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John Piper C.H. (1903-1992)
Garn Fawr
Watercolour and gouache on paper; executed 1969 37 x 54 cm Titled and dated lower left ‘Garn Fawr 12 VIII 69′; signed lower right. It was Piper's wife, Myfanwy - whom he met whilst she lived in London with her Welsh family - who first introduced Piper to West Wales in the 1930s. The Pembrokeshire landscape became his muse, as it also did for Graham Sutherland, another great neo-romantic painter. Having lived in various parts of Wales during the post-war period, the Pipers bought a cottage by Garn Fawr, on the Pembrokeshire Coas, in 1962. The volcanic outcrop was the site of an Iron Age hill fort, and had also been used as a high-viewpoint during the First World War. Piper started out as a mostly abstract artist, but by the 1960s he had moved more towards realism, often focusing on depicting architecture. Here, Piper paints the wet Welsh countryside. Each of the fields is complete with its own crop; the different plants and flowers are designated by characteristic splashes of dark colour. For other works by the artist and biographical details, click here. If you are interested, please email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. -
John Piper (1903 - 1992)
Cartoon for Baptistry Chapel Window, Coventry Cathedral
Gouache and mixed media art 127 x 54 cm Labelled B101 by the artist and initialled. A gouache design for one of the Coventry Cathedral Baptistry Window panels. John Piper was commissioned to design the Baptistry Window in 1955, in partnership with glassmaker Patrick Reyntiens. The window is made of 198 panels of stained glass and is 26 metres high.Piper commented in his book “Stained Glass: Art or Anti-Art?” that ‘The function, the flesh and blood and bones of stained glass – its whole being – is to gratify light and to intensify atmosphere in a room or building, not necessarily to provide colour – or a message.’ The ambiguous post-war tenor of the design is striking: the khaki palette, the soldier-like figure, and the landscape evoking a 20th century theatre of war.
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. Condition: very good. Four pin holes and a small handling mark mid left. If you are interested, please email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. Click here for other works by John Piper. -
Bryan Ingham (1936-1997)
Upright Jug (1993-95)
Pencil and oil on board 64 x 19 cm Provenance: Bohun Galleries, Paintings in Hospitals. Signed, titled and dated 1993-95 (on backboard). Bryan Ingham was born in Yorkshire. For his National Service he joined the RAF, and spent his time in Germany as an airman. After demobilisation, his final report included the statement that "Ingham is an artistic sort of airman." In his spare time he had started painting in oils, and by the time he left the RAF he had completed a large number of paintings. He studied at St Martin's School of Art in London, where he had the tuition of a fine post-war generation of teachers who helped him to hone his draughtsmanship and other skills, and he swiftly showed a capacity for painting that drew the attention of his tutors and peers. On graduating he was offered and accepted a post-graduate place at the Royal College of Art, where in his second year he was awarded a Royal Scholarship and was a contemporary of a number of now better-known names including David Hockney. Ingham applied for and received a Leverhulme travel award to explore the sites of the great Renaissance painters, and spent many happy months engaged in this expedition. He spent time at the English Art school in Rome, where he lived well and busied himself the same studio that Barbara Hepworth had used. At this stage of his career, Ingham consciously rejected the prospect of pursuing a career as an establishment artist, although the RA was open to him, and he went to live in remote cottage in Cornwall. The subsequent years were varied and highly productive, and Ingham's personal artistic voice emerged in his oeuvre in the form of an always-developing dialogue with influences both of landscape and other artists of every age. His preoccupation with etching resulted in several hundred plates, some very large, and the results are as unmistakable as they are varied, but invariably of outstanding quality. He produced a number of sculptures in bronze and in plaster, while his lifelong output of paintings remained small but again of very high quality. He taught etching regularly until about 5 years before his death, latterly at Falmouth Art School, and also at Farnham Art College. During the late eighties he established a relationship with the art dealer Francis Graham-Dixon, who had a London gallery. This meant that his paintings were professionally marketed for the first time, and prices for his work rose steadily in the last ten years of his life, and subsequently. He was able to purchase a cottage in Helston for his parents, who lived there until their deaths. He then moved into a fine set of converted-barn studios with a patch of garden, quietly situated off the High St in Helston, and it was here, on 22 September 1997, that he died, having quietly suffered from cancer for nearly a year. If you'd like to know more, please email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056. Condition: Generally excellent; framed. -
Terry Frost (1915-2003)
Autumnal Landscape in Red, Black and Yellow
Watercolour 40 x 58 cm Signed and dated 1958 Framed in hand-finished grey 'Nicholson' butt-jointed 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. In 1954 Frost moved to Leeds to become Gregory Fellow at the University. This began a period when he painted yellow and black and white paintings, inspired by the Yorkshire landscape. In 1958 he joined the London group and then moved to St Ives. This painting dates to this era. -
Julian Trevelyan (1910-1988)
Cretan Windmills (1964)
Oil on canvas 61 x 77 cm Peasants and a donkey, followed by a cow and goat, travel along the Cretan shore. Windmills dominate the shoreline - Julian Trevelyan was markedly inspired by the windmills he saw while visiting Crete in the 1960s. The composition is substantially made up of triangular forms; the inverted floating pyramid hovers above the flashing blades of the windmills. Combined with the man, woman, and donkey in the foreground, the pyramid detail suggests Mary and Joseph’s Flight into Egypt. 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. -
Julian Trevelyan (1910-1988)
New York Bridges (1982)
Oil on canvas 76 x 61 cm (29.9 x 24 in.) In artist's original wooden frame. Provenance: the estate of Mary Fedden from the estate of her husband Julian Trevelyan. 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. -
Blair Hughes-Stanton (1902-1981) Reclining Nude, c. 1936
Tempera on canvas 76.5 x 102cm Signed lower right 'Blair H S'. Provenance: The estate of the artist. A magnificent abstract nude rendered in a dynamic colour palette. This is probably Hughes-Stanton's most important work, and belongs to the nation's great, if brief, period of British Surrealism. The three major elements are distinct: the pastel tones of the window view and wall, the sensual curvatures of the pale nude, and the bold foreground featuring a fantastically accomplished still life of a fruit bowl (which could be a painting in and of itself) and the impressively phallic chair back. This is a brilliant example of erotic modernist abstraction. Blair Hughes-Stanton, son of the artist Sir Herbert Hughes-Stanton, was a noted British artist of the interwar period. At the age of 13 he joined the Royal Navy training ship HMS Coway, but at 19 - advised by his father - he abandoned the sea for his paintbox. He studied art at Byam Shaw School (1919-1922) where he was influenced by Leon Underwood (who was a major influence throughout his studying), Royal Academy Schools (1922-23), and Leon Underwood's School (1923-25). He was celebrated mostly for his skills as an engraver, and was a founding member of the English Wood Engraving Society when it was established in 1925. His first wife was the printmaker Gertrude Hermes with whom he illustrated John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress in 1928. In 1931 he became head of the Gregynog Press, later establishing the Gemini Press with his second wife Ida Graves. During the course of his career he worked in various media, though his art frequently focused on the female nude. He taught at Westminster School of Art (1934-39), Colchester School of Art (1945-47); St Martin's School of Art (1947-48); and Central School of Arts and Crafts (1948-80). His teaching career was interrupted by the Second World War, during which he served as a camofleur and then joined the Royal Engineers (ignoring his earlier life in the Navy). Serving in Greece, he was captured as a prisoner of war and was imprisoned in a camp. He returned to England after the war. If you’d like to know more, please email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056.
