Henry Lamb

Leicester Galleries, London
Private English Collection, Geneva, whence purchased by the present owner

London, Leicester Galleries, Henry Lamb, April-May 1927, no.30.

There is a small indentation in the board in the upper right quadrant which is visible in the catalogue illustration. The paint surface appears to be in very good sound condition overall - it would simply benefit from a light clean to remove surface dirt. The varnish has also discoloured slightly. Under ultra-violet light no retouchings are evident. Held under glass in a wooden frame with a gold painted cross-section. Though structurally sound the work would benefit from re-presentation.
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Though born in Manchester and a long-time London resident, Henry Lamb constantly yearned for the simple country life. Between 1909 and 1911 Lamb had spent long periods in rural Brittany, living with a local family in the tiny port of Doëlan.  From 1912-13, he began to explore Ireland, finding a favourite painting location on the isolated island of Gola off the coast of Donegal which he described as 'my Elysian island'; 'a paradise'. He also rhapsodised about the 'divinely beautiful Dorset' where he visited the John family near Poole and Lytton Strachey in West Lulworth before finding his own country retreat in the village of Stourpaine near Blandford in the summer of 1920, and finally settling in Poole in February 1922. 

The subject -matter and rich Gauguinesque palette of sunlit greens and warm brown tones in the present work is strongly reminiscent of Lamb's earlier Breton work, while the naive style and pared-down composition recall that of his friend and frequent house-guest Stanley Spencer. During the summer of 1923, Spencer stayed for a prolonged period in Poole and over this time the two artists' work shared some marked stylistic similarities (seen for example in their respective portraits of Stanley, Lamb's being in the collection of the Art Gallery of Western Australia). However, while the surrounding Dorset countryside offered both artists extensive pictorial scope, the present work is notable for its almost dream-like quality, comparable to some of Spencer's more visionary subjects and suggestive of an imagined or remembered scene rather than nature herself observed.