves, and it had a profound effect on him and his work. This portrait of two inmates was made in the painterly style of Charles White, and is painted directly onto a window shade.