Village, Charente

In his November 1957 show at the Leicester Galleries, London, John Piper exhibited a number of watercolours and oil paintings which featured town and village subjects from the Charente region of France, an area which he had recently visited with his family. Some of the places were named, others simply described as 'Town' or 'Village' in the titles (along with an indication that the subject was in France). The use of squared paper for these preliminary sketches is interesting as, by 1957, Piper's finished works characteristically displayed a formal 'rectinlinear' appearance, with colours and occasional topographical features playing across an abstract grid, completely filling both the vertical and horizontal picture planes. The printed lines on the paper may have been used by the artist to assist with the evolution of the sketched images towards their final form.

We are very grateful to Rev. Dr Stephen Laird FSA for preparing this catalogue entry.