This large canvas of a beach (that of Les Abatilles in Arcachon) is an opportunity for the artist to paint a whole perspective of bathers, parasols and beach tents with, in the foreground framing the three sides of the scene, half of a large red parasol on the left-hand side of the canvas and two large bathers: At the bottom of the canvas, a woman lying on her back, facing us in a yellow swimming costume, her arms raised behind her, and on the right-hand side of the canvas, a man standing, seen from behind, drying himself with a towel on the nape of his neck.

This cubist canvas accumulates the use of geometric motifs in the treatment of both the bodies and the beach equipment. The artist juxtaposes changes of scale, multiplies the zones of light and shadow and creates diagonal perspectives, reinforced by much warmer colours in the foreground.

The originality of the staging, the cutting up of the bodies which overflow or collide with the limits of the canvas translates a pictorial style typical of the artist’s 1950s.

The two models posing as bathers are Marie Forher, née Lacaze, and her brother Pierre-Camille Lacaze, children of Hélène and Paul Lacaze, first cousin of the artist’s father, who lived in Arcachon and with whom the artist spent many holidays during the 1950s and 1960s.