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Lot Essay
Christopher Wood invariably painted coastal scenes, and his finest works are considered to be those painted in Brittany in 1929 and 1930, during which time he was at his most prolific and creative. Most of his work from this period was based around the ports of Tréboul and Douarnenez, on the Bay of Biscay, where this picture was almost certainly painted. So, in the last year of his short life, he arrived in Brittany in June 1930 for two months of painting, at a time when he had begun to receive wide recognition in the art world, from collectors, from dealers and most importantly for him, from his peers.
In Tréboul, Wood resided opposite the cottage he had rented the year before at the Hotel Ty-Mad, which with its bright colours and barren sandy seafront provided Wood with the scenario for some of his greatest work. His initial days were spent there with his friends including his mistress Frosca Munster who accompanied Wood in a small dinghy which he anchored off the beach to paint the Tréboul Coast. He used mainly inexpensive Ripolin house paints such as almost certainly employed in this painting because he was very short of cash.
During this time, Wood's brush could not keep pace with his mind and the daylight hours were not long enough to allow him to complete his work. He turned increasingly to painting local Tréboul scenes from postcards, and he wrote to Winifred Nicholson that: "I feel my work going ahead and getting stronger and a little more serious in design and more direct and less naïve. I painted a good deal of architecture and less boats for a change, and this seems to make it easier to make a quiet composition. I am very amused by everything I see and I find the postcards of this country very helpful."
Only months after this last intense period of painting in Brittany, he would die at the age of 29 when he fell under a train at Salisbury station.
His close friend and mentor Winifred Nicholson described his paintings from this final Brittany period as "lyrics of living and vital life, magic and free". In virtually all respects, this perfectly describes Bathers by the Sea.
Although abundant in his output in Tréboul in those two months in 1930, it is rare for a painting from this period and of this quality to be seen in the market today, some eighty years later.
W.M.
In Tréboul, Wood resided opposite the cottage he had rented the year before at the Hotel Ty-Mad, which with its bright colours and barren sandy seafront provided Wood with the scenario for some of his greatest work. His initial days were spent there with his friends including his mistress Frosca Munster who accompanied Wood in a small dinghy which he anchored off the beach to paint the Tréboul Coast. He used mainly inexpensive Ripolin house paints such as almost certainly employed in this painting because he was very short of cash.
During this time, Wood's brush could not keep pace with his mind and the daylight hours were not long enough to allow him to complete his work. He turned increasingly to painting local Tréboul scenes from postcards, and he wrote to Winifred Nicholson that: "I feel my work going ahead and getting stronger and a little more serious in design and more direct and less naïve. I painted a good deal of architecture and less boats for a change, and this seems to make it easier to make a quiet composition. I am very amused by everything I see and I find the postcards of this country very helpful."
Only months after this last intense period of painting in Brittany, he would die at the age of 29 when he fell under a train at Salisbury station.
His close friend and mentor Winifred Nicholson described his paintings from this final Brittany period as "lyrics of living and vital life, magic and free". In virtually all respects, this perfectly describes Bathers by the Sea.
Although abundant in his output in Tréboul in those two months in 1930, it is rare for a painting from this period and of this quality to be seen in the market today, some eighty years later.
W.M.