Tuesday, June 30, 2020

Graham Sutherland (1903-1980) - Neo-Romantic Distortions

Graham Sutherland
Study of Rock and Flames
1975
oil on canvas
National Museum Cardiff (Wales)

Graham Sutherland
Cathedral (Study of Rocks)
ca. 1974-76
oil on canvas
National Museum Cardiff (Wales)

Graham Sutherland
Fountain
1965
oil on canvas
National Museum Cardiff (Wales)

Graham Sutherland
The Scales
1961-62
oil on canvas
Tate Gallery

Graham Sutherland
Hanging Form over Water
1959
oil on canvas
Southampton City Art Gallery

Graham Sutherland
Path through Woods
ca. 1958
oil on canvas
Southampton City Art Gallery

Graham Sutherland
The Honourable Edward Sackville-West
1957-58
oil on canvas
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery

Graham Sutherland
Santa Maria della Salute
1957
oil on canvas
Southampton City Art Gallery

Graham Sutherland
Hydrant II
1954
oil on canvas
Tate Gallery

Graham Sutherland
Standing Forms II
1952
oil on canvas
Tate Gallery

"Graham Sutherland was born in London. Though he initially worked as an engineer on the railway, he took up a place at Goldsmiths School of Art in 1921. Sutherland trained as an etcher at Goldsmiths, and only began painting in the 1930s. He was flexible in his use of medium: ranging from painting and stained glass to fabric work and printmaking. He taught many of these varied skills at the Chelsea School of Art. When that establishment closed, he moved to Gloucestershire and was offered a job as a salaried war artist. The paintings he did in this role were focused on the destruction of the Blitz, both in Wales and in London. He painted his first portrait in 1949. His most well-known portrait was that of Sir Winston Churchill, which was famously hated by Churchill and destroyed by Churchill's wife. In his later years Sutherland returned to Wales for inspiration and devoted much of his energy to printmaking."

– from biographical notes at Crane Kalman Gallery

Graham Sutherland
The Origins of the Land
1950-51
oil on canvas
Tate Gallery

Graham Sutherland
Study for The Origins of the Land
1950
graphite, bodycolour and crayon on board
Courtauld Gallery, London

Graham Sutherland
Standing Form against a Hedge
1950
oil on canvas
Southbank Centre, London

Graham Sutherland
Bird in Landscape
1944
oil on paper
Manchester Art Gallery

Graham Sutherland
Horned Forms
1944
oil on panel
Tate Gallery

Monday, June 29, 2020

Hans Feibusch (1898-1998) - Gallant Brushwork

Hans Feibusch
Wooded Landscape
ca. 1944-48
oil on canvas
Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, Sussex

Hans Feibusch
Study of Three Turtles Swimming
1950
oil on canvas
Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, Sussex

Hans Feibusch
Untitled (Study of Two Women in an Aquarium)
1951
oil on canvas
Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, Sussex

Hans Feibusch
Tobias and the Angel
1953
oil on canvas
Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, Sussex

Hans Feibusch
The Old Gods
1953
oil on canvas
Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, Sussex

Hans Feibusch
Guardian Angels
1961
oil on board
Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, Sussex

from The Daily Telegraph (20 July 1998)

Hans Feibusch –  the German-born artist who has died aged 99, could claim the distinction of having had a painting shown in the Nazis' exhibition of Decadent Art in 1937; by that time, however, he was already living in England, where he would establish a new reputation as a muralist in Anglican churches. Though Feibusch had never attempted a mural before coming to Britain in 1933, he had been fascinated during his travels in Italy during the 1920s by the work of Mantegna and Piero della Francesca. From the start, therefore, he was able to bring a new flair and boldness to what had become a rather timid and tired English tradition. Indeed, the uncompromising nature of his work sometimes aroused criticism. In 1956, for example, there were complaints that Feibusch's figure of Christ, designed for the parish church of Goring, West Sussex, was un-Christian and "almost brutal." Feibusch loftily returned: "There is nothing specifically Christian in The Last Judgement of Michelangelo. It has always been my aim to follow the advice of Leonardo da Vince, and bring out the essential Christ-like qualities in the figure itself." Dr. George Bell, Bishop of Chichester, upheld him.

Hans Feibusch
Adam and Eve
1964
oil on canvas
Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, Sussex

Hans Feibusch
Still Life of a Candle, a Bowl of Apples and a Vase of Bergenia
1980
oil on canvas
Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, Sussex

Hans Feibusch
Still Life of a Candle, a Drape, Apples and a Shell
1980
oil on canvas
Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, Sussex

Hans Feibusch
Still Life of Two Heads, Three Shells and a Candle
1980
oil on canvas
Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, Sussex

Hans Feibusch
Still Life with a Head
1980
oil on canvas
Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, Sussex

Hans Feibusch
Study of a Roman Bust, Fruit, Leaves and a Drape
1980
oil on canvas
Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, Sussex

Hans Feibusch
Untitled (Still Life of Sunflowers with Two Heads)
1982
oil on canvas
Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, Sussex

