Vaughan Murray Griffin (1903 – 1992) has made a significant, if somewhat underappreciated, contribution to the story of Australian art through his celebrated modernist prints; his landscape painting and his influence as a teacher. Colour is an integral aspect of Griffin’s work and despite his schooling in drawing and his insistence in his teaching to impart the importance of drawing, much of Griffin’s work is primarily concerned with colour, composition and design. The more muted greys and brown of The Wharf with its highlights of red, allow the strong sense of design, with the boxed in viewpoint, to come to the fore.