L'HELICE, 1939
Oil on canvas. 22 x 22in. (56 x 56cm.)
Signed and dated 1939. Also signed, inscribed with title and Méditerranée and dated 1939 on the stretcher and overlap.
Provenance
Sotheby’s, London,10th June 1981.
Sotheby’s, London, 8th March 1995. Lot No 275. Illustrated in b/w in the catalogue.
Peter Nahum at the Leicester Galleries.
Exhibited
London, Mayor Gallery, 1939, No 3.
Northampton, Northampton Gallery 1939.
Harrogate, Harrogate Gallery, 1941.
Batley, Bagshaw Gallery, 1941.
London, Hamet Gallery, 1971, ex catalogue.
London, Leva Gallery, 1974, No. 14.
Penzance, Newlyn Orion Gallery, 1976, No. 7.
London, Parkin Gallery, 1977, No. 21.
Literature
Ratcliffe (2007) illus. b/w, pl. 46.
One of the Méditerranée series.
As the title states, this is a propeller. A large ship’s propeller, attached to the propeller shaft and, presumably, but out of picture, the rest of the ship. But what is it doing on dry land, in a vague but urban architectural setting? This is a rare example in Colquhoun’s art of a classic surrealist device: a object wrenched out of context and out of scale; the dislocation that disorientates.
An artifact displaced from its natural medium, water, onto the land: an early example of Colquhoun's fascination with the relationship between the elements of water and earth.
The present work together with Scylla (1938) and Cucumber (1939) were sent to New York in 1940 for inclusion in an exhibition organised by Gordon Onslow Ford. In the event, none of the works were exhibited, probably as a result of the schisms in the British Surrealist Group. The artist experienced some difficulty in recovering her paintings, thanks to wartime conditions.
Reference
Ratcliffe, E. Ithell Colquhoun. Mandrake, Oxford. 2007.