The present work is Gertler's first mature landscape, painted at Pett Level near Hastings during the summer of 1914, and considered by the artist to be 'one of the best things I've done'. The work was executed during the height of Gertler's relationship with the artist Dora Carrington and he wrote to her on a Sunday in 1914 from Hastings: 'I am working hard here ... only doing landscape as yet... the first landscape which is nearly finished is of a black and white cottage against a dull sky - silver and lead. The foreground consists of a golden elder seen through another plant, called pampas grass. The picture finishes up at the bottom with a dark green gate and fence. The scene, as it is in nature, is most beautiful'. He wrote to Carrington on a Sunday in December 1915 from his studio in Hampstead to proclaim: 'Lady Cunard assures me I am 'the talk of London'. Also my little picture the 'Black and White Cottage' was given as a wedding present to Violet Asquith by Lady Hamilton. It hung among the presents at Downing Street 'where it was much admired'. 'What fame! What success!''. (see N. Carrington, loc. cit.)