Prunella Clough (1919-2000)

In the late 1940s and early 1950s Clough drew much of her subject matter from the docksides of Lowestoft and the Thames. In the present work, the large industrial crane completely dominates the composition while the men in the foreground are almost obscured by the grid of colour that Clough has applied to the canvas. Clough commented on her intentions regarding these works that they were '... an attempt to introduce the figure into a contemporary urban landscape without the devices of the past, without the myths of Mars or Venus or the legends of Breughel. I was trying to update the classical Western concern with the figure without the benefit of religious or mythical content' (see B. Tufnell (ed.), exhibition catalogue, Prunella Clough, London, Tate, 2007, p. 13).