Yacht (recto); Mastless boat, Dinghy and Lighthouse (verso)

Margaret Gardiner (1904-2005) was a writer, an adopter of political causes, a founder of the ICA and a notable patron of the arts. From the 1930s onwards she built up a large and significant group of pictures and sculpture by artist-friends of hers including Barbara Hepworth, Naum Gabo, Terry Frost, Kenneth Armitage, Patrick Heron, Peter Lanyon, Roger Hilton, Alfred Wallis and Ben Nicholson among others. In the early days of their struggles for recognition she acquired these through purchase and later as gifts from the artists. She fell in love with Orkney during a visit in the 1950s and she bought a small croft on the island of Rousay which she continued to visit well into her nineties. In 1978 she donated her by then highly valuable art collection of mainly St Ives and Cornish art to the people of Orkney in return for all the pleasure of time spent on Rousay. It is now assembled and on view to the public in two 18th Century buildings at the Pier Art Centre, Stromness, which opened in July 1979.

Wallis rarely used traditional artists' materials, favouring found objects such as discarded boxes, and using household and ship paints. In the present work he has, unusually, used both sides of the board.