National Galleries of Scotland

This work may have been painted in Leeds when Frost held the prestigious Gregory Fellowship, which brought many important artists to the city. The colour scheme and the angular shapes perhaps reflect the stone-walled fields, and, also, the rows of red brick back-to-backs of his Yorkshire environment. However, the title overtly recalls the quay motifs he had begun painting in St Ives in the early 1950s. The semi-circles call to mind Frost’s vocabulary for depicting rocking boats, with the textures and paintwork further reminiscent of timber hulls. However, the strong black lines are more characteristic of his Leeds period and evolved into what became known as his ‘washing-line paintings’.