This early stylised painting of a secluded valley reflects the artist’s sense of belonging to the North Wales heartland, as well as the influence of his early artistic mentor Elis Gwyn Jones, who taught him at Pwllheli in rural North West Wales. He attended the Slade School of Art, taught at Liverpool Regional College of Art (later Polytechnic) from 1965 to 1989, and was then Head of Art and Design at Coleg Menai, Gwynedd, until his early retirement in 1994. Along with Maurice Cockrill and Sam Walsh, Baum was part of a school of New Realism painting that brought the irony and deadpan feel of American photo realism to a Liverpool exploding with creative talent in the early 1970s. Upon retirement he returned to full time painting, working in a stylised realism, and was invited to be Artist at Work at the Walker Art Gallery in 2000.