German-Jewish art dealer Dr Grete Ring (1887-1952) arrived in London in 1938 to found a new branch of Berlin gallery, Cassirer Ltd, on Cleveland Row near Green Park, where she also made her new home. She staged one highly successful exhibition of Cezanne watercolour before the building was bombed in 1941, as depicted in this watercolour by her friend, fellow German refugee and artist, Katerina Wilczynski. Wilczynski was by this time working as an unofficial war artist in London and living with the refugee art dealer Arthur Kauffmann in Richmond, where Ring also found a temporary home for the remainder of the war years.