Sir John Lavery, R.A., R.S.A., R.H.A.

Roy Miles Fine Painting, London (no. 428)
Sale: Sotheby's, New York, December 5, 1975, lot 201, illustrated
Acquired at the above sale

Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, 1929, no. 123
Edinburgh, Royal Scottish Academy, 1937, no. 248
London, Royal Academy, 1938, no. 215
Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery, Autumn Exhibition, 1938

Kenneth McConkey, John Lavery, A Painter and his World, Edinburgh, 2010, p. 174, illustrated p. 173, fig. 203 

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This work has been recently restored and should be hung in its current condition. The canvas has a glue lining that is nicely supporting the painting. The work is clean, varnished and retouched. It seems that Lavery may have changed his mind about the composition and wanted more space for sky at the top of the painting. In order to do this, it seems that he cut the original canvas along the line of the rooftops, added another piece of canvas and had these two sections lined. Therefore, there does seem to be an original canvas join here, but the sky and foreground are original to the artist. There are a few retouches along this join in the canvas. There are no retouches elsewhere to the painting. The lining on the reverse is probably not Lavery's original lining. This work is in extremely good condition, and it can certainly be hung in its current state.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Winter in Florida is the most important outcome of Sir John Lavery’s sojourn at the famous Breakers Hotel, recently reopened for the 1927 New Year celebrations.

It was his second visit to the United States in less than a year, and it came at the end of a highly successful touring exhibition which began at the Duveen Galleries on Fifth Avenue in November 1925. On the first trip Lavery attended the opening and remained until January 1926, carrying out a number of commissions in New York and Boston, before returning to London. Others were left pending his return in November, after which he would rejoin his exhibition at its final venue at Whitehall, Palm Beach, now the Flagler Museum. Christmas in Florida was regarded as a working holiday, for here the artist painted beach scenes by the pier and the hotel foyer (sold in these rooms, February 27, 1986, lot 99A), while a second canvas, also entitled Winter in Florida (Ulster Museum, Belfast), depicts neighboring  tennis courts (see: McConkey, 2010, p. 169-174).

However, his most inspiring encounter was arguably with the bathers at the People’s Pool, otherwise known as Gus’s Baths. This was a public swimming complex of two large pools on the corner of Worth Avenue and South Ocean Boulevard. Built in 1910 by Gus Jordahn, a Danish immigrant who had worked as a lifeguard at Coney Island, it was a phenomenally successful venture, which in 1923 was remodelled and extended to include a dance hall, restaurant, apartments and other amenities, along with the Spanish-style whitewashed changing facilities which we see in the present canvas.

Although Lavery painted a smaller canvas of the second pool (fig. 1), separate studies of the foreground bathers in the present work (fig. 2) indicate that he always had in mind the large exhibition piece, Winter in Florida. 

This magisterial work takes its general layout from the small version, but with a brighter and more varied palette, it also includes charming studies of individual bathers and sun-seekers quickly noted on the separate canvas-board. Both versions of the People’s Pools are punctuated in the extreme right corner by a seated figure – transformed from a lifeguard in the small version, into a stunning sketch of a young woman in an acid-yellow dress in the present instance. It was a motif that Lavery was to redeploy in the framing male figure in the portrait of Doris Delavigne, Lady Castlerosse, who posed provocatively on a diving board in Palm Springs in 1938.

Such was the potency of the poolside experience that Lavery visited the open-air baths at Chiswick in London for other studies in 1928, and after the completion and unveiling of Winter in Florida in the Glasgow Institute early in 1929, he would return to the subject on his Riviera holiday the following year. However, even the glamorous villa pools at Cap Martin and Palm Springs could not compete with friendly bustle of Gus’s Baths. When Winter in Florida returned to the painter’s studio Lavery evidently felt that it merited further consideration and he continued working on it – reliving the moment. Eight years later it returned to Scotland with the central figure, which originally sported a parasol, replaced by that of the young woman wearing a straw sun hat. This strengthened the composition and consolidated the impression that was to remain his most joyous celebration of the health and vigor he found in Florida.    

This catalogue entry was written by Professor Kenneth McConkey.

Please note that this lot is sold unframed.