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Lot Essay
Sans doute mieux connu en tant que réalisateur de documentaires et fondateur de l’organisme Mass Observation, dédié à la collecte d’informations sur la vie quotidienne en Grande-Bretagne, Humphrey Jennings est également peintre, dessinateur, poète et photographe prolifique. Le lien entre Jennings et le mouvement surréaliste atteint son apogée lorsqu’il siège au comité d’organisation de l’Exposition du Surréalisme de 1936 à Londres, au sein duquel il collabore étroitement avec André Breton et son compatriote Roland Penrose. Humphrey Jennings aime à estomper les frontières entre différents supports, réinterprétant dans ses peintures des images initialement créées en collages. Cette œuvre de jeunesse, représentant une boîte de cigares, traduit son attachement à figer par une myriade de détails authentiques les images et sentiments de la vie quotidienne, une passion qui demeurera ancrée en lui tout au long de sa vie. Malgré une réputation fondée sur sa carrière de réalisateur, son amie Kathleen Raine écrit de lui peu de temps après sa mort: «Il s’est toujours vu comme étant, avant tout, un peintre. La réalisation était secondaire et l’écriture de poèmes, un mode d’expression occasionnel. Preuve de ce dévouement, Humphrey disait lui-même au début de l’année dernière qu’il commençait tout juste à être suffisamment satisfait de son travail pour envisager de l’exposer. Il a pris le temps de maîtriser son art.» (K. Raine cité in M-L. Jennings, Humphrey Jennings: Film maker, Painter, Poet, Londres, 2014, p. 83).
Perhaps best known as a documentary film maker and founder of the Mass Observation organisation devoted to documenting everyday life in Britain, Humphrey Jennings was also a prolific painter, draftsman, poet and photographer. Jennings’s contact with the surrealist movement reached a highpoint with his membership of the organisation committee for the 1936 Surrealist Exhibition in London, for which he collaborated closely with André Breton and compatriot Roland Penrose. Jennings’s artistic practice blurred the boundaries between different medias, with his paintings often re-interpreting images first produced in collage. The present early painting of a cigar box subscribes to his interest in recording in tangible detail the sights and senses of daily life, a passion which would remain with him throughout his life. Despite a reputation founded on his film making career, his friend Kathleen Raine shortly after the artist’s death wrote: "He always regarded himself as, before everything, a painter; film-making was of secondary importance and the writing of poems an occasional mode of expression; and it is significant that Humphrey himself said, early last year, that he had just begun to be sufficiently satisfied with his work to feel that the time had come for an exhibition. He had mastered his style." (K. Raine quoted in M-L. Jennings, Humphrey Jennings: Film maker, Painter, Poet, London, 2014, p. 83).
Perhaps best known as a documentary film maker and founder of the Mass Observation organisation devoted to documenting everyday life in Britain, Humphrey Jennings was also a prolific painter, draftsman, poet and photographer. Jennings’s contact with the surrealist movement reached a highpoint with his membership of the organisation committee for the 1936 Surrealist Exhibition in London, for which he collaborated closely with André Breton and compatriot Roland Penrose. Jennings’s artistic practice blurred the boundaries between different medias, with his paintings often re-interpreting images first produced in collage. The present early painting of a cigar box subscribes to his interest in recording in tangible detail the sights and senses of daily life, a passion which would remain with him throughout his life. Despite a reputation founded on his film making career, his friend Kathleen Raine shortly after the artist’s death wrote: "He always regarded himself as, before everything, a painter; film-making was of secondary importance and the writing of poems an occasional mode of expression; and it is significant that Humphrey himself said, early last year, that he had just begun to be sufficiently satisfied with his work to feel that the time had come for an exhibition. He had mastered his style." (K. Raine quoted in M-L. Jennings, Humphrey Jennings: Film maker, Painter, Poet, London, 2014, p. 83).