Hans Feibusch
The Huck (A Mediterranean Landscape)
1984
oil on canvas
Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, Sussex

Hans Feibusch
Gloucestershire Landscape, Evening
1987
oil on canvas
Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, Sussex

Sunday, June 28, 2020

Ivon Hitchens (1893-1979) - Outdoor Commitment

Ivon Hitchens
A Sybilline Courtyard
1974
oil on canvas
Courtauld Gallery, London

Ivon Hitchens
Blue Door, House and Outside
ca. 1972
oil on canvas
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Ivon Hitchens
Red Centre
1972
oil on canvas
Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, Sussex

Ivon Hitchens
Spring in Autumn
1967
oil on canvas
Ulster Museum, Belfast

Ivon Hitchens
Reeded Boat
1961
oil on canvas
Burton Gallery, University of Leeds

Ivon Hitchens
Warnford Water, Movement Left and Right
1959
oil on canvas
Bristol Museum and Art Gallery

"Ivon Hitchens was born in London and studied at St. John's Wood School of Art and at the Royal Academy Schools. In 1940 he moved to West Sussex, where he was to spend the rest of his life. There, he was able to distance himself from artistic trends and immerse himself in nature, which was his greatest inspiration. Preferring to paint outdoors, Hitchens is known primarily for his atmospheric landscape paintings, which depict a mysterious and evocative countryside."

– from biographical notes at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art

Ivon Hitchens
The Boat House
1956
oil on canvas
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Ivon Hitchens
Arched Trees No. 12
1954
oil on canvas
National Museum Cardiff (Wales)

Ivon Hitchens
South Mill
1945
oil on canvas
Government Art Collection, London

Ivon Hitchens
Flower Piece
1943
oil on canvas
Museums Sheffield, Yorkshire

Ivon Hitchens
Interior, Boy in Bed
1941
oil on canvas
Tate Gallery

Ivon Hitchens
River Scene at Holbrook and Molly in a Boat
ca. 1938
oil on canvas
Bradford Museums and Galleries, Yorkshire

Ivon Hitchens
Balcony at Cambridge
1929
oil on canvas
Tate Gallery

Ivon Hitchens
Henry Moore at work in his Parkhill Studio C
1929
oil on canvas
Leeds Art Gallery, Yorkshire

Ivon Hitchens
Primrose No. 2
1926
oil on canvas
Government Art Collection, London

Saturday, June 27, 2020

Stanley Spencer (1891-1959) - Local Visionary

Stanley Spencer
Self Portrait
1914
oil on canvas
Tate Britain

Stanley Spencer
Self Portrait
1923
oil on canvas
Stanley Spencer Gallery, Cookham, Berkshire

Stanley Spencer
Self Portrait by Gaslight looking Downwards
1949
oil on canvas
Reading Museum, Berkshire

Stanley Spencer
Self Portrait
1959
oil on canvas
Tate Britain

Stanley Spencer
Poppies
1938
oil on canvas
Newark Town Hall Museum and Art Gallery, Nottinghamshire

Stanley Spencer
Red Magnolia
1938
oil on canvas
Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery, Carlisle, Cumbria

Stanley Spencer
Peonies
ca. 1939
oil on canvas
Nottingham City Museum

"Stanley Spencer was one of the most original figures in 20th-century British art. He lived for most of his life in his native village of Cookham, which played a large part in the imagery of his paintings. His education was fairly elementary, but he grew up in a family in which literature, music, and religion were dominant concerns, and his imaginative life was extremely rich. He said he wanted "to take the inmost of one's wishes, the most varied religious feelings . . . and to make it an ordinary fact of the street." Spencer was a prize-winning student at the Slade School (1908-1912) and served in the army from 1915 to 1918.  . . .  His career culminated in a knighthood in the year of his death, but his life was not a smooth success story, and in the 1930s he somewhat alienated his public with the expressive distortions and erotic content of his work.  . . .  In his later years Spencer acquired a reputation as a landscapist as well as a figure painter."

– excerpted from The Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists

Stanley Spencer
Greenhouse and Garden
1937
oil on canvas
Ferens Art Gallery, Kingston-upon-Hull

Stanley Spencer
The Roundabout
1923
oil on canvas
Tate Britain

Stanley Spencer
The Psychiatrist (Mrs Charlotte Murray)
1945
oil on canvas
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, West Midlands

Stanley Spencer
Portrait of Richard Carline
1923
oil on canvas
Rugby Art Gallery and Museum, Warwickshire

Stanley Spencer
Patricia Preece
1933
oil on canvas
Southampton City Art Gallery

Stanley Spencer
Scene from the Marriage at Cana in Galilee
1935
oil on canvas
Ulster Museum, Belfast

Stanley Spencer
The Deposition, and Rolling Away of the Stone
1956
oil on canvas
York City Art Gallery

Stanley Spencer
The Centurion's Servant
1914
oil on canvas
Tate Britain