Christopher Wood

H.S. Ede and thence by descent to the present owner

London, New Burlington Galleries, Christopher Wood: Exhibition of Complete Works, 1938, cat. no.324;
Manchester, Manchester City Art Gallery, Rutherford Loan Scheme (details untraced);
London, The Fine Art Society, From a Private Collection, 16th June - 1st July 2010, cat. no.1, illustrated.

Eric Newton, Christopher Wood 1901-1930, Redfern Gallery, London, 1938, p.73, cat. no.337.

The canvas has been strip-lined. The paint surface appears stable with some strong passages of impasto, notably to the figure's flesh tones. In good overall condition. Under ultraviolet light there appear to be some minor flecks of retouching to the edges and some scattered and very sensitive specks of retouching to the left side of her face. There is a further line of retouching to her right arm and a few further very minor isolated spots of retouching.
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Christopher Wood's short, turbulent and charmed life reads like a novel, a character by Waugh or Firbanks. Arriving in Paris in the spring of 1921, the path to his death in 1930 at the age of 29 seems, with hindsight, almost pre-ordained. Mixing in the most chic circles, travelling to the Mediterranean and North Africa, friendships with Cocteau, Picasso and Diaghilev, romantic entanglements and drugs, it is easy to let this rather louche and glamorous backdrop obscure his genuine talent and achievement as a painter.

In the early 1920s his work reflects a good deal of the fashionable mixed with the influence of the giants of the time, but by around 1926 we see his work starting to take on a distinct character of its own, and it is from this point that portraiture forms a small but significant part of his output. The rightly famous Jean Burgoint with Siamese Cat (Kettle's Yard, Cambridge) of 1926 is a remarkable painting in the context of British art at the time, mixing highly finished, almost Foujita-like passages with quickly brushed, seemingly unfinished areas. Other portraits of his circle, such as that of his friend Tony Gandarillas (Portrait of J.A.Gandarillas, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum, Port Elizabeth) show his ability to catch a likeness and character of his sitter, but it is with the magisterial Self-Portrait (Kettle's Yard, Cambridge) of 1927 that we see Wood create a portrait that is also a definite statement of his own artistic intent and progress.

It is perhaps a shame that Wood did not explore portraiture more fully after this, those few that remain offering a tantalising suggestion of his ability in this genre. Young Girl is such a piece, its sparing use of paint, simplicity of form and balanced colour combining with the genuine evocation of character to create a modernist British portraiture that only really might find a parallel in the work of Wood's great friend Winifred Nicholson.