On July 2, 1939, just before the outbreak of World War II, Pablo Picasso moved to Royan, a small port town located at the mouth of the Gironde estuary, seventy-five miles north of Bordeaux. He stayed on the Atlantic coast for almost a year, travelling back to Paris on various occasions for short visits, but only returning to live there permanently on August 24, 1940. The period gave light to some of the artist’s most successful works of art which critics hailed as marking “the birth of the Picasso style.” He created ten known versions of the Homme en tricot rayé between September 13 and 17, 1939: six in gouache, three in oil on paper, and one India ink drawing. The images portray a "man" drawn from memory, probably a fisherman seen down at the port, sporting the traditional sailor's or sea dog's shirt. Based on an almost unreal modulation of grey tones, the painting softens the troubled tension typical of the other work he produced that year and defines the metamorphic facial form that was to mark his style over the years.