One of the last paintings by Prunella Clough, one of the most progressive and influential British painters of her generation. 'Vegetation' is composed of a mosaic of organic and geometric forms recalling aerial photography, aboriginal dot painting or prehistoric rock carving. The references are deliberately ambiguous, leaving the viewer's own imagination to respond. She said, 'Each painting is an exploration in unknown country, or as Manet said, it is like throwing oneself into the sea to learn to swim. Anything that the eye or the mind's eye sees with intensity and excitement will do as a start; it grows as a crystal or a tree grows, with its own logic'. (Picture Post, 1949)