Leon Underwood (1890-1975) was a painter, sculptor and printmaker. He was an influential teacher with a particular interest in life drawing and the human form. He also travelled widely and was particularly interested in African and South American sculpture and Paleolithic art. His interest in so called 'primitive' art, however, was rooted more in a sense of its popular appeal than its abstract formal qualities. His own work reflects this. The reclining figure here recalls Mexican sculpture, while the white outline used in many of his prints evokes the giant Romano-Celtic chalk figures still to be seen today on several hillsides in southern Britain.