During her six-decade career, Marion Adnams forged a reputation as a painter of deeply distinctive and dream-like visions inspired by Surrealism. While her work was initially influenced by her drawing tutor in Derby, the Surrealist painter Alfred Bladen, as well as the paintings of Paul Nash and Salvador Dalí, and René Magritte. She later recalled 'When I first went to see René Magritte at the Tate I saw him for the first time and I nearly passed out. So often the same thought had been with me".

Adnams soon developed her own Surrealist style, becoming known for her meticulous painting technique and fine draftsmanship. Although she never formally joined any Surrealist societies, she made a significant contribution to the movement, particularly regarding female / male dichotomies within the group, which she explored extensively in her work.

Having retired as the head of the art department at Derby Training College in 1960, Adnams spent much of the following decade painting in the South of France. This was a region where Adnams frequently travelled, explored, and worked; finding here inspiration and a new lease of life following the privation of her wartime experience, and a period of great physical and spiritual darkness for the artist. That Same Door seems to have been inspired by the monumental Renaissance Archway at the entrance to La Chartreuse Notre-Dame-du-Val-de-Benediction Villeneuve les Avignon.

The picture was painted between May and June, 1962, as recorded in Adnams' day book. The artist ceased painting in 1968, due to her deteriorating eyesight, which regrettably brought her career to a close at a time when she was producing some of her most ambitious work.

Marion Adnams' pictures can be found in the collections of the Tate Gallery, Derby Museum, Manchester Art Gallery, and the National Galleries of Scotland, among others.