.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Ernest Procter studied with Stanhope Forbes in Newlyn and at the Academie Colarossi in Paris. He met his future wife Dod Shaw at Forbes' school and the two married in Newlyn in 1912. Procter's work is a wonderful synthesis between his great interest in the local Cornish landscape, depicted in the naturalistic palette and expressive brushstrokes of his Newlyn School roots, and his more symbolist, crystalline figural compositions of Christian or mythological subject matter.
The present work (mythological rather than Naturalistic) lends itself beautifully to T. W. Earp's review of the Memorial exhibition of the artist's works at the Leicester Galleries in 1936:
The emotional intensity does not break with humanity and reason: the interval from the actual is merely that of an idyllic poem. The Judgement of Paris (possibly lot 28) is bathed in the light of dreams, yet neither is there distortion or lack of coherence. Procter persuaded his art instead of bullying it, and his instinctively sensitive treatment won much more from it than truculence could have done..
The Tate Gallery in London, holds another painting from Procter's mythological series, The Zodiac, c. 1925 which exhibits the same sculptural treatment of the figure and complex freize-like composition as the present lot and lot 28.
The present work (mythological rather than Naturalistic) lends itself beautifully to T. W. Earp's review of the Memorial exhibition of the artist's works at the Leicester Galleries in 1936:
The emotional intensity does not break with humanity and reason: the interval from the actual is merely that of an idyllic poem. The Judgement of Paris (possibly lot 28) is bathed in the light of dreams, yet neither is there distortion or lack of coherence. Procter persuaded his art instead of bullying it, and his instinctively sensitive treatment won much more from it than truculence could have done..
The Tate Gallery in London, holds another painting from Procter's mythological series, The Zodiac, c. 1925 which exhibits the same sculptural treatment of the figure and complex freize-like composition as the present lot and lot 28.