Peter Lanyon

The Artist's Estate

Toby Treves, Peter Lanyon: Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings and Three-Dimensional Works, Modern Art Press, London, 2018, no. 7, illustrated p. 86

The present work depicts Alsia Mill in the parish of St Buryan in West Penwith. This mill is mentioned in William Bottrell's Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall (Penzance, 1870) and in Robert Hunt's Popular Romances of the West of England (London, 1881) where it is the parental home of Frank Lanyon in the story about his love affair with Nancy Trenoweth although the artist, if he know the story, makes no reference to it in the painting.

The painting, together with Untitled (Cottages and Iron Gate), are both rare examples of Lanyon's largest pre-war canvases at 25 by 30in. (only ten are known to have survived). They are important works in contextualizing Lanyon's career, revealing his understanding of and attachment to the Cornish landscape at a young age, which would inform the major works of his mature oeuvre.