Lot 36
  • 36

George Leslie Hunter

Estimate
40,000 - 60,000 GBP
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Description

  • George Leslie Hunter
  • Ceres, Fife
  • signed l.l.: L. Hunter
  • oil on canvas
  • 56 by 68.5cm., 22 by 27in.

Provenance

Aitken Dott & Son, Edinburgh;
Duncan R. Miller Fine Arts, London, where purchased by the present owner

Exhibited

London, Duncan R. Miller, George Leslie Hunter 1877-1931, 2000, no.22

Condition

Original canvas. The work appears in good overall condition with strong passages of impasto. Under ultraviolet light, there appear to areas of retouchings in the sky, which to the naked eye correspond with the areas of lighter pigment, and possibly further areas in the lower right foreground. Held in a gilt plaster frame, ready to hang.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Catalogue Note

The landscape and farm-buildings around the pretty village of Ceres in Fife was one of Hunter's favourite and most enduring subjects. He painted in Fife on the east coast of Scotland between 1919 and 1926. Fife was a particularly important source of inspiration and features strongly in his development. Hunter's emotional attachment to the area is best summed up in his own words:`The "valley" was very fine at night. When the sun was down one felt the elegiac spirit of Corot in the willows and that of quality men Poussin and Claude in the classical sweep of the hills. I was the sole spectator often in the twilight fragments that haunt - nature seen to unfold her rarest aspect - while Ceres slept.' (Jill Mackenzie, The Challenge of Colour - George Leslie Hunter 1877-1931, unpublished biography; Letter from Hunter to his friend Matthew Justice, undated).

Hunter arrived in Fife in search of a fresh new painting ground. Early on in his career he moved through a period of using distinct areas of bright colour set against each other to create a sense of line and form. The present lot has all the hallmarks of Hunter's exploration of the use of line during 1923 and 1924. The ultimate goal for any of his paintings was that it should embody the very essence of nature. This premise was based on Cézanne's deeply considered and revolutionary approach to art, allied to Hunter's absorption and working through how to 'realise' this difficult concept on canvas. Hunter’s painting technique in Fife has been described as, ‘colour has totally taken over in a riot of rhythmic brushwork.’ (London, Duncan Miller, George Leslie Hunter 1877-1931, not dated or paginated)