BRIDE OF THE PAVEMENT, c.1941
Oil on canvas. 30 x 24in. (76.2 x 61cm.)
Signed, inscribed with the title and dated 1942 on the reverse.
Provenance
The Mayor Gallery, London.
Sotheby’s studio sale, London, 24th April 1985, lot 515. Dimensions given as 29 x 22in. Illustrated in b/w in the catalogue.
Christies, South Kensington, 18th October 1990. Lot No 319. Illustrated in colour in the catalogue.
Exhibited
London, Ministry of Information, 1941, no. 54.
London, Wallace Collection, 1943, no. 653.
London, Mayor Gallery, 1947, (paintings) No. 1.
Cambridge, Heffer Gallery. 1953.
Newlyn, Newlyn Art Gallery, 1961, No. 15.
Penzance, Newlyn Orion Gallery, 1976, No. 20.
Literature
Cambridge Daily News (April 29, 1953). Described as ‘an outstanding work showing vegetation literally growing from stone. The colouring is of exceptional delicacy.’
Chadwick, 1985, illus. b/w. pl. 114, discussed p. 129.
In a letter to J.F. Hendry, of April 17 1947, (University of Glasgow Special Collections MS Gen 549/529) the artist described the colours as ‘central figure: iridescent blues; ground: acid yellow; buildings at back: dark red; sky: dark with green’.
Ratcliffe (2007) illus. b/w, pl. 37.
There are passages of fumage.
Organic and feathery forms struggle to develop and grow in a claustrophobic corner defined by tall blank walls and an overcast sky.
An unusual image in which strange flowers penetrate the paved earth. There is an unmistakable note of optimism in the marriage of the natural world and the built environment: the idea that nature will overcome the restrictions and repressions of civilization.
A down to earth version of Ernst’s Bride of the Winds
References
Chadwick, W. Women Artists and the Surrealist Movement, Thames and Hudson, London 1985. Illustrated in b/w on p. 128, pl. 114, discussed
p. 129.
Ratcliffe, E. Ithell Colquhoun. Mandrake, Oxford. 2007.