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Ben Nicholson first visited St Ives in 1928 and probably began this painting soon after. It is clearly inspired by the naïve paintings of Alfred Wallis, an old fisherman whose work was 'discovered' by Nicholson and Christopher Wood. Wallis painted on old pieces of cardboard or wood, using ship's or household paint with a limited range of colours. Here, Nicholson's technique is similarly, but deliberately, rough and the paint was scraped to reveal the underlying pigments. The unresolved central area suggests his struggle with such an informal composition.