Wilhelmina Barns-Graham

Acquired directly from the artist by the present owners' family in the early 1950s

The board has sustained minor losses to each of the bottom corners and to the bottom edge, and a minor crack to the upper edge. There are artist's pinholes in all four corners of the board and another two, one in the upper left quadrant and another in the lower left quadrant. There are a series of small scratches and abrasions to the paint surface, most specifically in the upper left quadrant, but it is difficult to tell whether these are the marks of the artist. There are a series of cosmetic abrasions across the paint surface, with the most pronounced being in the lower left quadrant. There are three tiny spots of white paint in the lower left quadrant. Under ultra-violet light the work is free from retouching. The work is unframed.
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The distinctive low rock formations emerging from the sea suggest that this work may take the Scilly Isles as its subject. Barns-Graham had worked there in 1951, and the topography of this work could lead one to see it as an alternate view to that depicted in her important 1953 painting Rocks, St.Mary's, Scilly Isles (Edinburgh, City Art Centre). As with the previous lot, it is interesting to note how strongly drawing underpins Barns-Graham's work at this time and is key to the work of many of her contemporaries and the landscape-inspired abstraction that was the defining element of the art of St Ives in the 1950s.