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拍品專文
After a disappointing trip to Russia in 1933 Bomberg decided to return to a country that had previously been a huge inspiration to him and, in summer 1934, he set off with Lilian to Cuenca, Spain.
During his previous Spanish trip Bomberg had spent a productive winter at Toledo, painting over twenty canvases of the city and surrounding landscape, including Toledo from the Alcazar (sold in these rooms for £640,800, 10 June 2005, lot 78). It was during this trip that a small engraving of Cuenca caught Bomberg's eye while he was staying in a pension in Madrid with Lilian that inspired him to visit and paint the dramatic location of this Spanish town.
The city of Cuenca is known as 'Eagles Nest' because of its position, perched high up on a hill and separated from the nearby rock face by deep ravines in which the rivers Júcar and Huécar run. The dramatic location of Cuenca inspired Bomberg to produce works in which the surrounding landscape gained a greater emphasis and the buildings become almost absorbed within it. As with the canvases that he produced in Toledo and Palestine, Bomberg painted outdoors as often as possible, exploring the surrounding countryside on a donkey to find suitable vantage points from which to study and paint Cuenca.
Richard Cork comments, 'Perched on a high rock ridge with rivers on either side, the ancient town provided Bomberg with an ideal interplay between buildings and the landscape they so dramatically occupied. His paintings stress the rootedness of Cuenca's houses, the way they appear to grow out of the rock on which they stand. In the most elaborate picture he carried out there, Cuenca from Mount Socorro, [the present work], town and rock are fused in an energetic mass filled with Bomberg's heightened awareness of a geological conflict between cohesion and stress. As at Toledo, sunset fired him to see the town in near-visionary terms, where the houses appear to lose much of their substance and dissolve into a landscape suffused with the incandescence of dying light. Unlike Toledo, however, Bomberg's brushwork now strives for a greater breadth, shedding the intricacy of the 1929 work in favour of a more summary and unified approach to form' (see R. Cork, exhibition catalogue, loc. cit.)
Arthur Crossland, a wealthy Bradford wool-merchant, was one of a trio of important collectors, for whom the dealer, Alfred Willey, bought. Together with another Bradford collector, the draper, Asa Lingard, Crossland sat on the committee of the annual spring exhibition of the Cartwright Hall Art Gallery in Bradford.
During his previous Spanish trip Bomberg had spent a productive winter at Toledo, painting over twenty canvases of the city and surrounding landscape, including Toledo from the Alcazar (sold in these rooms for £640,800, 10 June 2005, lot 78). It was during this trip that a small engraving of Cuenca caught Bomberg's eye while he was staying in a pension in Madrid with Lilian that inspired him to visit and paint the dramatic location of this Spanish town.
The city of Cuenca is known as 'Eagles Nest' because of its position, perched high up on a hill and separated from the nearby rock face by deep ravines in which the rivers Júcar and Huécar run. The dramatic location of Cuenca inspired Bomberg to produce works in which the surrounding landscape gained a greater emphasis and the buildings become almost absorbed within it. As with the canvases that he produced in Toledo and Palestine, Bomberg painted outdoors as often as possible, exploring the surrounding countryside on a donkey to find suitable vantage points from which to study and paint Cuenca.
Richard Cork comments, 'Perched on a high rock ridge with rivers on either side, the ancient town provided Bomberg with an ideal interplay between buildings and the landscape they so dramatically occupied. His paintings stress the rootedness of Cuenca's houses, the way they appear to grow out of the rock on which they stand. In the most elaborate picture he carried out there, Cuenca from Mount Socorro, [the present work], town and rock are fused in an energetic mass filled with Bomberg's heightened awareness of a geological conflict between cohesion and stress. As at Toledo, sunset fired him to see the town in near-visionary terms, where the houses appear to lose much of their substance and dissolve into a landscape suffused with the incandescence of dying light. Unlike Toledo, however, Bomberg's brushwork now strives for a greater breadth, shedding the intricacy of the 1929 work in favour of a more summary and unified approach to form' (see R. Cork, exhibition catalogue, loc. cit.)
Arthur Crossland, a wealthy Bradford wool-merchant, was one of a trio of important collectors, for whom the dealer, Alfred Willey, bought. Together with another Bradford collector, the draper, Asa Lingard, Crossland sat on the committee of the annual spring exhibition of the Cartwright Hall Art Gallery in Bradford.