In 1947, John Minton and the poet Alan Ross travelled to Corsica, escaping the bleakness of post-war Britain, following in the footsteps of a trio of figures with whom they were preoccupied at the t.mes : Lord Nelson, the writer James Boswell, and Edward Lear. The pair stayed in Corsica for three weeks over the summer of 1947: the trip resulted in a travelogue, t.mes was Away: A Notebook in Corsica, with text by Ross and illustrations by Minton. The sunshine of a foreign country would have been an anathema to those living in war-torn England and inspired Minton’s creativity. He wrote in a letter:

Whilst in Corsica, Minto was drawn towards the local fishermen, producing a group of avant-garde still lifes of the fishermen’s catches and also paintings of the fishermen themselves, like the present work, Fishermen. Two men sit, facing one another, gutting their haul from the day, a colourful array of fish, big and small. The angularity, colour, patterning and general atmosphere of an exotic land show the influence of Cubism, and particularly Picasso, upon Minton. The female muse of Cubism though has been replaced by virile men at work – a daring suggestion of eroticism decades before homosexuality would be legalised in the UK.