Storm at St Ives

Heron's published writings on the 1946 Georges Braque show (Tate Gallery, London) demonstrate the admiration that he felt for the French master's use of line to create three-dimensional space and multiple viewpoints in a painting. Other threads of influence, however, are detectable in the present work, which pre-dates his move into pure abstraction. In an interview with Martin Gayford, Heron said, 'My own handling, my own colour sense were infinitely more Matissian and always had been - and at times, Bonnardian. My paintings never looked like Braque; Braque is full of straight lines, ruled lines, and submerged, indeed, not very submerged, cubist geometry, of a very severe nature. There is nothing like that in my paintings. My paintings are always fluid in a Matissian way' (see D. Sylvester (ed.), Patrick Heron, London, 1998, p. 25).

Between 1945 and 1956 Heron visited Cornwall regularly with his wife, Delia, and painted a number of works of the view from the flat they rented at 3 St Andrew's Street, which overlooked the harbour and sea wall.