The monumental Winter Landscape was painted at Ivy House in Great Linford in Buckinghamshire at a time when Greaves and his family were sharing a home with Edward Middleditch and his family and the two painters had neighbouring studios. Greaves recalls that from 1957-9, the two families lived together in the 'decaying splendour' of this 'dilapidated mansion'.
The picture dates from just prior to two of Greaves's major paintings of the 1950s: Lovers and The Seasons.