-
Richard Beer (1928 - 2017)
Dieppe Cathedral
Oil on canvas 66 x 76 cm A mountaintop cathedral and surrounding houses; broad blue sky fills the rest of the canvas. This oil painting is a fantastic example of Beer's focus on architecture, the central and recurring theme of his pictorial idiom. Born in London in 1928, just too late to serve in the Second World War, Richard Beer studied between 1945 - 1950 at the Slade School. Subsequently, a French Government scholarship allowed him to spend time in Paris at Atelier 17, working under Stanley William Hayter (1901 - 1988), one of the most significant print makers of the 20th Century – having spent the War in New York, advising as a camofleur, Hayter only returned to Paris in 1950. Subsequently Beer studied at the École des Beaux Arts, Paris. Working for John Cranko, choreographer for the Royal Ballet, Beer designed the sets and costumes for his The Lady and the Fool at Covent Garden, subsequently working for him following his move in 1961 to Stuttgart Ballet. Additionally he produced book illustrations and designed book jackets. Beer later taught print-making at the Chelsea School of Art, where he was a popular teacher. Probably his greatest work was a collaboration with John Betjeman to produce a portfolio of prints of ten Wren Churches in the City for Editions Alecto, copies of which are in The Government Art Collection. That collection contains a total of 54 prints by Beer, and the Tate Gallery’s collection holds seven. His Oxford series was also produced for Editions Alecto as was a series of predominantly architectural views in Southern Europe. Most of his prints are of architectural subjects. Condition: excellent. If you’d like to know more, please email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. Click here for other views by Richard Beer. -
Alfred Daniels RBA RWS (1924-2015) All Souls, Oxford Signed and dated 1998. Watercolour 18 x 24 cm (7 x 9.5 in.) Click here for biographical details and other works by the artist. If you are interested email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. -
Piero Sansalvadore (1892-1955)
Queens’ College Cambridge
Signed Sansalvadore. Titled to verso. Oil on wood panel 21.5 x 28cm (8.5 x 11 in) £1850 Provenance: Stacy-Marks Gallery, Eastbourne, c. late 1940s An Italian who arrived in London around 1930, the Museum of London and City of London have a series of pictures Sansalvadore painted of war-damaged London. Click here for other works by the artist. If you are interested email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. -
Edward McKnight Kauffer (1890-1954)
Original artwork ‘BP Ethyl for Snappy Engines' (1934)
Signed Pen, ink and collage 27x17cm (16.6×6.6 inches) Framed in a hand-finished black frame. Provenance: Sotheby's, sale of the Shell Archive 10 September 2003 lot 49. If you are interested email info@manningfineart.co.ukor call us on 07929 749056. -
Clifford Charman (1910-1993)
Temple Church, London, after Bombing
Oil on canvas 39 x 49 cm Provenance: The Artist's Studio Sale, Bonhams, London (18 March 1993); Peter Constant Fine Art. Born in Bexleyheath in Kent, Charman studied at Regent Street Polytechnic just before, and just after, the Second World War. He exhibited widely, including at the Royal Academy, the RBA, Chelsea Arts Society, and abroad. Elected in 1954 to the ROI, he also won the James Bourlet Prize in 1982. His work is in collections including that of the Guildhall. If you'd like to know more, please email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. Condition: Generally very good. -
Clifford Charman (1910-1993)
Landscape with Farmhouses
Oil on canvas 38 x 55 cm Provenance: the artist's studio sale, Bonhams, London 1993. Born in Bexleyheath in Kent, Charman studied at Regent Street Polytechnic just before, and just after, the Second World War. He exhibited widely, including at the Royal Academy, the RBA, Chelsea Arts Society, and abroad. Elected in 1954 to the ROI, he also won the James Bourlet Prize in 1982. His work is in collections including that of the Guildhall. If you'd like to know more, please email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. Condition: Generally very good. -
Clifford Charman (1910-1993)
Brewery and Ruined Castle, Cockermouth
Oil on canvas 38 x 55 cm Signed and dated lower left. Provenance: The Artist's Studio Sale, Bonhams, London (18 March 1993); Peter Constant Fine Art. Born in Bexleyheath in Kent, Charman studied at Regent Street Polytechnic just before, and just after, the Second World War. He exhibited widely, including at the Royal Academy, the RBA, Chelsea Arts Society, and abroad. Elected in 1954 to the ROI, he also won the James Bourlet Prize in 1982. His work is in collections including that of the Guildhall. If you'd like to know more, please email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. Condition: Generally very good. Signed lower left. -
Clifford Ellis (1907-1985)
Cadbury Castle, Wiltshire
Gouache, 1940s/1950s In a Nicholson butt-jointed frame Provenance: the family of the artist, by descent. Click here for biographical details and other works by the artist. Clifford and Rosemary Ellis were famous as a husband and wife team for their fascination with nature and their vibrant and charming depictions of animals. They were the natural artists to be commissioned by Collins for their 'New Naturalists' series of books, which have become famous and highly collectable more for the dust jackets designed by the Ellises than for the - otherwise excellent - content. This painting is from a recently discovered series of paintings and drawings, never before seen by the general public, dating from the 1940s and 1950s. If you are interested email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. -
