Roger Hilton’s bright, gestural practice is greatly celebrated amongst 20th Century British Art. Inspired by European avant-garde artists, his abstracted painting of the 50s and 60s increasingly contained figurative elements. As he began to align with the St Ives group from the mid-1960s, Hilton made regular trips to Cornwall where subjects of boats, harbours and water appeared in his work, and continued throughout his practice. He moved from London to Cornwall in 1965 where he stayed till the end of his life. In the 1970s, despite being bedbound due to ill health, Hilton produced several gouache paintings including the present work, from over the side of his bed, working onto large sheets of paper laid on the floor.