From 1940 onwards Barns-Graham divided her time between St Ives and Scotland. In 1982 the Crawford Centre for Arts in St Andrews hosted her first one woman exhibition to be shown by a Scottish gallery. This was followed in1984 with a show at the Piers Arts Centre in Orkney for which she provided thirty new works in collage and painted relief. It was whilst exploring the Orkneys in the 1980’s that Barns-Graham returned stylistically to the earlier minimal and structured landscapes of Cornwall in the 1950’s.

September in Orkney is a classic example of pared down composition and is closely related to the painting included in the centenary exhibition at The Fleming Collection,