With its unexpected juxtapositions and shifts in scale, and its precise tempera technique,
The Beached Margin is typical of Wadsworth’s still lifes. Although never a Surrealist, his paintings incorporated disconcerting imagery that related to the work of de Chirico. Widely travelled, Wadsworth was better informed than most British artists about developments in the Continental art world. In the early 1930s he joined Unit One, a group of artists and architects who were determined to bring Modernism into British culture.