Half-Swedish, Olsson painted amongst the community of artists in the Cornish fishing village of Newlyn, living and teaching in St Ives, where he also ran a hotel. During the Great War he served as a Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Reserve, and became a full Royal Academician in 1920. It took Olsson a while to arrive at his distinctive ‘British Impressionist’ manner, but once he found his trademark of luminous moonlight, pearly foam, and turbulent waves he amplified the subject and repeated it to great effect.

This painting, exhibited at the Royal Academy at the height of the War in 1917, was the summit of his career and the great picture that helped make his reputation in London, leading to his election to the RA in 1920. Decades later, in 1974, the Poet Laureate John Betjeman wrote his nostalgic ‘On a Painting by Julius Olsson R.A.’:

Over what bridge-fours has that luscious sea

Shone sparkling from its frame of bronzéd gold

Since waves of foaming opalescence roll'd 

One warm spring morning, back in twenty-three, 

All through the day, from breakfast-time till tea,

When Julius Olsson, feeling rather cold,

Packed up his easel and, contented, stroll'd 

Back to St. Ives, its fisher-folk and quay.

Over what bridge-parties, cloche-hat, low waist, 

Has looked that seascape, once so highly-prized,

From Lenygon-green walls, until, despised—

“It isn't art. It's only just a knack"—

It fell from grace. Now, in a change of taste, 

See Julius Olsson slowly strolling back.