Edward Bawden (1903-1989)
Secretary Cat
Pen and ink 38 x 27 cm Signed and inscribed lower right. Bawden developed a love of cats at a young age, copying Louis Wain's cat pictures. In his later years, his drawings of cats became yet more frequent; his cat Emma featured in much of his work. In an interview with House and Garden in 1987 he said: "No cat will suffer being lifted up and dropped into an empty space intended for her to occupy; that procedure led inevitably to Emma, tail up, walking away at once, so I had to wait patiently until Emma had enjoyed a good meal of Coley and was ready to choose her daily sleeping place, wherever it might be. I would then spring into action." Doubtless he found it easier to draw an imaginary cat, such as this one. For other cats - and other works - by Bawden, please click here. If you are interested, please email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. -
Edward Bawden (1903-1989)
Captain of the Team Cat
Pen and ink 38 x 27 cm Signed and inscribed lower right. Bawden developed a love of cats at a young age, copying Louis Wain's cat pictures. In his later years, his drawings of cats became yet more frequent; his cat Emma featured in much of his work. In an interview with House and Garden in 1987 he said: "No cat will suffer being lifted up and dropped into an empty space intended for her to occupy; that procedure led inevitably to Emma, tail up, walking away at once, so I had to wait patiently until Emma had enjoyed a good meal of Coley and was ready to choose her daily sleeping place, wherever it might be. I would then spring into action." Doubtless he found it easier to draw an imaginary cat, such as this one. For other cats - and other works - by Bawden, please click here. If you are interested, please email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. -
Edward Bawden (1903-1989)
Dandy Boy Cat
Pen and ink 38 x 27 cm Signed and inscribed lower right. Bawden developed a love of cats at a young age, copying Louis Wain's cat pictures. In his later years, his drawings of cats became yet more frequent; his cat Emma featured in much of his work. In an interview with House and Garden in 1987 he said: "No cat will suffer being lifted up and dropped into an empty space intended for her to occupy; that procedure led inevitably to Emma, tail up, walking away at once, so I had to wait patiently until Emma had enjoyed a good meal of Coley and was ready to choose her daily sleeping place, wherever it might be. I would then spring into action." Doubtless he found it easier to draw an imaginary cat, such as this one. For other cats - and other works - by Bawden, please click here. If you are interested, please email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. -
Edward Bawden (1903-1989)
Hot Cat
Pen and ink 38 x 27 cm Signed and inscribed lower right. Bawden developed a love of cats at a young age, copying Louis Wain's cat pictures. In his later years, his drawings of cats became yet more frequent; his cat Emma featured in much of his work. In an interview with House and Garden in 1987 he said: "No cat will suffer being lifted up and dropped into an empty space intended for her to occupy; that procedure led inevitably to Emma, tail up, walking away at once, so I had to wait patiently until Emma had enjoyed a good meal of Coley and was ready to choose her daily sleeping place, wherever it might be. I would then spring into action." Doubtless he found it easier to draw an imaginary cat, such as this one. For other cats - and other works - by Bawden, please click here. If you are interested, please email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. -
Edward Bawden (1903-1989)
House Proud Mum Cat
Pen and ink 38 x 27 cm Signed and inscribed lower right. Bawden developed a love of cats at a young age, copying Louis Wain's cat pictures. In his later years, his drawings of cats became yet more frequent; his cat Emma featured in much of his work. In an interview with House and Garden in 1987 he said: "No cat will suffer being lifted up and dropped into an empty space intended for her to occupy; that procedure led inevitably to Emma, tail up, walking away at once, so I had to wait patiently until Emma had enjoyed a good meal of Coley and was ready to choose her daily sleeping place, wherever it might be. I would then spring into action." Doubtless he found it easier to draw an imaginary cat, such as this one. For other cats - and other works - by Bawden, please click here. If you are interested, please email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. -
Edward Bawden (1903-1989)
White Collar Worker Cat
Pen and ink 27 x 23 cm Signed and inscribed lower right. Bawden developed a love of cats at a young age, copying Louis Wain's cat pictures. In his later years, his drawings of cats became yet more frequent; his cat Emma featured in much of his work. In an interview with House and Garden in 1987 he said: "No cat will suffer being lifted up and dropped into an empty space intended for her to occupy; that procedure led inevitably to Emma, tail up, walking away at once, so I had to wait patiently until Emma had enjoyed a good meal of Coley and was ready to choose her daily sleeping place, wherever it might be. I would then spring into action." Doubtless he found it easier to draw an imaginary cat, such as this one. For other cats - and other works - by Bawden, please click here. If you are interested, please email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. -
