There is something celebratory about the figures in this image, which evoke a sense of flags, banners or even people playing ball on a sea-shore. John Tunnard turned to abstract painting, after initially painting farm or coastal scenes, around 1934. Influenced first by Miro and Ben Nicholson, by 1940 his work also showed his interest in the natural world. When a coastguard during the 1939-45 war Tunnard also produced oil and gouache paintings which evoked sea or cliff scenes.

Set up in 1945 by Brenda Rawnsley, the School Prints scheme commissioned well-known artists to create lithographs, which would then be printed in large numbers and sold cheaply to schools for display in classrooms; the aim was to give 'school children an understanding of contemporary art'. Each lithograph had a drawn frame so that the print could be pinned to the wall. In the spirit of post-war optimism, artists responded enthusiastically. The scheme was a unique attempt at giving children access to original works of art in a period of austerity but ended in 1949 because of financial problems. Many of the prints depict a familiar world of everyday rural or urban life, some presenting a version of the pastoral idyll and others scenes of entertainment or leisure.