He suffered what he described as a ‘complete mental collapse’ in 1908 and spent time convalescing in a clinic in Copenhagen. In 1909 he rented Skrubben, a wooden cabin, in the coastal town of Kragerø and set up his first open-air studio. Here, he painted landscapes, portraits and – in the frame of a competition for a decorative scheme for the Great Hall at Oslo University – nude studies. On completion of the project he continued to focus on the nude and in particular, double-nude subjects.

He purchased Ekely, a large house on the outskirts of Oslo, in 1916 and spent most of the rest of his life there. He led an increasingly isolated existence but this self-imposed exile from friends had little influence on his preoccupation with life drawing and painting. He took up the theme of the artist and the model in 1919 and returned with fresh intensity to the subject of the nude. His preferred medium was watercolour, using, until the early 1920s, this technique to […] investigate the potential of different poses in terms of colouristically rich, emotionally expressive images. The emphasis on colour and expression is apparent in the present sheet. Unlike many other studies of the period, the watercolour dispenses completely with underdrawing. It is unclear whether the figure represented is the dancer and actress Katja Wallier who was his model for other works (Standing Nude in Blue, 1920-22, Munch-museet, Oslo) or his long-term model Annie Fjeldbu, who stood for him in the years up to 1923.