ARUM LILIES, c.1934
Oil on canvas. 26 x 24in. (66 x 61cm.)
Signed lower left: I Colquhoun.
Provenance
Christies, South Kensington, 12 Dec. 1991, lot 246. Illustrated in b/w. in the
catalogue.
Sotheby’s Olympia, London, 3rd June 2003, lot 129. Illustrated in colour in
the catalogue.
Bonhams, London, Sale 11646, 15th November 2005, lot 99.
Nigel Ward & Co., Hereford, 13 November 2010, lot 2266, as ‘an Oil on
Canvas of Exotic Flowers’.
Colquhoun’s earliest flower paintings in oil that can be firmly dated were executed in 1934. The handling of the paint in the present work is broader than usual, but a date of c.1934 seems appropriate.
The resemblance of the plant’s flowering parts to sex organs has long been recognised. The long white spadix has an obvious phallic appearance.