Nancy Weir Huntly (1890-1963)
Trinity College Bridge Cambridge
Oil on canvas; framed in an antique-white-finished frame with gilt slip. Signed 'Huntly' 50x61cm Born in India, in Nusserabad, she studied art at the Royal Academy Schools in Dusseldorf. She lived in Welwyn Garden City, in Hertfordshire, with her daughter, Faith Sheppard, also a painter. She also painted under the name Nancy Sheppard. If you are interested email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. -
Nancy Weir Huntly (1890-1963)
St John's College Bridge of Sighs Cambridge
Oil on canvas; framed. Signed 'Huntly' 50x61cm Born in India, in Nusserabad, she studied art at the Royal Academy Schools in Dusseldorf. She lived in Welwyn Garden City, in Hertfordshire, with her daughter, Faith Sheppard, also a painter. She also painted under the name Nancy Sheppard. If you are interested email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. -
Rowland Suddaby (1912-1972) English Roses - Still Life
Oil on board 39x29cm (frame 58x46cm) c. 1950s Artist's label to reverse In a fine hand-finished frame Born in Kimberworth, Yorkshire, Suddaby commenced study in 1926 at the Sheffield College of Art on a scholarship, coming to London at nineteen in 1931. Following an early marriage and an initial struggle as an artist his first successful show was at the Wertheim Gallery in London in 1935, followed by a series of shows at the Redfern Gallery from 1936. For the latter he was their replacement for Christopher Wood (who had sadly killed himself in 1930 by jumping under a train) and he painted assured oils and watercolours - some showing Wood influences - in London and Cornwall. Popular with both art critics and the buying public he had great success. Early in World War Two, Suddaby moved - with his family - to the Suffolk countryside near Sudbury to become curator of the Gainsborough's House Museum, East Anglia providing him with the foundations for the pictures for which he is now well known. In 1940 he was chosen for the 'Recording Britain' project. Showing something of the influence of John Nash, his distinctive depiction of the East Anglian countryside, with its hedges and fences is instantly recognisable. His still life paintings which he also painted in the 1940s and 50s were exhibited at the Leger Galleries and at the Colchester Art Society of which he was a founder member. By the 1960s he had evolved his style towards abstraction. He was also a noted designer, producing textiles and furnishings and designing posters for Shell. His work is in many major collections such as the V&A Museum and the Government Art Collection If you are interested email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. Condition: Good. -
Ken Moroney (British, 1948-) The Fens, Norfolk (c. 1990)
Oil on canvas board 48 x 58 cm Provenance: Bonhams (2003) Of Anglo-Irish parentage, Moroney was born in South London, and showed early artistic talent. His Irish father, finding it unmanly, encouraged him to box, and whilst a teenager Moroney won a gold medal. However this did not distract him from art, and once his boxing hobby came to an end the paints continued to show his flair. Self-taught, his impressionistic style, with bold use of colour, has found widespread favour and his works now hang in many important collections. Here he captures the many colours often visible in a fenland sky, where the flat landscape makes for huge skies. If you are interested email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. Condition: Excellent. -
Adrian Heath Abstract Study III (1975)
Acrylic and pencil on paper 22 x 22cm Heath was born in Burma in 1920 and arrived in England aged five. In 1938 he studied art under Stanhope Forbes at Newlyn and later at the Slade School of Art. While serving in WWII, he was captured and placed in a prisoner-of-war camp in Bavaria. Heath attempted to escape from the camp but was recaptured and placed in solitary confinement; this isolation proved crucial to the development of his artistic style, as he spent much of his time there experimenting with abstract forms. When released from confinement, Heath befriended a fellow prisoner of war: Terry Frost. Together they explored the methods of painting which they had developed during their time in the camps, and following the war both became celebrated artists. We have several Terry Frost pieces available too. In 1949 and 1951, Heath returned to Cornwall. He spent time with artists like Ben Nicholson, Victor Pasmore, and Anthony Hill, and became the main link between the emerging St Ives School of artists and the British Constructivist movement back in London. He is further credited with promoting British abstract art through informal exhibitions in his studio on Fitzroy Street, as well as his manifesto-like text entitled 'Abstract Art: Its Origins and Meaning', which was published in 1953. Over time, Heath's paintings of abstract geometry and symmetry became increasingly dynamic and heavily textured, the result of layering paint on paint over the course of several days. This study features a muted colour palette and abstract asymmetric form. If you'd like to know more, please email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. Condition: Good. Signed lower right. -
John Piper (1903-1992)
Study for the Piper Building mural
