Clifford Bayliss’s Surrealist work of the 1940s remained virtually unknown until after his death in 1989. He trained at the National Gallery School in Melbourne, and in 1935 won the coveted Travelling Scholarship, which saw him journey to London the following year. There Bayliss likely saw the first International Surrealist Exhibition, held at the New Burlington Galleries, and appears to have commenced his own Surrealist explorations around 1940. Bayliss reportedly stated that the winding sheet motif that recurs throughout many of his works referred to the unwrapping of his fantasies.