Figure in a Tree

Details

John Craxton, R.A. (1922-2009)
Figure in a Tree
oil on canvas
15¾ x 19¾ in. (40 x 50.2 cm.)
Painted in 1943.

Provenance

Christopher Hull.
Purchased by Sir Simon Hornby in 1991 from the Christopher Hull Gallery, London, and by descent.

Literature

Exhibition catalogue, A Paradise Lost, London, Barbican Art Gallery, 1987, p. 138, no. 85.

Exhibited

London, Barbican Art Gallery, A Paradise Lost, May - July 1987, no. 85.

Special notice

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.

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Lot Essay

Throughout the war John Craxton drew and painted menaced landscapes containing solitary figures (shepherds, poets, dancers, dreamers) which were emblematic images of the artist himself. This self-portrait dates from 1943, when Craxton worked in Dorset and also in Pembrokeshire with Graham Sutherland. It relates closely to a painting owned by Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears, in which the watchful figure is sheltering in a cave rather than a tree.

I.C.

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