Trees at Sanatorium, Scotland

After a collapse in health and the diagnosis of tuberculosis, Gertler was confined to Banchory Sanatorium, near Aberdeen, in November 1920 until May 1921. Initially forbidden to paint for long periods, he eventually left with nine completed paintings, three of them landscapes, all observed from his window. The progress of this work 'the most significant' is charted in letters to his friends between February and May 1921, in which he admitted a fascination for its upright, panel shape. After learning in April that his health was sufficiently improved to leave, he stayed on to complete the landscape, later giving it to one of the doctors in gratitude for his treatment. When the sanatorium later closed in the 1960s, the doctor tracked down Gertler's son, Luke, and presented it to him.