Wednesday, April 11, 2018

Glamorous Life and Early Death of Christopher Wood

Constant Lambert
Portrait of Christopher Wood
1926
oil on canvas
National Portrait Gallery, London

"Christopher Wood was born in Knowsley, near Liverpool on 7 April 1901, the son of Mrs Clare and Dr Lucius Wood, a GP.  At fourteen, Wood began to draw during recuperation from septicaemia, and went on to study architecture briefly at Liverpool University.  In London in 1920 the French collector Alphonse Kahn invited him to Paris, where Wood studied drawing at the Académie Julian in 1921.  He entered effortlessly into fashionable artistic circles, meeting Augustus John and the Chilean diplomat Antonio de Gandarillas, with whom he began to live.  As well as providing financial support, Gandarillas introduced Wood to Picasso, Georges Auric and Jean Cocteau, and to the use of opium.  Although his painting was regarded as charmingly untutored, he learnt from these acquaintances, especially adopting the elegant line of Cocteau's drawings."

Christopher Wood
Constant Lambert as a Young Man
1925
oil on canvas
Leicester County Council Artworks Collection

Christopher Wood
Constant Lambert
1927
oil on canvas
Towner Gallery, Eastbourne

Christopher Wood
Self-portrait
1927
oil on canvas
Kettle's Yard, University of Cambridge

"By 1926 Wood was in a position to make designs for Romeo and Juliet for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes.  When these designs were abandoned at the last moment, he concentrated on England, becoming a member of the London Group and the Seven and Five Society.  He exhibited with Ben and Winifred Nicholson at the Beaux Arts Gallery, becoming close to them personally and artistically.  In particular, Winifred was supportive in the aftermath of his failed elopement with the painter and heiress Meraud Guinness.  He painted with the Nicholsons in Cumberland and Cornwall in 1928.  On a trip to St Ives, he and Ben Nicholson encountered the fisherman painter Alfred Wallis, whose work answered a shared interest in 'primitive' expression and helped Wood to establish a personal style.  A solo exhibition at Tooth's Gallery was followed by an exhibition with Nicholson at the Galerie Bernheim in Paris, in which Wood showed paintings made in Brittany in 1929.  The results of a second stay in Brittany were intended to open the Wertheim Gallery in London in October.  Travelling with his paintings, Wood met his mother in Salisbury on 21 August 1930.  Possibly believing himself pursued (an effect of withdrawal from opium) he threw himself under the London train.  In deference to his mother, his death was often subsequently described as accidental."

–  curator's notes from the Tate Gallery

Christopher Wood
The Bather
1927
oil on canvas
Bristol Museum & Art Gallery

Christopher Wood
Nude Boy in a Bedroom
1930
oil on panel
National Galleries of Scotland

"The 'boy' in this painting is one of Wood's lovers, the artist Francis Rose.  The work shows a hotel room in Tréboul, Brittany.  Wood suffered from mental instability made worse by an opium habit.  The problematic side to Wood's character sometimes surfaces in his art.  The tarot cards lying on the bed may allude to worries about money and love, and perhaps also to danger; in any event they seem to tell of his troubled state of mind.  A few months after completing this painting, Wood was killed by a train.  Whether it was suicide, an accident, drug related or the result of mental instability, remains unclear." 

– curator's notes from the National Galleries of Scotland

Christopher Wood
Ulysses and the Siren (Mermaids)
1929
oil on panel
Kettle's Yard, University of Cambridge

Christopher Wood
French Cyclist with a Girl
before 1930
oil on panel
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

Christopher Wood
Boy with a Cat
1926
oil on canvas
Kettle's Yard, University of Cambridge

Christopher Wood
The Manicure (Portrait of Frosca Munster)
1929
oil on canvas
Bradford Museums and Galleries

Christopher Wood
Girl in a Chair (Figure for a Screen)
before 1930
oil on canvas
Towner Gallery, Eastbourne

Christopher Wood
Conversation Piece
before 1930
oil on canvas
Towner Gallery, Eastbourne

Christopher Wood
Girl with Cakes
before 1930
oil on canvas
Dudley Museums Service

Christopher Wood
Village in Italy
1925
oil on canvas
Ulster Museum

Christopher Wood
Dancing Sailors, Brittany
1930
oil on panel
New Walk Museum and Art Gallery, Leicester

Christopher Wood
Cornish Fishermen, The Quay, St Ives
1928
oil on canvas
Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums


Christopher Wood
The Fisherman's Farewell
1928
oil on panel
Tate Gallery

"This painting dates from the autumn of 1928, which Wood spent in Cornwall.  In the extreme foreground, set against a backdrop of St. Ives harbour, a fisherman bids farewell to a woman and a child, his sun-tanned face partially obscured as he leans to kiss the child's head.  . . . The figures in the foreground are understood to be portraits of the artists Ben and Winifred Nicholson and their young son Jake.  Wood became friends with the Nicholsons in 1926, exhibiting with Ben Nicholson at the Beaux Arts Gallery, London in 1927.  In the spring of 1928 he stayed with them at Bankshead, their cottage in the Lake District, and the three artists painted together, often out of doors.  In August of that year Wood joined the Nicholsons at Feock in Cornwall.  . . .  Wood painted The Fisherman's Farewell during this time and it is possible that the painting refers to the actual departure of Ben Nicholson from St. Ives in October 1928.  His portrayal of Nicholson as a fisherman in this painting is a sign of esteem for his friend, linking as it does the other artist to the traditional way of life that Cornwall suggested to them.  In December, shortly before leaving Cornwall for London and Paris, Wood wrote to Winifred Nicholson: I seem to live on the edge of the world.  But what a world it is, I love this place and could stay here for ever if I had those around me for whom I care."

–  curator's notes from the Tate Gallery