In 1951 Sutherland was commissioned to produce a vast canvas 14 feet high by 11 feet wide for the ‘Land’ pavilion at the Festival Britain on London’s South Bank. The pavilion was devoted to the themese of the forces of nature, comparing the geological and social history of Britian with its present. Sutherland made a number of studies, of which this work is one, of the themes he planned to incorporate: rock formations found at Tourette-sur-Loup, near Vence in France, a pterodactyl skeleton and a standing form emblem.