Sherlock was a painter, etcher and draughtsman in pencil, born in Wanstead, Essex. After early education in Cambridge, Sherlock studied art under Walter Sickert and Harold Gilman, the Camden Town Group painters, shortly before World War I. Also studied with Malcolm Osborne at Royal College of Art in late 1920s and with André Lhote in the late 1930s. She first exhibited at RA in 1917, a powerful picture of Liverpool Street station, and she continued to show at the Academy for over 50 years.

The present painting was made while Sherlock was studying at Lhote's Academy during the late 1930s.