Still life with decanter I

Details

John Craxton, R.A. (b. 1922)
Still life with decanter I
signed 'Craxton' (lower right)
ink, watercolour and bodycolour
17½ x 22½ in. (44.5 x 57.2 cm.)
Executed in 1942.

Provenance

with Hamet Gallery, London, where purchased by the present owners, September 1971.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis. Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.

Lot Essay

At the suggestion of the art patron, Peter Watson, Craxton shared a studio with fellow artist Lucian Freud in Abercorn Place, where they both worked from 1942 until 1944. Although their work took very different directions there were some stylistic similarities apparent at this time. Craxton has said, 'We did life drawing at Goldsmith's College, and we both decided - I suppose it was due to Picasso - that we were both going to put one line down. The common way to draw was to stroke the side of the nude with about 25 lines, and your eye picked out the one that was the right one. We thought that was a cop-out. Our shading was done with dots, and of course we got lots of remarks like "How's the measles?"' (see M. Gayford, 'John Craxton at Seventy', Modern Painters, 5, 1992, p. 63).

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