Born in St Andrews, Wilhelmina Barns-Graham visited Paris and Rouen as a teenager. She studied painting at Edinburgh College of Art between 1932 and 1936, and in 1940 moved to St Ives in Cornwall, on the recommendation of an artist friend, Margaret Mellis. There she got to know Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth, Bernard Leach and Naum Gabo. The economy of Gabo's sculptural shapes and the transluency of the modern materials he used had a great impact on her. 'Red Form' was painted in her St Ives studio by Porthmeor beach, and reflects the interest she took at the time in the Golden Section.