HEADS OF ANGELS, c.1952
Watercolour, gouache and gold ink. 12 x 23½in. (30.5 x 60.5cm.).
Inscribed on the reverse of the frame with the title, the artist’s name, the phrase ‘mural design’ and the Bolton Studio address.
Provenance
National Trust bequest.
Exhibited
Probably: Cambridge, Heffer Gallery, 1952, no 47, as ‘project for mural painting for proposed Congregational Chapel at Greenwich’.
London, New Burlington Galleries, 1954, no. 146.
Colquhoun executed a number of works of apostle’s heads and the crucifixion in which the heads or figures are formed of coloured geometrical shapes, in particular squares and rectangles. These include Ikon I - Crucifixion (1954); Ikon II - Ark (1954) and the designs for proposed murals at Maze Hill Church (1952) Heads of Angels is almost certainly the artist’s final design for one of these murals: it is visible in one of the architectural drawings executed for the project.
A short account of the project, together with the architect’s drawings, and colour illustration of one of Colquhoun's studies, can be found in Stonehouse, 2008, pp. 186-7.
In her religious studies it is clear the Colquhoun was fascinated with developing spiritual beings from squares and cubes.
Reference
Stonehouse, R. 2008. Trevor Dannatt: Works and Words. London: Black Dog Publishing.