During the 1920s and early 1930s Gwynne-Jones concentrated on landscapes and did not start painting the still-life subjects for which he is now famous until the late 1930s. He preferred the common plants of the garden and wayside to cultivated hothouse flowers, in humble receptacles, arranged in a seemingly natural manner. He was very particular about his materials and technique.

He greatly admired the still-life painters of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, particularly Chardin and Zurbaran. His obituary in The Times noted: 'Perhaps his vein of tender lyricism was most apparent in his paintings of flowers and still life, of which the Tate Gallery's Peaches in a Basket is a good example. Such works, while entirely personal in vision, echo the refinement of Chardin.'