Segal’s shimmering harbour scene combines his knowledge of Impressionism (as a means of representing light) with an individual variant of Cubism, in which he divided his canvas into schematic fields. His artistic experiments sought to break with a single point of focus or dominance in painting. Segal was born in Romania in 1875 and left school early to study painting first in Berlin, then Munich, Paris and Italy. He settled in Berlin in 1904, becoming one of the leaders of the New Berlin Secession group of progressive artists. In 1914, Segal and his family sought refuge in Switzerland, where he exhibited with the Dada group at the Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich. In 1933 after the rise of Nazism, Segal moved first to Mallorca and then, in 1936, to London.