Cecil Collins (1908-1989) worked both as a painter and designer. He studied at the Plymouth School of art between 1923 and 1927 and the Royal College of Art, London from 1927-1931. In the early 1930s the artist became exposed to the work of artists Picasso (1881-1973) and Klee (1879-1940). In 1936 he participated in the International Surrealist Exhibition, London, before moving away from the movement. The artist returned to his native Devon to teach at Dartington Hall from 1939 to 1943. He believed in art being created through visionary experience and spiritual quest and his works from the 1940s echo the mystical feel of the artists Samuel Palmer (1805-1881) and Odilon Redon (1840-1916).

This pencil drawing is for one of 12 illustrations that Cecil Collins made for the Oxford illustrated Old Testament, published in 1968. The five volumes were illustrated with the work of twenty two contemporary British artists including David Hockney (born 1937), Peter Blake (born 1932), Carol Annand and Sheila Robinson as well as Collins.This work is an illustration to Psalm 42 "To the Chief Musician, Maschil, for the sons of Korah". This illustration shows a figure sleeping in the foreground against the form of a wave that flows from the bottom left corner to the mid right of the sheet. Lines behind the figure stretch from the bottom left corner to a border of swirling circles. Illustration to the line “All thy waves and thy billows are gone over me” from Psalm 42:7.