Nicholson and Hepworth had relocated from London to Carbis Bay in Cornwall in 1939, shortly before war was declared, bringing their young children with them. In the early period they stayed with the painter-critic Adrian Stokes and his wife, the artist Margaret Mellis, at their home Little Park Owles, before settling permanently at Chy-an-Kerris, also in Carbis Bay. Wartime scarcity of materials and tight finances meant that Nicholson worked predominantly on a modest scale during these years, often returning to and refining ideas that had emerged from his pre-war dialogue with leading European figures, among them Piet Mondrian.

The Cornish environment left a deep mark on his practice. As Norbert Lynton observed, the constantly changing conditions of sky, sea, and land meant that Nicholson's feeling for light, colour, and space was perpetually renewed, offering both fresh possibilities and a foundation on which established methods could be built upon and extended (Ben Nicholson, London, 1993, pp. 187–188).

This influence is legible throughout the present work. Its palette of soft pastels alongside warm, earthy hues and deep black, evokes the luminous quality of Cornish light and the sandy coastal terrain. Yet the connection to place goes beyond colour alone. The surface of the painting board has been vigorously worked and abraded, giving it a rough, tactile quality that calls to mind the stones, rocks, and organic textures of the landscape surrounding the studio. In 1945 (three circles), Nicholson's capacity to weave together abstract structure and observed environment is on full display: a quality that firmly establishes him among the most significant British modernist painters of the twentieth century.