Gouache 14.5x11.5cm Provenance: P Manzareli (who built the fibreglass murals for Piper), gift from the artist; Milne & Moller Fine Art; Katharine House Gallery; private collection, Scotland. This study is a fascinating part of London's architectural history. The Piper Building is a mid-century architectural icon in Fulham. Built in the 1950s as 'Watson House', it was a laboratory complex for the North Thames Gas Board and has an innovative concrete structure. Piper was commissioned to produce the murals surrounding the building. The Gas Board moved out in the mid 1980s. Scheduled for demolition in the 1990s, the building was instead converted into seventy apartments and renamed the Piper Building. With double-height ceilings, the apartments were sold as shells, and purchasers were free to commission their own architects and builders. Condition: Generally excellent; framed. For other works by the artist and biographical details, click here. If you are interested email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. -
Claude Muncaster Moor above Llangollen
Oil on canvas 36 x 51 cm Condition: Excellent, recently cleaned and revarnished. Signed lower right. Click here for biographical details and other works by the artist. If you are interested, email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. -
Alfred Daniels RBA RWS (1924-2015) All Souls, Oxford Acrylic on paper In a hand-finished white frame. 22x29.5cm (8.6x11.6 inches) Click here for biographical details and other works by the artist. If you are interested email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. -
Ethel Louise Rawlins (1880 – 1940)
A Garden Below the South Downs
Oil on canvas51 x 61 cmSigned lower right.Rawlins was a painter who studied at the Slade School of Fine Art and in Newlyn, Cornwall. She settled in Sussex in the early 1920s, and often painted the rolling hills of the Sussex landscape. Here, blue hills and a grey sky serve as the background for an extensive garden complete with stone urns, flowers, and slanting shadows created by the late afternoon sun. -
Roy Carnon (1911-2002) Derelict Catalina Redhills Lake near Madras
'Used in Stocks for Gunnery Practice' Oil on board, artist's painted frame Signed and dated 1946 and inscribed with title to reverse Click here for other works by Carnon. This 1946 painting of a derelict Second World War aircraft is a portrait of postwar disillusionment. The battered Catalinas which had survived the war became useful only as ground-based objects for target practice. Carnon's brooding colours and impasto application of paint illustrate how the technologies which helped the Allies to win the war became, overnight, unnecessary. The airmen based in India similarly became unnecessary, but unable to be demobilised they initiated the so-called RAF Mutiny in January 1946. Carnon attended Chiswick Art School becoming an illustrator. In 1965 he was responsible for visualising spacecraft for 2001: A Space Odyssey, being designer of the iconic 'wheel' spacestation. These drawings are now in the Kubrick archives at UAL. If you are interested email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. Condition: Excellent, recently cleaned and in artist's original frame. -
Edward Bawden (1903-1989)
Nurse Cat with Nine Lives
Pen and ink 38 x 27 cm Signed and inscribed lower right. Bawden developed a love of cats at a young age, copying Louis Wain's cat pictures. In his later years, his drawings of cats became yet more frequent; his cat Emma featured in much of his work. In an interview with House and Garden in 1987 he said: "No cat will suffer being lifted up and dropped into an empty space intended for her to occupy; that procedure led inevitably to Emma, tail up, walking away at once, so I had to wait patiently until Emma had enjoyed a good meal of Coley and was ready to choose her daily sleeping place, wherever it might be. I would then spring into action." Doubtless he found it easier to draw an imaginary cat, such as this one. For other cats - and other works - by Bawden, please click here. If you are interested, please email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. -
Edward Bawden (1903-1989)
Mum Cat with Nine Lives
Pen and ink 38 x 27 cm Signed and inscribed lower right. Bawden developed a love of cats at a young age, copying Louis Wain's cat pictures. In his later years, his drawings of cats became yet more frequent; his cat Emma featured in much of his work. In an interview with House and Garden in 1987 he said: "No cat will suffer being lifted up and dropped into an empty space intended for her to occupy; that procedure led inevitably to Emma, tail up, walking away at once, so I had to wait patiently until Emma had enjoyed a good meal of Coley and was ready to choose her daily sleeping place, wherever it might be. I would then spring into action." Doubtless he found it easier to draw an imaginary cat, such as this one. For other cats - and other works - by Bawden, please click here. If you are interested, please email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. -
Adrian Heath Abstract Study I (1970)
