National Galleries of Scotland

This work belongs to a series of figure paintings the artist made in Ireland late in 1946. The motif of two figures, usually women, occurs frequently in Colquhoun?s paintings of the mid-1940s. Some critics have seen this as reflecting the painter?s intense relationship with his partner Robert MacBryde. In the year this work was painted, the artist was also in contact with the Polish artist Jankel Adler. Adler influenced Colquhoun?s expressive treatment of the human figure. Many of Colquhoun?s paintings of this period also have tragic and poignant undertones which were in keeping with the mood of society after the Second World War.