Literature: Llewellyn, Sacha, and Paul Liss. Portrait of an Artist. Liss Llewellyn, 2021, p.52.

1920, the year in which Underwood painted this studio scene, was  a pivotal one for Underwood.  Having served during WW1 as a Captain in the Camouflage Section of the Royal Engineers, Underwood attended the Slade School of Art for a year's refresher course and won a  British Prix de Rome scholarship.  

The setting for this painting might be his  Hammersmith studio where he set up a private art school, the Brook Green School, which he ran, intermittently, until 1938. He also taught a life drawing class at the Royal College of Art from 1920 until 1923 when he resigned and travelled to Paris and Iceland.