Don't You Think it's About Time He Grew Up

Details

Leslie Wilson (c.1898 - c.1990)
Don't You Think it's About Time He Grew Up
inscribed 'DON'T YOU THINK ITS ABOUT TIME HE GREW UP' (lower left)
oil on canvas
26¾ x 42¾ in. (68.5 x 109 cm.)
Painted circa 1943.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

The present work is an elegant allegory of the futility of war - the toy soldiers are being marched relentlessly towards the unknown graves of Northern France depicted by the mass white crosses in the lower right hand corner of the composition, these gravestones constrasting with the idyll of the left hand side of the canvas. The figures on the right could also be viewed as war-time versions of Shakespeare's seven stages of man.

More from The Poetry of Crisis; The Peter Nahum Collection of British Surrealist and Avant-Garde Art 1930-1951

View All