Peter Lanyon

There is another painting by the Artist on the reverse of the present work Untitled (Blue Cloth and Bucket). This is also listed in Toby Treves, Peter Lanyon, Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings and Three-Dimensional Works, no. 143, illustrated p. 135.

“Although the Lanyon Estate's records list the painting's subject as an unidentified village in North Wales, in fact it depicts Portreath, a village of West Cornwall that was once a thriving port. The row of houses in the centre of the painting is Harbour Terrace, which stands beside the inner harbour. The dark heaps in front of the houses are piles of coal massed in the harbour yard. In the mid-1930s Portreath was still operated as a port for the coal and copper trade between South Wales and Cornwall, albeit at a much reduced level from its peak in the nineteenth century. Portreath was to become an important subject for Lanyon before and after the war (see nos. 130, 132, 249, 273, 425, 513 in Toby Treve's catalogue raisonné).” (Toby Treves, Peter Lanyon, Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings and Three-Dimensional Works, Modern Art Press, London, 2018, p. 130)