Lot 640: Humphrey Jennings (1907-1950)

Humphrey Jennings (1907-1950)
Smoke No.1
with studio stamp (on the stretcher) and inscribed 'Smoke 1' (on the canvas fold)
oil on canvas
16 x 20 in. (40.7 x 50.8 cm.)
Executed circa 1949.

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Smoke is based on the same kind of dynamic composition as House in the Woods (1936, now at the Tate Gallery). Clear-cut forms recede in favour of a deeper, fluid force which detaches hard-edge reality from itself and opens the way to the imagination and the secret life of things, the quest for which is Jennings's driving force after the experience of the war.
M.R.