拍品 144
  • 144

Sir Matthew Smith

估價
40,000 - 60,000 GBP
Log in to view results
招標截止

描述

  • Sir Matthew Smith
  • The Wet Road
  • signed with initials and dated 1920
  • oil on canvas
  • 53.5 by 65.5cm., 21 by 25¾in.

來源

Francis Halliday Esq.
Crane Kalman Gallery, where acquired by Lord Irvine, May 1980
Mr & Mrs Sutherland Hawes

展覽

London, The Mayor Gallery, Paintings by Matthew Smith, 7th - 28th April 1926, cat. no.1;
London, Royal Academy of Arts, A Memorial Exhibition of Works by Sir Matthew Smith C.B.E., 15th October - 7th December 1960, cat. no.33;
London, Browse & Darby, Sir Matthew Smith, 21st September - 22nd October 1979, cat. no.9;
London, Barbican Art Gallery, Matthew Smith, 15th September - 30th October 1983, cat. no.26, illustrated, with Arts Council tour;
London, Crane Kalman Gallery, A Selection of Thirty Paintings by Matthew Smith, 10th May - 21st July 1990, cat. no.4, illustrated as Cornish Landscape.

出版

Malcolm Yorke, Matthew Smith, His Life and Reputation, Faber & Faber, London, 1997, illustrated pl.26;
John Gledhill, Matthew Smith, Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Painting, Lund Humphries, Farnham, 2009, cat. no.91. illustrated p.82.

Condition

Original canvas, pin holes are visible in the bottom and top right corners. There is very minor surface dirt and flattening to some of the raised areas of impasto, but this excepting the work appears to be in excellent overall condition. Ultraviolet light reveals one or two minor spots of flourescence and retouchings in the upper left hand quadrant, with further areas of flourescence which appear in keeping with the nature of the materials and does not suggest retouching. Housed in a thick gold and black wooden frame.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
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."

拍品資料及來源

“With a cataract of emotional sensibility, he casts upon the canvas a pageant of grandiose and voluptuous form and sumptuous colour, which are none the less controlled by an ordered design and a thoroughly learned command of technique.  This makes him one of the most brilliant and individual figures in modern English painting.” (the artist Augustus John, Vogue, 5th October 1928, quoted in Matthew Smith, exh. cat., Tate, London, 1958, p.5)

 

Two years after enrolling at the Slade School, Smith left London for the continent, arriving at Pont-Aven, Brittany in 1908 and sparking a period of exciting artistic development for the young artist.  Moving to Paris, he soaked up the rich visual culture of what was then the center of the art world, capturing the tail-end of the Fauvist revolution.  Here Smith saw some of finest works by Henri Matisse on the walls of Gertrude Stein’s apartment, which hosted an ‘open-house’ every Saturday evening, and attended classes with the master of colour himself at his short-lived Atelier Matisse.  Here Smith was exposed to Fauvism in all its glory, as well as to the work of the Nabis, at a time when the Post-Impressionists were still not widely known in Britain (and indeed it was not until Roger Fry’s groundbreaking exhibition at the New Grafton Gallery in 1910 that London was exposed to their work). 

 

With the onset of war, Smith returned home to Britain, and before being called-up to serve on the Western front, explored the gently rolling hills of the picturesque South West.  Visiting Cornwall for the first time in 1914 (and returning to nearby Devon two years later with Walter Sickert and his family), Smith was drawn to the rich, Gauguinesque colours of his surroundings, at once so reminiscent of all that he had experienced across the Channel.  Here the landscape captured the artist’s imagination so much so that upon his return from the horrors of Passchendaele, he turned his attention to the place once more, to create a series of works that form one of the most important and engaging aspects within his oeuvre, of which the present work is undoubtedly one of the finest examples.  Inspired by his introduction to the Irish artist Roderic O’Conor in 1919, a close friend to Gaugin and a central figure within the Pont-Aven school, Smith now turned his attention to his surrounding landscape, moving his family to St Columb Major in Cornwall.  Here he created a series of beautiful and haunting landscapes, with deep brooding colours that display well the still-fresh pain and anxiety that the artist (and indeed most young men of the period) felt in the wake of the worst disaster the world had known.  In The Wet Road the deep, dark crimsons and inky purple skies replace all the naïve optimism of his early Fauvist influences yet retain the flat, bold planes of colour, divided by the winding, deserted road.  Here we get a sense of the isolation that the artist felt at this stage of his life, torn between everything that had come before but faced now with new challenges of pictorial representation in the Post-War age.