Gouache & ink 35x33cm Heath was born in Burma in 1920 and arrived in England aged five. In 1938 he studied art under Stanhope Forbes at Newlyn and later at the Slade School of Art. While serving in WWII, he was captured and placed in a prisoner-of-war camp in Bavaria. Heath attempted to escape from the camp but was recaptured and placed in solitary confinement; this isolation proved crucial to the development of his artistic style, as he spent much of his time there experimenting with abstract forms. When released from confinement, Heath befriended a fellow prisoner of war: Terry Frost. Together they explored the methods of painting which they had developed during their time in the camps, and following the war both became celebrated artists. We have several Terry Frost pieces available too. In 1949 and 1951, Heath returned to Cornwall. He spent time with artists like Ben Nicholson, Victor Pasmore, and Anthony Hill, and became the main link between the emerging St Ives School of artists and the British Constructivist movement back in London. He is further credited with promoting British abstract art through informal exhibitions in his studio on Fitzroy Street, as well as his manifesto-like text entitled 'Abstract Art: Its Origins and Meaning', which was published in 1953. Over time, Heath's paintings of abstract geometry and symmetry became increasingly dynamic and heavily textured, the result of layering paint on paint over the course of several days. Here, his colour palette surrenders to the compelling geometry of the painting's abstract forms. If you'd like to know more, please email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. Condition: Good. -
Paul Ayshford Methuen, 4th Baron Methuen of Corsham (1886 -1974)
Jesus College, Cambridge
Ink and pastel Signed and dated 30 May 1949; in artist’s original oak frame. 41x26cm (16.1×10.2 inches) For biographical details and other works by the artist click here. If you are interested email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. -
J Phillip Davies (British, 20th Century)
Selwyn College Cambridge
Oil on board c. 1970 60x89cm A rare view of Selwyn College Cambridge, captured here in all the glory of its Victorian red brick. -
Alfred Daniels RBA RWS (1924-2015)
Christ’s College, Cambridge
Gouache, watercolour and ink on board 40x56cm (15.7×22 inches). In a hand-finished cream frame. Click here for biographical details and other works by the artist. If you are interested email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. -
Robert MacDonald Fraser (1870-1947) 'Landscape with Footbridge'
Oil on canvas Signed 20" x 24" (50.5 x 61cm) Though of Scottish descent, an Englishman who was born, lived and died in and around Liverpool. He is believed to have become interested in painting during his secondary school years at the Liverpool Institute and Art School (where the principal was the distinguished landscape artist John Finnie), however his early career was in commerce. By the age of thirty he was well established in Liverpool's art circles but it was to be another decade before he took to painting full time. Between 1910 and 1938 he showed approximately fifty paintings at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, also having seven paintings accepted for the Royal Academy's summer exhibitions. He additionally exhibited at the Manchester Art Gallery, Liverpool Bluecoat and Royal Cambrian Academy, becoming - in 1929 - Vice President of the Liverpool 'Artists' Club.' He mostly painted the landscapes of North Wales and the North West of England. His family owned holiday cottages in North Wales, and Snowdonia provided him with much inspiration, it is believed that this painting is of a Snowdonia scene. If you are interested email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. Condition: Excellent. -
Lionel Bulmer (1919-1992) 'The Edge of the Field' (c. 1950s)
Oil on board 43 x 51 cm Signed lower right. Lionel Bulmer (1919-1992) attended Clapham art school before war intervened; after the war he started again at the Royal College of Art which had been relocated during the conflict to Ambleside in the Lake District. Here he met his lifelong partner Margaret Green who provided the model for many of his works. They returned to London where they studied under painters such as Ruskin Spear and Carel Weight, successors to the Camden Town and Euston Road schools. In the 1950s they moved to West Suffolk and much of Bulmer's work from this point on documents the Suffolk landscape and the coast at Aldeburgh and Walberswick. If you are interested email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. Condition: Excellent. -
Trevor Bell (1930 - 2017)
Way Out Blue (1961)
Acrylic on paper 35 x 43 cm Signed and dated lower right. Bell's rosy-hued abstract composition is perhaps evoking an interior with window and curtains. The deep azure blue of the picture's title appears at the top right of the composition, curving away from the rest of the image. A sunny golden yellow drips in through the window panes, imbuing the scene with a hot, heady romanticism. Bell's idiosyncratic pictorial language allows us to experience the scene's hazy summer heat via the forms of sun, window, and wall. Bell was born in Leeds in 1930 and attended Leeds College of Art from 1947 to 1952 in a scholarship. The artist Terry Frost encouraged him to move to Cornwall, where he soon became a leading figure in the younger generation of the St Ives school. His first solo exhibition came in 1958, and the year after he was awarded the Paris Biennale International Painting Prize. The Tate began collecting his work in the 1960s, and Bell spent more time working and teaching in America. The Tate's 1985 St Ives exhibition featured Bell's work, and he was also included in the Tate St Ives' inaugural show. He returned from America in 1996 and settled down in isolated barn- and farmhouse-conversion studios near Penzance in Cornwall. He exhibited across England and America for the rest of his life, notably with his major solo exhibition at the Tate St Ives in 2004. Much of his work considers form and landscape via a dramatic use of colour and often on unusually-shaped (and sometimes multi-part) canvases. Condition: very good. If you’d like to know more, please email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. -
