Untitled (Mexican)

Having completed work on the Porthmeor Mural in Frenchtown, New Jersey, Peter Lanyon travelled onto the San Antonio Art Institute in Texas in March 1963, to take up the post of Visiting Painter. From here, Lanyon travelled to Mexico, where he took a series of photographs that he would increasingly use to gather information for his paintings. The children’s playgrounds, brightly coloured houses and farms of Mexico were all popular subjects from which Lanyon seemed to gain direct inspiration. Chris Stephens comments that at this time, ‘Lanyon’s painting underwent an even more dramatic change in colouring as the brighter palette came to dominate works that were associated with trips abroad… all are characterised by a range of warm colours: earth reds and ochres, bright reds and fleshy pinks’ (see C. Stephens, Peter Lanyon At the Edge of Landscape, London, 2000, p. 169).

We are very grateful to Toby Treves for his assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.