Staithes at Sunset looks down over the North Yorkshire fishing village from an elevated viewpoint, across a dense cluster of rooftops packed into the valley. Cottages run down both sides of the composition, their roofs in grey blue and warm ochre, with chimneys, windows and pantiles picked out in white and black line. A footbridge crosses the beck near the centre, and below it the harbour holds a group of small boats, several in teal and blue, moored in the shallow water. Steep dark headlands rise to the left and right, closing the valley, and between them a low sun sits in an orange and grey sky, its light carried down the centre of the picture through the water and across the roofs. Acrylic is laid on thickly across the roofs, water and headlands, applied with a loaded surface that holds the marks of the tools used. Detail in the cottages and the harbour is defined over broader areas of colour and tone, and the texture of the built-up surface is carried through into the finished picture.

Staithes lies on the North Yorkshire coast within the North York Moors National Park, in a steep valley where Staithes Beck, also known as Roxby Beck, runs down to the North Sea. Its harbour is sheltered by two headlands, Cowbar Nab and Penny Nab, and a footbridge over the beck connects the old village to Cowbar, with traditional coble fishing boats moored in the shallows. The village has a long association with painting: in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries it was the base of the Staithes Group, a colony of painters sometimes called the Northern Impressionists, whose best known member was Dame Laura Knight.