John Luke

Bell Gallery, Belfast
Tony Thompson, London, 1976
Mervyn Solomon
Sale, Phillips, London, 13 June 1989, lot 79
Sale, Christie's, London, 17 May 2001, lot 125

Daily Mail, 3 October 1930
Theo Snoddy (ed.), Dictionary of Irish Artists Twentieth Century, Dublin, 1996, p.268
Joseph McBrinn (ed.), Northern Rhythm - The Art of John Luke, Ulster, Ulster Museum, 2012, no. 11, p. 96

Carnival is an early work by John Luke, painted the same year he completed his three years of study at the Slade School of Art in London. When exhibited at the Leger Galleries in 1930, it was picked out by the art critic P. G. Konody as ‘one of the most attractive features of the exhibition.’ It possesses a lively movement and freedom distinct from the more formal portraits of his Slade School works and the later, finely and painstakingly executed landscapes in tempera. The flood of light and his deft hint of rides and fairs in the background is superbly realized, while the charged atmosphere he creates embodies the carnival spirit.