This composition has a deliberate naivety and wonderfully restrained palette, accented by the rich yellows and bold reds of the tulip blossoms and the emerald green of their stalks. It is from a series of works that Winifred and Ben Nicholson made in the years of their short but important marriage. At this time, along with Christopher Wood, they embarked on a journey to create a vernacular English modernism, taking their cues from all manner of sources, though including Cubism, folk art, Matisse, and the art of children.

Winifred Nicholson has always suffered from being seen as a footnote in Ben’s life and, yet, at the early stages of their careers, hers was an equal part in these attempts to be thoroughly "modern". From her home at Bankshead, they were on a joint search for an un-tutored, ‘primitive’ language that could express modern ideas of informality and directness. In Tulips, we see Nicholson in full control of a visual language that is her own, not influenced by the pure abstraction of Ben. This was a language that was to sustain Winifred for the rest of her career.