Anne Redpath, R.S.A., A.R.A.

Acquired directly from the artist by Ruth Weightman;
Thence by descent to Rex Britcher;
Thence by descent to the present owner

London, Royal Academy, 1964, no. 70

A backboard has been fixed to the reverse. The paint is in good stable condition. Clean and ready to hang. Held in a simple gold painted composite frame. Under glass. No visible retouching under UV light.
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Dolce Aqua is a small village in Liguria on the border with France, very close to St Jean, Cap Ferrat where Redpath lived with her young family between 1925 and 1934. Redpath painted only occasionally during this time in France but on her return to Scotland and for the next thirty years, she would draw from this visual bank for inclusion in much of her work. The artist acknowledged the unerring importance of painting in her life despite the barren periods when she commented of her time as a mother, 'I always had a rather guilty conscience. I always knew I would come back to painting.'

In the present work, Redpath has depicted Dolce Aqua on a seemingly dark, cloudy day. The architecture of the village appears as flat blocks of white and grey pigment. The buildings have no depth and they cast no shadows. Redpath has laid down thick impasto to represent concrete form but by scraping it back, she has created a striking image of a town where nothing has concrete solidity. The artist spoke of her preference for dark, grey weather on her return from a trip to Spain in 1951 with Bill Garrad. 'I couldn't paint Spain the way I painted France. It was a much harsher, starker country... it was a dark, grey sky, and the white buildings looked sinister... They had to be painted with a kind of strength of manner which I didn't have before.'

Dolce Aqua was bought directly from Redpath by Ruth Weightman but the artist was extremely unwilling to part with it and did so only due to financial difficulty. Redpath thought so highly of this particular work she later tried to buy it back from Weightman but without success as Weightman herself had grown far too fond of it to let it go. Upon her death Weightman left the painting to Rex Britcher, who was her beloved dog's veterinary surgeon and the uncle of the present owner.