Woodcut print by Edward Gordon Craig, showing a figure in a doorway within a circle, early 20th century. Unsigned.

Regarded as a significant, if controversial, innovator of the modern theatre movement Edward Gordon Craig (1872-1966) built a reputation as an English theatre director, designer, theorist, printmaker and typographer. Inspired by Hubert von Herkomer's scenic experiments with auditorium lighting and three-dimensional scenery in productions at the Bushey Art School, Hertfordshire, Craig exchanged the conventions of realistic scenery for a suggestive, abstract interplay of form, light, movement and music. This new total theatre drew on the imagination to create an architectonic vision of choreographic movement, colour harmony, visual simplicity and atmospheric effect united under the sole control of a single artist. One of his most famous scenographic concepts was the use of neutral, mobile, non-representational screens as a staging and in 1910 Craig filed a patent which described in considerable technical detail a system of hinged and fixed flats that could be quickly arranged to cater for both internal and external scenes. Another development was his use of stage lighting. Doing away with traditional footlights Craig lit the stage from above, placing lights in the ceiling of the theatre, and colour and light became central to Craig's stage conceptualizations.

Craig also became known for his wood engravings and etchings of designs, many of which were published in Craig's book Scene (1923). These designs convey the progression of moving scenes of geometric shapes and projected light and were used by Craig as a means of visualizing and developing ideas about theatre movement.

The woodblock from which the door, figure and wall were printed is held by the V&A (S.499-2016).