ROY DE MAISTRE

Sir John Rothenstein‚ acquired directly from the artist; 
thence by descent to Lucy Dynevor, London;
until Modern British Paintings, Sotheby’s Olympia, London, 26 February 2003, lot 88
Private collection, Melbourne

Roy de Maistre first visited the Basque town St Jean de Luz in 1923. He was in Europe on the New South Wales Society of Artists' travelling scholarship, his cousin, Camilla Keogh and her husband having retired there. It must have held a particular fascination for him, as he returned frequently, and painted again there during the 1930s after he settled in London. St Jean de Luz, on the Bay of Biscay, combined the attraction of a seaside resort with the active life of a fishing port. With its Basque background, and being close to the Spanish border, it had an inviting cosmopolitan flavour. Moreover, the individuality of the Basque architecture of the medieval town centre was heightened by its blend of Andalusian Spanish and Moorish references.

Style and subject suggest that Wharfside was painted in St Jean de Luz in the early 1930s. De Maistre had already embarked on his Cubist manner, following the clarity and directness of design first seen in paintings from his early Sydney years and in his brilliant experiments with the relationships between colour and music, as in the Art Gallery of New South Wales's Rhythmic Composition in Yellow and Green Minor of 1919. While the figurative elements in Wharfside are clearly stated, they are merely the basis for analysis of form, resulting in a pleasing synthesis of harmonies of reductive, geometric shapes, everything enriched by the sparking quality of his colours. There is an overriding sense of order and balance, spiced with a touch of the theatrical, the colour saturation being a major vehicle for the expression of ideas and experiences. De Maistre's high regard for his images of St Jean de Luz was reflected in the inclusion of four in his 1960 retrospective exhibition at London's Whitechapel Gallery.