Patrick Heron,
British 1920-1999 -
 
STILL LIFE WITH HYACINTHS, PLAICE AND...

Patrick Heron,

British 1920-1999 -

STILL LIFE WITH HYACINTHS, PLAICE AND LEMON : 1946, 1946;

oil on canvas, signed and dated upper left 'Patrick Heron 46', 53 x 62.5 cm (ARR)

Provenance:

with the Redfern Gallery, London;

Howard Bliss, purchased from the above in 1947;

J.P. Hodin, purchased by January 1957 and thence by descent;

with Offer Waterman & Co., London;

private collection, UK, purchased from the above in 2003;

Christie's, London, 6th June 2008, lot 98;

private collection, purchased from the above

Exhibition:

Redfern Gallery, London, 'Summer Exhibition', July-September 1947 (no.116, exhibited as 'Still-life, February')

Leicester Galleries, London, 'From Gainsborough to Hitchens - A Selection of Paintings and Drawings from the Howard Bliss Collection', January 1950 (no.106, exhibited as 'Still-life, February')

Regional Exhibition Room, Cambridge (Arts Council of Great Britain for the Cambridge Festival), 'An Exhibition of Modern Paintings from the Collection of Howard Bliss Esq.', July-August 1951 (#6, exhibited as Still Life)

Note:

This beautiful early composition shows the artists exploring a subjective use of colour, influenced by Pierre Bonnard, that he would hone and simplify in his celebrated mature abstraction. Heron has also experimented with a complex arrangement of space, which was inspired by the work of George Braque, seen here in the flattened form of the table offset with lines incised into the paint, to disrupt the traditional picture plane.

This work has an extraordinary provenance, passing between two great patrons of Post-War British art, Howard Bliss and J.P. Hodin.

Howard Bliss (1894-1977) served on the Art Panel for the Arts Council of Great Britain in the 1950s. Between 1951-52 the Arts Council organised travelling loan exhibition of his collection, to enable people outside of London to see and appreciate Modern art.

Josef Paul Hodin (1905-1995) was an important art historian, who wrote on figures including Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth and John Milne. Hodin lived between London and Cornwall, becoming friendly with the artists in St. Ives, including Patrick Heron, writing catalogue essays and articles on his work. There is an extant letter from 1957 in which Heron congratulates Hodin on the purchase of this work.

We are very grateful to the Patrick Heron Trust for assisting in the preparation of this catalogue entry. The Patrick Heron Trust is in the process of researching the forthcoming catalogue raisonne of the artist's work and would like to hear from owners of any works by Patrick Heron, so that these can be included in this comprehensive catalogue. Please write to The Patrick Heron Trust, c/o Rosebery's 70/76 Knight's Hill, London SE27 0JD