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Lot Essay
Painted in the languid warmth of late summer in 1922, while Roger Fry was convalescing in Saint-Tropez, the present work captures the artist’s view across an ancient, ramshackle courtyard with a well at its centre, situated either on or very close to the Rue d’Aumale, where Fry had taken up residence (D. Sutton (ed.), Letters of Roger Fry: Volume 2, London, 1972, p. 528). The scene evokes a place gently aged and shaped by years of sun and the daily life of its inhabitants: weathered walls, tangled greenery and the dry stillness of a Provençal afternoon.
Writing to his close friend Robert Bridges – husband of his cousin, Monica – Fry offered an endearingly candid portrait of his circumstances: his days were fueled by almost monastic, repeated meals of 'fresh fish and sour milk and macaroni', all consumed within his 'complete slum' of an apartment. This austere domestic existence, however, was softened, perhaps even utterly transformed, by the loveliness and intense charm of the town itself. Saint-Tropez, he declared, was a 'charm[ing] … absurd little town' in which he couldn’t help but 'enjoy [him]self immensely' (Ibid., pp. 528-29).
The Well wonderfully illustrates Fry’s delight in his surroundings. His palette glows with a sensuous appreciation of the landscape: from the rich duck-egg blue of the sky, to the beautifully warm ochres and olive greens of the trees and undergrowth, softly hinting at the first breath of autumn, the painting hums with visual pleasure, transforming an unassuming courtyard into a scene of quiet radiance.
Writing to his close friend Robert Bridges – husband of his cousin, Monica – Fry offered an endearingly candid portrait of his circumstances: his days were fueled by almost monastic, repeated meals of 'fresh fish and sour milk and macaroni', all consumed within his 'complete slum' of an apartment. This austere domestic existence, however, was softened, perhaps even utterly transformed, by the loveliness and intense charm of the town itself. Saint-Tropez, he declared, was a 'charm[ing] … absurd little town' in which he couldn’t help but 'enjoy [him]self immensely' (Ibid., pp. 528-29).
The Well wonderfully illustrates Fry’s delight in his surroundings. His palette glows with a sensuous appreciation of the landscape: from the rich duck-egg blue of the sky, to the beautifully warm ochres and olive greens of the trees and undergrowth, softly hinting at the first breath of autumn, the painting hums with visual pleasure, transforming an unassuming courtyard into a scene of quiet radiance.