Anne Redpath, R.S.A., A.R.A. 1895-1965

Edinburgh, Royal Scottish Academy, 1957, no 277

STRUCTURE This picture is in excellent original condition with strong, clear colouring throughout and rich impasto. There are no signs of craquelure and the paint surface appears to be stable throughout. The board is flat and the picture is ready to hang. UNDER ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT There are no signs of retouching. FRAME This picture is contained in an attractive simple modern frame and under glass.
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The Irish Jug was painted in 1957 during the period that is considered her best. It is composed of a delicate colour scheme, predominated by white which was Redpath's favourite colour. The loose handling of the paint and expressive use of a palette knife to apply the thick impasto is typical of Redpath's work from the later 1950s. The Baleek jug filled with daisies was among Redpath's collection of pieces of pottery and ceramics that decorated her house in Edinburgh, where every bookshelf and table-top displayed interestingly shaped objects that inspired her still lifes. 

In 1951 Anne Redpath travelled to Spain on an artistic pilgrimage which led to a change in style from her softer and more muted previous work to stronger colouring and expressive paint application. She attributed the change to the Spanish landscape itself and the art of the country that she viewed while there. It was not a blue skied and sunny Spain that she experienced, but an overcast and rather sinister landscape inhabited by little figures clad in black; dark skies over funerals and religious processions. Redpath discussed her approach to painting following her trip to Spain, in a fascinating short film directed by George Bruce and shown on the BBC in January 1961; 'when I came back and painted still life - well I always go back to still life - of course they showed the influence of this kind of painting, and therefore the still lifes that I painted were stronger. They were harsher, if you like, too. That has been the result, you know, of every voyage abroad. our palette sort of enlarges itself, so that even your very gamut of colour, you know, changes, becomes broader, wider.' (transcript quoted in Patrick Bourne, Anne Redpath 1895-1965, Her Life and Work, 1989, pp. 90-91)

The Irish Jug is comparable in terms of technique with Summer Bouquet (Sotheby's, Gleneagles, 1 September 2004, lot 883) which was exhibited at the Glasgow Institute of Fine Art in 1953 and also A Pale Still Life (Sotheby's, Gleneagles, 1 September 2004, lot 885) exhibited in the same year at the Society of Women Artists.