James Gowan (1923, Glasgow - 2015, London) Fountains Abbey (1973)
52x62cm Oil on Canvas Signed 'James Gowan' lower left Inscribed to reverse 'Fountains Abbey 1973 James Gowan No 199' For biographical details and other paintings by Gowan click here. The present work exhibits many of the characteristics obvious in his architectural works. There is a very strong architectural composition. The landscape and sky are approached in almost cubist fashion, reminiscent of the Toblerone-shaped roof of the Leicester Building, whilst the figures have a carefree feel to them. And here indeed are the gothic towers and flying butresses that we know inspired Gowan when designing the Leicester Engineering Building, being captured by the brightly-dressed members of an art class, splashes of primary colour in an already colourful landscape. If you are interested email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. -
James Gowan (1923, Glasgow - 2015, London) The Blue Mill at Backbarrow
62x52cm Oil on Canvas For biographical details and other paintings by Gowan click here. The present work exhibits many of the characteristics obvious in his architectural works. There is a very strong architectural composition. The landscape and sky are approached in almost cubist fashion, reminiscent of the Toblerone-shaped roof of the Leicester Building, whilst the figures have a carefree feel to them. Backbarrow was the place where the blue pigment ultramarine (or dolly blue - used to return brilliant whiteness to yellowed fabrics) was produced in an old mill building by the Lancashire Ultramarine Company. Dust from the production gave the entire village a blue tint until production ceased in 1981. The factory is now a hotel and it maintains a display of machinery used in the factory. If you are interested email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. -
Kenneth Rowntree
Abstract Australian Landscape
Watercolour 27.5 x 33cm Signed (top left) and dated 'Kenneth Rowntree '85' Provenance: Anderson & Garland Studio sale of Kenneth Rowntree lot 263 Tuesday 8 September 2009 For biographical details and other works by Rowntree click here. Rowntree visited Australia in 1984/85. In this painting he picks up various vignettes from the Australian landscape in six separate blocks. Two relate to the sky, with almost-unbroken blue skies stretching from horizon to horizon, three relate to desert areas, with a whole array of different textures, and one is a luscious green. In one of the desert scenes he has picked out two road signs, in typical Rowntree fashion, reducing them to their simplest form. In her essay Kenneth Rowntree: A Strange Simplicity (published in Kenneth Rowntree A Centenary Exhibition Published by Moore-Gwyn Fine Art and Liss Llewellyn Fine Art, on behalf of the artist’s estate, on the occasion of the centenary of Kenneth Rowntree’s birth) Alexandra Harris makes reference to this painting noting:Later, in 1986, just when the young David Hockney was collaging the signs and road-markings of Route 138 in Pearblossom Highway, Rowntree was in Australia painting yellow diamond-shaped road-signs as bright icons in open country. Wherever he went, Rowntree captured both the unfamiliarity of places and their relationship to things he knew. Heading into the Australian outback, he painted a road-sign as he would paint a rail signal at Clare in Suffolk or nautical markers at Swansea.
Hockney's 1986 Pearblossom Highway may be seen here in the Getty and it is worth noting that Rowntree was in fact painting the yellow sign in 1985, so a year before Hockney. If you are interested email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. -
Gwyneth Johnstone (1915 - 2010)
The Railway Bridge
Mixed media 64 x 83 cm Signed lower left in paint, and monogrammed lower left in pencil. Provenance: the estate of the artist. Johnstone explores the possibilities of abstraction in this semi-delirious depiction of a railway bridge. Painted in tones of burnt umber, orange, grey, and black, the picture is populated by warped railings, bending trees, and staring onlookers, all of which centre around a railway line and bridge. Tanya Harrod described Johnstone's painting style a 'a hallucinogenic, haunting pastoral', and that is immensely evident in this picture. Johnstone was an English painter who worked mostly in oils and often depicted poignant modern landscapes. Her parents were the musician Nora Brownsford and the artist Augustus John. She studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, where she established lifelong friendships with fellow artists Mary Fedden and Virginia Parsons. After the Slade, Johnstone was taught academicised cubism by the painter André Lhote at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris. For a brief period in the early 1950s she took life classes with the surrealist artist Cecil Collins at the Central School of Arts and Crafts. -
Paul Ayshford Methuen (1886 - 1974)
Barrage Balloons, Regents Park, 9 March 1940
