Exhibitors
Lucy Johnson
| Artist: | PRUNELLA CLOUGH (1919-1999) |
| Title: | PRUNELLA CLOUGH (1919 -1999) Scrap metal in grass 1958 (1958) |
| Dimensions: | 21.00cm high 28.50cm wide |
| Description/Expertise: | PRUNELLA CLOUGH (1919 -1999) : Scrap metal in grass, 1958
Signed lower right Oil on board Label bearing title and date on reverse Reverse marked ‘Farley 737 and bears another label ‘Far Bar 367’. Provenance : Private Collection, and thence by descent Board length 28 ½ cm., 8 ½ in., Height 28 ½ cm., 11¼ in In an oak box frame Frame length 34 cm., 13 3/8 in., Height 28 ½ cm., 11 ¼ in., The elements in this work have been simplified to their most basic form. Scrap Metal in grass has an extraordinary and unexpected magic because of the sheer sophistication and refinement in Clough’s handling of pigment, surfaces and textures which creates the reduced, quintessential character of her icon-like metal fragments amongst the grass. The labels on the reverse refer to Farley Farm in East Sussex, the home of Roland Penrose and Lee Miller which came to be known as 'The Home of The Surrealists in England' and now holds a dazzling collection of artistic treasures. Farley's became a meeting place for many of the most influential artists of the 20th century including Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Max Ernst, Man Ray, Paul Éluard and Henry Moore. Penrose and Miller held a number of exhibitions here, where this picture appears to have been shown twice. One of Britain's most respected post-war painters, Prunella Clough developed a highly personalised visual language that hovered between abstraction and figuration. She frequently depicted urban or industrial motifs derived from her London environment, and she would set these against a soft, indeterminate background. Throughout the 1950’s Clough’s treatment of the relationship between man and his constructed environment became more abstract and her focus broadened implying rather including human presence. ‘I prefer to look at the urban or industrial scene or any unconsidered piece of ground. Looking at the ground does come into my painting… since I do not draw directly in landscape, it is the memory or recollection of a scene, which is also a whole event, that concerns me.. a painting is made from many events, rather than one; and in fact its sources are many layered and can be quite distant in time, are are rarely if ever direct..there is a vast discrepancy between the rawness of the original experience, walking around in any kind of urban wasteland, and the relatively tidied up and composted painting that comes from it.’ PC Clough's essential claim to her strong position in modern British painting comes most centrally from the rare beauty and individuality of her work. But there is also the historic fact that she is the first woman painter in Britain to have achieved recognition entirely on her own terms. |
| Provenance: | Private collection by descent |
OTHER WORKS
 Sir William Nicholson (1872-1949) : The Ruined Castle, a view of Dunure from the... |
 Roger Hilton (1911-1975) : Landscape Study |
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