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Lot Essay
When Henry Herbert La Thangue first exhibited Neglected Roses at the Leicester Galleries in the spring of 1914, it was part of a roll-call of favourites listed by Walter Sickert when he reviewed the show. ‘Take any one of the following pictures home’, he wrote,
'… hang it up in a room where you can see it at breakfast, or while you are dressing. Hang it on a wall at right angles to a window, and more than halfway away from the window. Give it time to convey its message, and you will see how remote is that message from all the din of the aesthetic discussions of the moment. It has taken the whole history of art to produce modern painting, and it has taken the painter more than half a century to develop his skill in self-expression. Such canvases contain a message that will speak to many generations to come, and will certainly last us in pleasure, entertainment, stimulus, for the rest of our short lives.' (loc. cit.)
This encomium rings in every account of La Thangue’s career, but in 1914, after the launch of Futurism in Britain, and while tensions mounted among the Great Powers, it came as a welcome return to sanity. The painter had not only found his ideal retreat in rural France, he had also matched it with a modern style that left room for self-expression. His handling was neither imitative of Monet nor Cézanne, but those syncopated strokes that brought flowers in a neglected garden to life, or conveyed the sweep of distant hillsides of the Var region were entirely of his own making. For this, Sickert could place him among the modern masters.
Two pictures on show in 1914 were painted in a deserted rose garden near St Jeannet, while a number of others showed the hill village with its surrounding vineyards. Both garden pictures, with a number of others were acquired by the successful grain merchant, Moses Nightingale. Although he bought paintings by Stanhope Forbes, Lucy Kemp Welch and others, La Thangue was his favourite painter and by 1919, he had acquired 22 works by the artist, the majority of which were hung in the billiard room of Hazeldene, his villa at Crawley. This later became the practice room for the Hazeldene Orchestra which Nightingale organized for the villagers.
For La Thangue, the rural idyll that was fast disappearing in England, still existed in in the hills of Provence. This land of aloes, cacti, vineyards and olive groves remained impenetrable to the British tourists who populated its coastline. St Jeannet, due north of Antibes, was, in the twenties, ‘a centre of bucolic bliss … perched high above the roar of trains and motor traffic’ hustling along the valley below. (Captain L. Richardson, Things seen on the Riviera, London, 1927, p. 84.) While flowers grew unchecked in this lotus land, they were now being commercially cultivated for use in the perfumeries of Grasse. Avoiding the hottest part of the day, the artist frequently captured the morning or evening light in canvases that expressed his own unique Impressionism. Echoing Sickert, its classic qualities, ‘alive and palpitating with light and air’, were hailed by The Academy, while ‘his handling and mastery of colour is daring and exact’. They were also, like the present example, audaciously simple.
We are grateful to Professor Kenneth McConkey for his assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.
'… hang it up in a room where you can see it at breakfast, or while you are dressing. Hang it on a wall at right angles to a window, and more than halfway away from the window. Give it time to convey its message, and you will see how remote is that message from all the din of the aesthetic discussions of the moment. It has taken the whole history of art to produce modern painting, and it has taken the painter more than half a century to develop his skill in self-expression. Such canvases contain a message that will speak to many generations to come, and will certainly last us in pleasure, entertainment, stimulus, for the rest of our short lives.' (loc. cit.)
This encomium rings in every account of La Thangue’s career, but in 1914, after the launch of Futurism in Britain, and while tensions mounted among the Great Powers, it came as a welcome return to sanity. The painter had not only found his ideal retreat in rural France, he had also matched it with a modern style that left room for self-expression. His handling was neither imitative of Monet nor Cézanne, but those syncopated strokes that brought flowers in a neglected garden to life, or conveyed the sweep of distant hillsides of the Var region were entirely of his own making. For this, Sickert could place him among the modern masters.
Two pictures on show in 1914 were painted in a deserted rose garden near St Jeannet, while a number of others showed the hill village with its surrounding vineyards. Both garden pictures, with a number of others were acquired by the successful grain merchant, Moses Nightingale. Although he bought paintings by Stanhope Forbes, Lucy Kemp Welch and others, La Thangue was his favourite painter and by 1919, he had acquired 22 works by the artist, the majority of which were hung in the billiard room of Hazeldene, his villa at Crawley. This later became the practice room for the Hazeldene Orchestra which Nightingale organized for the villagers.
For La Thangue, the rural idyll that was fast disappearing in England, still existed in in the hills of Provence. This land of aloes, cacti, vineyards and olive groves remained impenetrable to the British tourists who populated its coastline. St Jeannet, due north of Antibes, was, in the twenties, ‘a centre of bucolic bliss … perched high above the roar of trains and motor traffic’ hustling along the valley below. (Captain L. Richardson, Things seen on the Riviera, London, 1927, p. 84.) While flowers grew unchecked in this lotus land, they were now being commercially cultivated for use in the perfumeries of Grasse. Avoiding the hottest part of the day, the artist frequently captured the morning or evening light in canvases that expressed his own unique Impressionism. Echoing Sickert, its classic qualities, ‘alive and palpitating with light and air’, were hailed by The Academy, while ‘his handling and mastery of colour is daring and exact’. They were also, like the present example, audaciously simple.
We are grateful to Professor Kenneth McConkey for his assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.