Osborne Samuel
Wadsworth, Edward (1889-1949) Quiet Outlook / Seaweed & Lighthouse, 1942 Tempera Signed and dated lower right 61 x 51 cm. (24 x 20 in.) Framed size 74 x 64 cm. Provenance: Estate of the artist Exhibited: Tate Gallery, London, February - March 1951 (no.45) Literature: Edward Wadsworth, Form, Feeling and Calculation, the Complete Paintings & Drawings , by Jonathan Black, published by Philip Wilson, London 2005. No.422, illustrated colour p.130 This striking and yet subtly enigmatic composition, so redolent of the world of the seaside; characterful briny ports, beaches and harbours, was actually painted many miles from the sea - in Buxton in Derbyshire’s Peak District. Wadsworth had been compelled by the Army to leave his home at Dairy Farm, Maresfield, near Uckfield in East Sussex - which was within easy reach of the south coast - in May 1940 as it lay within an area deemed to be threatened with the imminent German invasion. He at least found it easier to locate eggs in Buxton; painting in egg tempera had become decidedly problematic as eggs were strictly rationed, one a week, when he usually required several for one painting. Wadsworth painted Quiet Outlook in his cramped top floor studio at Tolland House, Macclesfield Road, Buxton, during the summer of 1942 when he managed to find time from his duties as a sergeant in the local Home Guard. Wadsworth’s services were in particular demand at the time as his pre-war command of German was sufficiently fluent to enable him to qualify to interrogate shot down German pilots and aircrew. He found that painting a work such as Quiet Outlook, which harked back to images of Norman French ports such as Honfleur, Harfleur and Le Havre he had produced c.1938-39, had a ‘soothing effect on the mind.’ It is a testament to his talent that, despite his demanding wartime duties and straitened working environment, Wadsworth was still able to create a work imbued with all his trademark unsettling and enigmatic stillness.
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