Keith Patterson was an expatriate New Zealand artist who lived in Spain from 1950 until the late 1980s. He was one of a group of artists who emerged just after World War II, younger than more established figures such as Colin McCahon, Toss Woollaston and Rita Angus. As with his contemporary, the painter Denis Knight Turner, Patterson spent many years living abroad and has been slow to gain deserved recognition in the land of his birth. As a young Aucklander, Patterson was a member of the literary and artistic circle which admired the efforts of novelist Frank Sargeson in creating a writing style which could truly be said to convey the way New Zealanders thought, felt and spoke. This group of painters and writers, are known as the Landfall generation after the periodical which first published their work. The prevailing sentiment of this group was to create work which distinctively reflected the New Zealand way of life. In his painting, Patterson combined this spirit of creative nationalism with an awareness and appreciation of the ground-breaking work being carried out by European modernists.