.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
In Christopher Wood's later life, he met Ben and Winifred Nicholson, who introduced him to both Cumbria and more especially the Cornish and Brittany landscapes and seascapes. From 1926, he painted regularly, each year, in these coastal areas, and he also met Alfred Wallis with Ben Nicholson.
The present painting, The Blue Boat, is certainly one of his best known and much loved boat paintings and was reproduced in the original Eric Newton publication on Kit Wood in 1938. Most of Wood's greatest works, from 1929 and 1930, contained seaside and harbour themes - boats, fishermen, bathers. In the main, these were executed in Cornwall, where he painted with Ben and Winifred Nicholson, and in Brittany, France. This picture was almost certainly painted in Brittany, given the boat number, and it includes all of the classic elements of his most important pieces - wonderful blue pigments for the boat and the sea, men hard at work repairing the boat and their fishing nets at low tide, a low key, near primitive, landscape. The blue boat grabs our attention and is the centrepiece of the composition. Close inspection of the painting reveals how very simple and unaffected Kit Wood's style could be - very conservative brush strokes, minimal detail in respect of people or objects, but somehow his eye and his brush make the entire composition work impressively.
He painted quickly and he wrote to his mother at the time that he had so little money, he was forced to use oil paints from Woolworth's, often house paints, and cheap canvas. Most of his pictures from this time were consigned to one or two dealers who supported his habits in return for a steady flow of work. Amongst these were Mrs. Wertheim (Wertheim Gallery) and Rex Nan Kivell from the Redfern Gallery, who amongst other things paid his tailor's bills and bought materials for his work. He had demanded £1200 a year from Mrs. Wertheim in return for the rights to his paintings, and a show had been planned for 1930. Although this exhibition at the Wertheim gallery was cancelled on his death, a posthumous exhibition was held there in February 1931. This was followed by an exhibition at the Lefevre Gallery in 1932, where this picture was probably displayed. This picture was also ultimately displayed at the Royal Academy in 1938, in a retrospective show of Kit Wood's work which drew highly favourable reviews.
Since Kit Wood's death, his work has been celebrated by the major retrospective at the Royal Academy and the Redfern Gallery in 1938, as well as being represented at the Venice Biennale in the same year, and fifty years later in a touring exhibition by the Arts Council of Great Britain in 1979. His pictures can be found in major collections including the Tate Gallery, the Louvre, the Graves Gallery, Kettle's Yard, HRH Prince of Wales, Fitzwilliam Museum, National Portrait Gallery and the Philips Collection in Washington DC, to name only a few.
W.M.
Ginette Spanier (1904-1988) was the Director of Paris fashion house, Balmain. Her 1959 autobiography, It Isn't All Mink, includes a foreword by Nöel Coward, who gifted The Blue Boat to her in 1973.
The present painting, The Blue Boat, is certainly one of his best known and much loved boat paintings and was reproduced in the original Eric Newton publication on Kit Wood in 1938. Most of Wood's greatest works, from 1929 and 1930, contained seaside and harbour themes - boats, fishermen, bathers. In the main, these were executed in Cornwall, where he painted with Ben and Winifred Nicholson, and in Brittany, France. This picture was almost certainly painted in Brittany, given the boat number, and it includes all of the classic elements of his most important pieces - wonderful blue pigments for the boat and the sea, men hard at work repairing the boat and their fishing nets at low tide, a low key, near primitive, landscape. The blue boat grabs our attention and is the centrepiece of the composition. Close inspection of the painting reveals how very simple and unaffected Kit Wood's style could be - very conservative brush strokes, minimal detail in respect of people or objects, but somehow his eye and his brush make the entire composition work impressively.
He painted quickly and he wrote to his mother at the time that he had so little money, he was forced to use oil paints from Woolworth's, often house paints, and cheap canvas. Most of his pictures from this time were consigned to one or two dealers who supported his habits in return for a steady flow of work. Amongst these were Mrs. Wertheim (Wertheim Gallery) and Rex Nan Kivell from the Redfern Gallery, who amongst other things paid his tailor's bills and bought materials for his work. He had demanded £1200 a year from Mrs. Wertheim in return for the rights to his paintings, and a show had been planned for 1930. Although this exhibition at the Wertheim gallery was cancelled on his death, a posthumous exhibition was held there in February 1931. This was followed by an exhibition at the Lefevre Gallery in 1932, where this picture was probably displayed. This picture was also ultimately displayed at the Royal Academy in 1938, in a retrospective show of Kit Wood's work which drew highly favourable reviews.
Since Kit Wood's death, his work has been celebrated by the major retrospective at the Royal Academy and the Redfern Gallery in 1938, as well as being represented at the Venice Biennale in the same year, and fifty years later in a touring exhibition by the Arts Council of Great Britain in 1979. His pictures can be found in major collections including the Tate Gallery, the Louvre, the Graves Gallery, Kettle's Yard, HRH Prince of Wales, Fitzwilliam Museum, National Portrait Gallery and the Philips Collection in Washington DC, to name only a few.
W.M.
Ginette Spanier (1904-1988) was the Director of Paris fashion house, Balmain. Her 1959 autobiography, It Isn't All Mink, includes a foreword by Nöel Coward, who gifted The Blue Boat to her in 1973.