Reference:

This painting is a half scale version of Archibald Frank Nicoll's Peninsula Winter, National Art Gallery Collection. Reference, p. 76, New Zealand Painting, An Introduction, Gordon H Brown & Hamish Keith, Collins 1969.

The person who probably, more than any other painter, represents the link between the period immediately following the first World War and the developments that were to take place in the 30s, especially in Christchurch, is Archibald Frank Nicoll, a man with decided views, whose style approached the best in the academic tradition. His influence as a teacher was considerable, and he did much towards establishing the crisp, clean-cut manner of portraying the landscape that was to be a hall-mark of the Canterbury school in the 1930s and 1940s.