Autumn Landscape

The present work is one of a small group of completely abstract landscapes which were executed by John Piper in the mid-1960s. The group is epitomised by June Landscape 1964 (Ashmolean Museum), one of the most celebrated Piper paintings in any UK public collection, and to which the present work is closely related (and by which it can be accurately dated to between 1964 and 1966).

As well as the more abstract depictions of light by J.M.W. Turner, which Piper greatly admired, the group was apparently inspired by Piper's experience of the North Pembrokeshire landscape, where he bought a holiday cottage in 1962. A further example from this group, Llanfair Orllwyn, 1964-1966, a large mixed-media work, belongs to the National Museum of Wales. In the present and related works well-defined areas of luminous colour, arranged as relatively formal 'patchworks', are evocative of John Piper's highly abstract stained-glass window designs of the same period.

We are very grateful to Rev. Dr Stephen Laird F.S.A. for his assistance in cataloguing this lot.