ZODIAC, 1942
Etching. 6½ x 3⅞in. (16.5 x 10cm.)
Signed I.C. in the plate, lower left and dated ’42 lower right.
The etching was published as a limited edition of 100 copies in Cunard N and Banting J. (eds.) Salvo for Russia. London, 1942. This was a folio of poems, etchings and engravings published to raise money for the Comforts Fund for women and children in Russia, following the German invasion in 1941. The loose leaf portfolio included works by John Banting; John Buckland Wright; John Piper; Roland Penrose; C. Salisbury; Wolf Reiser; Julian Trevelyan and Mary Wykeham in addition to the work by Colquhoun. It also contained poems by Nancy Cunard; Cecily Mackworth; James Law Forsyth and J.F. Hendry.
Provenance
Copy 33 is in the British Museum.
Copy 46 is in the Gabrielle Keiller Collection, Edinburgh.
Copy 78 was sold at Christie’s, London, 8/11/01 and then offered by Wolseley Fine Art, London.
Further copies are in the Tate Gallery Archive TGA 8921.7.1 and in the Victoria and Albert archive.
Many of the etchings in the volume have obvious references to the war. Colquhoun’s image, however, recurs in Dance of the Nine Opals (1942) and refers to earth forces.