Oil on board 36 x 52 cm Signed lower left and titled and dated lower centre. Lord Methuen's oil painting of Regent's Park on a winter's day, with barrage balloons above. Barrage balloons were set up - stationed at an altitude of around 4,000 ft - as a barrier to enemy aircraft. The steel cables used to tether the balloons would take an enemy aeroplane out of the sky if it were to hit the cable. The UK had thousands of them, filled partly with hydrogen and operated largely by women, to protect significant towns, cities, and military installations. These strange blobs floated over the country, just asking to be captured by artists. Methuen had rejoined his regiment (serving as a Captain) in 1939 but was likely stationed in London for a while, when he might have had the opportunity to capture this scene. When Methuen painted the scene in 1940, Britain was still in the stage of the phoney war. The Battle of Britain did not commence until 10 July, and the Blitz not until 7 September - but Britain's defences were ready. Barrage balloons were important all the way through the War: they defended London against the V2 missiles; they defended the D-Day invasion fleet; and they protected the invasion army for months. Indeed, it was said that the vast amount of material brought into the UK from the States prior to D-Day would have caused Britain to sink under the sea, were it not for the huge number of barrage balloons holding the country up... Condition: excellent. Recently revarnished. If you’d like to know more, please email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. -
Mary Fedden (1915-2012) Moonlight at Cappadocia (1970)
Watercolour 18 x 13 cm Signed and dated lower left Lonely Planet says of Cappadocia, "As if plucked from a whimsical fairytale and set down upon the stark Anatolian plains, Cappadocia is a geological oddity of honeycombed hills and towering boulders of otherworldly beauty." Here Fedden presents an almost surreal landscape, where the forms of rocks, sky, and moonlight swim out of a subtle palette. If you are interested, please email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. Condition: Excellent. In original frame with replacement mount in the style of the original. -
Brendan Neiland (b.1941)
Original Designs for Intercity Posters - Edinburgh and York
Collage, spraypaint and cut out 91x58cm (36×23 inches) each 1991 Click here for biographical details and other works by the artist. If you are interested email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. -
Eva Lucy Harwood (1893 - 1972)
Still Life with Flowers and Glass
Oil on canvas 49 x 40 cm ( 67 x 57 cm framed) A mid-century still life typical of Harwood's impasto style. Lucy Harwood was a British artist who studied art at the Slade just before the outbreak of the First World War. She had initially intended to be a professional pianist, but turned her attentions to visual art after becoming partially paralysed. She was one of the first students to enrol at Cedric Morris' East Anglian School of Drawing and Painting, where she focused on painting Post-Impressionist landscapes, painting just with her left hand. She moved to Upper Layham in Suffolk and is known for her landscapes of the area. Condition: generally very good. Handsome hand-finished frame. Provenance: Louise Kosman, Edinburgh. If you’d like to know more, please email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. Click here to view our other still life pictures. -
Sir Terry Frost (1915-2003) Bottle and Statue Oil on board c. 1947 38 x 46cm A distinctive still life featuring bottle, statue, and drapery. Terry Frost was a prominent British abstract artist. Frost is most noted for his simplistic abstract forms and unusual colour; he worked alongside the St Ives group and as Barbara Hepworth's assistant for several years, his artistic style being heavily influenced by them. In 1992 he became a Royal Academician, and he was made Sir Terry Frost in 1998. Bottle and Statue highlights Frost's unique compositional skill. His brushwork makes the statue seem like a real nude, who, framed by turquoise and ochre draperies, examines the still life in the foreground. An early work, painted shortly after the War and prior to his adoption of abstraction. For other works by Frost and biographical details please click here. Condition: A little craquelure in the oil above the statue's head. -
Wilhelmina Barns-Graham (1912 - 2004)
Card for Sandra Blow's 75th birthday (1995)
Gouache and collage 34 x 21 cm Inscribed to reverse "For Sandra, Happy Birthday, with love Willie, 13/9/95". Barns-Graham's modern design features 70 vividly coloured circles; each one is different from the last, but all are geometrically aligned in neat rows and columns. Sandra Blow's initials appear separately as "S" and "B" in the design. Blow and Barns-Graham became friends in the 1950s; both spent lengthy periods of time in St Ives, and made major contributions to Britain's catalogue of post-war art. Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, known as Willie, was born in St Andrews, Fife, on 8 June 1912. Her parents were second cousins, and their respective families were well established representatives of minor Scottish gentry from both the east and west of the country. As a child, Barns-Graham showed very early signs of creative ability. It was at school that Wilhelmina decided that she wanted to be an artist, stating later in life that "painting chose me, not I it". After school she set her sights on Edinburgh College of Art where, after some dispute with her father (who was an emotional man prone to uncontrolled anger), she enrolled in 1931. During her time at Edinburgh College, Barns-Graham was taught by tutors including portrait painter David Alison and painter William MacTaggart. Her friends there included the influential Scottish painters Robert MacBryde, Robert Colquhoun, and William Gear. After her education, Barns-Graham made study trips to Paris, London, and St Tropez before moving to St Ives, Cornwall, in 1940 (at the suggestion of the Edinburgh