Lot 306: JOHN CRAXTON, R.A. (1922-2009) - Blue Tree Root in Welsh Estuary (Picton)

JOHN CRAXTON, R.A. (1922-2009)
Blue Tree Root in Welsh Estuary (Picton)
signed and dated '-Craxton-43-' (lower right)
gouache and oil on paper laid down on panel
12¬ x 20 in. (32.2 x 50.8 cm.)
Painted in 1943.


PROVENANCE:
with Tib Lane Gallery, Manchester, where purchased by the present owner.
Craxton made a number of consistently inventive studies of washed-up
trees in Welsh estuaries, such as Sandy Haven, when he was staying in
Pembrokeshire in 1943 with Graham Sutherland. Often on diferent coloured
papers, some are more like drawings, others — like this one — are taken to a
greater degree of fnish. All relate to the black and white oil painting Welsh
Estuary Foreshore (1943) in the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, one
of Craxton’s more Miró-esque compositions. Blue Tree Root, on the other
hand, has much in common with Sutherland, whose thoughts on landscape
painting were an inspiration to Craxton. His lyrical interpretation of Welsh
shores and felds also features in the pen drawings and lithographs he made
to illustrate The Poet’s Eye, an anthology chosen by Geofrey Grigson (1944);
from this period dates some of the fnest work he did in Great Britain before
succumbing to the lure of Greece.