GIANTESSES UNDRESSING TO BATHE, 1950
Oil on canvas. 55 x 50in. (141 x 130cm.)
Signed, inscribed and dated.
Provenance
Sotheby’s, London, 10th June 1981.
Exhibited
Newlyn, Newlyn Art Gallery, 1961, No. 4.
Exeter, City of Exeter Art Gallery, 1972, No. 13 (as unsigned).
Penzance, Newlyn Orion Gallery, 1976, No. 26.
The technique is frottage. In her article in Athene (1952) Colquhoun explained the origin of this work:
“At the time of a recent house-removal I lay in bed looking at a plaster wall seamed with cracks. It was the day before I was due to move and I thought – after today I shall no longer see these marvellous cracks, indeed, no one will, because they will be obliterated by redecoration. So, busy as I was, I sprang out of bed, glued some large sheets of tracing-paper together, fastened them to the wall and made a careful tracing of the cracks: this has since become a large mural, Giantesses Undressing to Bathe.”
A watercolour colour note for this work is known.
Reference
Colquhoun, I. Children of the Mantic Stain. Athene, May 1952, pp29-34.