Vanessa Bell's screen was first known as 'Tents and Figures' although over time it has become associated with bathers. The theme of naked women in the open air was prevalent in the work of painters Bell admired, such as the French artists Cezanne and Matisse.

Bell was a director of the Omega Workshop, which specialised in objects for the home such as textiles, ceramics and furniture, designed and made by young avant-garde artists. She painted this screen soon after the Workshop opened in Bloomsbury, London, in July 1913, and based it on a sketch she had made on holiday in Norfolk that August. The screen is a greatly simplified and stylised version of the sketch, but both share a pyramidal composition. The folds of the screen and the poles of the central tent emphasise this compositional device.