College of Art's Principal Hubert Wellington). Barns-Graham moved near to where a group of modernist artists had settled, at Carbis Bay - this was a pivotal moment in her life. On one of her first evenings there she met the sculptor Barbara Hepworth, who made an immediate and lasting impression on her. She then went on to meet Borlase Smart, Alfred Wallis, and Bernard Leach, as well as the painter Ben Nicholson and the sculptors Naum Gabo and Margaret Mellis. After two weeks in St Ives, Barns-Graham acquired her first studio, directly below the Porthmeor Gallery which was the administrative headquarters of the St Ives Society of Artists. Her paintings at the time were heavily influenced by the Cornish landscapes and the St Ives harbour. During 1940 and 1941, Barns-Graham contributed to the war effort by volunteering in a factory making camouflage nets. In 1942 Barns-Graham became a member of the Newlyn Society of Artists, in which she exhibited with every year, and the St Ives Society of Artists. Whilst establishing herself in St Ives, Barns-Graham also continued to send work back to Scotland for major exhibitions held there such as the Royal Scottish Academy's 117th Exhibition in 1943. The 1940s were an active time for the St Ives Society of Artists who received a number of invitations to send exhibitions and groups of works to galleries in the UK and abroad, Barns-Graham's work was always included in these as the Society's secretary, Borlase Smart, thought highly of her work. Barns-Graham's first opportunity to exhibit in London came when her work was included in a group exhibition of six at the Redfern Gallery. This was due to the introduction and support of Patrick Heron, who had visited Barns-Graham's studio in St Ives and was excited by her work. Barns-Graham would later have her first one-person exhibition in London at Redfern in 1952. After a few years of tension, Barns-Graham eventually left the St Ives Society of Artists in 1949, becoming one of the founding members of a new breakaway group named Penwith Society of Arts. The first Penwith Society exhibition opened in June 1949 to huge success - 2755 paying visitors came to see it. Provenance: the Jonathan Grimble Estate; the Sandra Blow Estate. Condition: very good; in original frame. If you’d like to know more, please email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. -
Terry Frost (1915-2003)
'Untitled Landscape'
Oil on canvas, laid on board 22 x 81.5cm Exhibited London, Coram Gallery, Terry Frost: Works on Paper and Small Paintings, 23 September-29 October 1994 Click here for biographical details and other works by the artist. If you are interested email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. -
Ken Howard RA (1932 - 2022)
Hampstead Church (St Stephen's Church, Rosslyn Hill)
Oil on board 75 x 91 cm Ken Howard's magnificent view of St Stephen's Church, Hampstead. The artist's rich, deep colour palette and use of impasto underline the neo-gothic style of the church. Howard died in Hampstead and painted several views of the area and its architecture. St Stephen's was designed in the Neo Gothic style by Samuel Sanders Teulon and he considered it the best of the 114 churches he designed, calling it his "mighty church". The building is no longer a church, but wedding ceremonies still take place there; it was made a Grade I listed building in 1974. Kenneth Howard OBE RA was a British artist and painter. He was President of the New English Art Club from 1998 to 2003. He studied at the Hornsey College of Art and the Royal College of Art. In 1958 he won a British Council Scholarship to Florence, and in 1973 and 1978 he was the Official War Artist to Northern Ireland, and 1973 - 80 worked in various locations, including Hong Kong, Cyprus and Canada with the British Army. In 1983 he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy (ARA). In 1998 he became President of the New English Art Club, a post he held until 2003. In 1991 he was elected a Royal Academician (RA). Howard was given his OBE in 2010. Condition: very good. If you’d like to know more, please email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. -
John Piper (1903-1992)
Reims Cathedral (c. 1960)
Ink, watercolour and gouache 21x35cm Inscribed 'Reims' lower left and signed 'John Piper' lower right. Piper loved all things France, and all things Cathedral; in this work, he brings the cathedral of Reims, where France's monarchs were crowned, to life. Piper also produced an aquatint of Reims which was published in 1972. For other works by the artist and biographical details, click here. If you are interested email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. Condition: Generally excellent; framed. -
John Piper (1903-1992)
Bullslaughter Bay
Watercolour, gouache and pastel on paper 27.5 x 35.5cm John Piper CH was an English painter, printmaker, and designer of stained-glass windows. His work often focused on the British landscape, especially churches and monuments, and included tapestry designs, book jackets, screen-prints, photography, fabrics and ceramics. Piper spent a considerable amount of time in Pembrokeshire, frequently returning to the landscape of Bullslaughter Bay; this painting was probably produced there in the mid-1950s. The artist captures an animated, capricious bay, characterised by a distinctive colour palette and stamped with irregular rock formations. Condition: generally excellent. For other works by the artist and biographical details, click here. If you are interested email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056.
