Aspects of Modern British Art
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Austin/Desmond Fine Art GILLIAN AYRES JOHN BANTING WILHELMINA BARNS-GRAHAM DAVID BLACKBURN SANDRA BLOW Aspects of DAVID BOMBERG REG BUTLER Modern ANTHONY CARO PATRICK CAULFIELD British Art PRUNELLA CLOUGH ALAN DAVIE FRANCIS DAVISON TERRY FROST NAUM GABO SAM HAILE RICHARD HAMILTON BARBARA HEPWORTH PATRICK HERON ANTHONY HILL ROGER HILTON IVON HITCHENS DAVID HOCKNEY ANISH KAPOOR PETER LANYON RICHARD LIN MARY MARTIN MARGARET MELLIS ALLAN MILNER HENRY MOORE MARLOW MOSS BEN NICHOLSON WINIFRED NICHOLSON JOHN PIPER MARY POTTER ALAN REYNOLDS BRIDGET RILEY WILLIAM SCOTT JACK SMITH HUMPHREY SPENDER BRYAN WYNTER DAVID BOMBERG (1890-1957) 1 Monastery of Mar Saba, Wadi Kelt, near Jericho, 1926 Coloured chalks Signed and dated lower right, Inscribed verso Monastery of Mar Saba, Wadi Kelt, near Jericho, 1926 by David Bomberg – Authenticated by Lillian Bomberg. 54.6 x 38.1cm Prov: The Artist’s estate Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London ‘David Bomberg once remarked when asked for a definition of painting that it is ‘A tone of day or night and the monument to a memorable hour. It is structure in textures of colour.’ His ‘monuments’, whether oil paintings, pen and wash drawings, or oil sketches on paper, have varied essentially between two kinds of structure. There is the structure built up of clearly defined, tightly bounded forms of the early geometrical-constructivist work; and there is, in contrast, the flowing, richly textured forms of his later period, so characteristic of Bomberg’s landscape painting. These distinctions seem to exist even in the palette: primary colours and heavily saturated hues in the early works, while the later paintings are more subtle, tonally conceived surfaces. How Bomberg’s work changed from geometric forms to ‘structure in textures of colour’ can be studied in his works of the period between 1919 and the late ‘thirties; that is, the period which saw the last statements of Bomberg’s geometric-constructivist vocabulary in the magnificently conceived Russian Ballet lithographs and the transition to the more freely composed landscapes of Spain. The work of this period is one of the most exciting phases of his career.’ William C. Lipke, Structure in Textures of Colour from David Bomberg: 1890-1957, The Arts Council, 1967 The Greek Orthodox Mar Saba Monastery is one of the oldest monasteries in the world. It lies about 9 miles east of Bethlehem. Sabas was born in Cappadocia in the year 439. When he was 18 he left for Palestine and joined the monks Euthymius and Theoctistus. After journeying into the desert area south of Jerusalem to fast each lent, nourishing himself only with the bread and wine of the Eucharist, he chose in 478 A.D. to take up the life of a hermit in an isolated cave in the Wadi Kidron. Within five years, 70 others had joined him in neighbouring caves among the cliffs. Sabas structured their daily lives around solitary prayer; seven times a day, and work, such as basket weaving. Sabas established the Great Laura where monks came from their isolated cells once a week to join the community for the Eucharist and to obtain supplies necessary for the coming week. Sabas died in 532 A.D. at the age of 93. He was buried in his monastery and in the twelfth century his body was carried off to Venice by the Crusaders. The corpse was returned to Mar Saba Monastery as a result of an agreement between Pope Paul VI and the Greek Orthodox Patriarch Athinagorus during the Papal visit to the Holy Land in 1965. Sabas was given the Aramaic name of Mar, which means Saint. Women are not allowed to enter the Monastery, but can view the monastery from the Women’s Tower at the right entrance. http://www.geocities.com/bethlehem74/marsaba.htm WINIFRED NICHOLSON (1893-1981) 2 White Flowers on a Table, c.1934 Oil on panel There is a geometric composition verso 52 x 56cm Prov: Lefevre Gallery Sir Lawrence Jones Ivor Chance ‘She became well known as a talented painter of flowers in British art circles at the end of the 1920s, even gaining the nickname ‘the female Van Gogh.’ She exhibited regularly, sold in depth and was reviewed widely and sympathetically. Many reviews (stressed) that she was more than a mere painter of flowers, recognising the spiritual side of what she was trying to express in paint; a review in The Times (6 july 1928) covering a joint show of Winifred and Ben Nicholson with the potter William Staite Murray at the Lefevre Gallery declared: ‘Genius is not a word to be used lightly, but – on the understanding that it applies to aptitude rather than to actual performance – it is the only word for Mrs Nicholson as a flower painter. She has an uncanny sense of flowers, of what they are behind their shapes and colours, as emanations of earth, and her technical methods are right in principle for what she has to say.’’ Judith Collins, Winifred Nicholson, Tate Gallery, London, 1987 HENRY MOORE (1898-1986) 3 Ideas for Sculpture, 1936 Pencil on paper 28.5 x 22.5cm Exh: Galerie Beyeler, Henry Moore: Drawings and Sculptures, Basel, 1970, No. 34 Ref: Henry Moore Foundation Archive HMF 1269 ‘Every few months I stop carving for two or three weeks and draw from life. At one time I used to mix the two, perhaps carving during the day and drawing from a model during the evening. But I found this unsatisfactory – the two activities interfered with each other, for the mental approach to each is different, one being objective and the other subjective. Stone is so different from flesh and blood that one cannot carve directly from life without almost the certainty of ill-treating the material. Drawing and carving are so different a shape or size or conception which is satisfying as a drawing might be totally wrong realised in stone. Nevertheless, there is a connection between my drawings and my sculpture. Drawing from life keeps one visually fit – perhaps acts like water to a plant – and it lessens the danger of repeating oneself and getting into a formula. It enlarges one’s form repertoire, one’s form experience. But in my sculpture I do not use my memory or observations of a particular object, but rather whatever comes up from my general fund of knowledge of natural forms.’ Herbert Read, Henry Moore: Sculptor, A. Zwemmer, London, 1934 DAVID BOMBERG (1890-1957) 4 Self Portrait with Green Jacket, 1937 Oil on canvas Signed and dated lower right; signed, titled and dated on stretcher 52 x 42cm Exh: Fisher Fine Art, London, A Tribute to Lillian Bomberg, 1985, No. 67 Speaking generally Art endeavours to reveal what is true and needs to be free. All things said regarding Art are subject to contradiction. An artist whose integrity sustains his strength to make no compromise with expediency is never degraded. His life work will resemble the integrating character of the primaries in the Spectrum. At the beginning, of the middle period, and at the end… …I approach drawing solely for structure. I am perhaps the most unpopular artist in England – and only because I am draughtsman first and painter second. Drawing demands a theory of approach, until good drawing becomes a habit – it denies all rules. It requires high discipline… Drawing demands freedom, freedom demands liberty to expand in space – this is progress. By the extension of democracy – good draughtsmanship is – Democracy’s visual sign. To draw with integrity replaces bad habits with good, youth preserved from corruption. The hand works at high tension and organises as it simplifies, reducing to barest essentials, stripping all irrelevant matter obstructing the rapidly forming organisation which reveals the design. This is the drawing.’ David Bomberg, To Reveal What is True from The Bomberg Papers X, Vol. 1, 1959 JOHN BANTING (1902-1972) 5 Mutual Congratulations, c.1937 Oil on Canvas 101 x 76.2cm Exh: Palazzo Reale, I Surrealisti, Milan, 1989 Schirn Kunsthalle, Die Surrealisten, Frankfurt, 1989 University of California Art Museum, Anxious Visions – Surrealist Art, Berkeley, 1990 Ref: London Bulletin, The Surrealist Group, October 1938, illustrated Palazzo Reale, I Surrealisti exhibition catalogue, Milan, 1989, p. 456, illustrated University of California Art Museum, Anxious Visions – Surrealist Art exhibition catalogue, Berkeley, 1990, p. 77, pl. 92, illustrated ‘John Banting was a wild creature at this time, dancing in night-clubs all night and creeping home to his mother’s little house at Roehampton by the first underground. He once sent round a postcard commending himself for work in these terms: Livid cosmoramas sooty purple henna-snaggea Dizzy in hairy skies: icy courtyards: roast Gourds: turkeycock spools:piepaldleaves’ Pungent veins coiling: clumsy slabs Of rancid saffron rife in blown faded wastes: Passportraitposters Va r i e d Downy Milky Purely glazed Brush smoothed Scrumbled etched modelled Clear advancing speaking warm Velvet mouths phosphorescent cheekbones: Interiors flooded with lambent consoling colours Glossy plastered gnarled climatically rounded habitual. John Banting General Artist’ Julian Trevelyan, Indigo Days, MacGibbon & Kee, London, 1957 HUMPHREY SPENDER (1910-2005) 6 Industrial Landscape with Pylons, 1938 Oil on canvas Signed and dated lower left 61.6 x 40.7cm Exh: Bishop’s Palace, Urban Images (Festival Exhibition), Chichester, 1995 Yale Centre of British Art, Humphrey Spender’s Humanist Landscapes: Photo-documents, 1932-1942, New Haven, Connecticut, 1997, No. 48 Peter Pears Gallery, Festival Exhibition, Aldeburgh, 2006, No. 15 SAM HAILE (1909-1948) 7 Untitled, 5.1.39 Oil on board Signed and dated lower left 51 x 41cm ‘Their mood is one obsessed by consciousness of pain and suffering, deeply pessimistic. Except for the occasional positive notes of sexuality or of the physical activity of dancers.