Half Swedish, Olsson painted amongst the community of artists in the Cornish fishing village of Newlyn, living and teaching in St Ives, where he also ran a hotel. During the First World War he served as a Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Reserve and he became a full Royal Academician in 1920.

It took Olsson a while to arrive at his distinctive 'British Impressionist' manner, but once he had found his trademark of luminous moonlight, pearly foam and turbulent waves, he amplified the subject and repeated it to great effect. Olsson often returned to the subject of the Longships Lighthouse, which warns shipping of the rocks a mile off Land's End at the westernmost tip of Cornwall. The moon itself is not visible but the scene is bathed in its pale light, while a reassuring point of warm yellow from the lighthouse glows in the distance.