Apple blossom, Riversbridge farm, Blackpool

Details

Lucien Pissarro (1863-1944)
Apple blossom, Riversbridge farm, Blackpool
signed with monogram and dated '1921' (lower centre), signed again and inscribed 'Lucien Pissarro Apple Blossom Riversbridge Farm' (on the stretcher)
oil on canvas
21 x 25½ in. (53.3 x 64.8 cm.)

Provenance

The Brook, 1949.
with Anthony d'Offay, London, where purchased by the present owner in August 1983.

Literature

A. Thorold, Catalogue of Oil Paintings by Lucien Pissarro, London, 1983, p. 152, no. 322, illustrated.

Exhibited

Paris, Galerie Marcel Bernheim, Pissarro et ses fils, January - February 1924, no. 10.
London, Redfern Gallery, Summer Exhibition, August - September 1924, no. 42.
Manchester, Charles A. Jackson's Gallery, Lucien Pissarro One-man show, October 1928, no. 10.
London, French Gallery, Lucien Pissarro, May 1929, no. 34.
London, Royal Academy, 1935, no. 60.
Eastbourne, Towner Art Gallery, Our Countryside, Autumn Exhibition, 1935, no. 66.
London, Arts Council, Arts Council Gallery, Lucien Pissarro Retrospective Exhibition, January - February 1963, no. 43: this exhibition toured to Manchester, City Art Gallery, March 1963; Bristol, City Art Gallery, April 1963; Dundee, City Art Gallery, May 1963; Colchester, The Minories, June 1963; and Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, July 1963.

Special notice

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Lot Essay

Blackpool in South Devon was one of Pissarro's favourite locations and he chose the view of Riversbridge Farm for paintings in 1921 and 1922. He had visited Blackpool in January and February of 1921 and the poor weather had limited him. A slight improvement during the summer meant his output had increased and his letters to Esther Pissarro reveal his optimism for finishing his canvases, '29 April 1921 The morning one is done in the valley looking towards the same hill with a meadow on foreground the building of the carpenter in the middle. In none of these there is [sic] any apple trees - I can't see a composition with a bloom in it; 5 May 1921 I took the opportunity to start a motif with apple trees in the hope that they will bloom soon'. In the present work, painted in June, Pissarro has depicted the elusive apple blossom.

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