| |
1.
Works on paper by John Piper
Western Art Print Room, Opening hours 10-1 & 2-4 Tues-Sat (tel
01865 278049).
Individuals do not need to book in advance.
The Western Art Print Room has a significant holding of drawings by
John Piper from the Lewin Bequest. It includes a record of the damage
to the Interior of Coventry Cathedral, which Piper was asked to draw
by the War Artists’ Committee after it was heavily bombed on
the the night of 14-15 November 1940. For many years Piper’s
reputation was linked to his paintings of the ruined cathedral and,
of course, later he was to design the stained glass for the baptistry
window.
|
2.
Still Life with Flag, 1945, Ben Nicholson, 1945
Gallery 47, Sands Gallery of Early 20th Century Art
A contemporary of Piper, Ben Nicholson was chairman of the 7 and 5
Society from 1926. By 1935, with a membership including Moore, Hepworth
and Piper, he has seen the Society’s movement to extreme abstraction.
Although perhaps best-known for his white reliefs, this tiny painting
shows two very ordinary mugs, which seem to hover in space. Beyond
them is the simple outline of the horizon of St Ives Bay in Cornwall,
the home of the artist at the time. The small Union Jack adds a note
of national celebration in the year that World War II ended.
|
|
3. The
Tobacco Packet, Georges Braque, 1931
Gallery 47, Sands Gallery of Early 20th Century Art
John Piper met Braque in London in 1927 and again in Paris in 1933.
By the 1930s Braque had experimented with a range of modernist movements,
such as Fauvism and Cubism. Still-lifes were his preferred subject
throughout his career. Braque liked to explore possibilities for
creating the effects of space and solidity, while at the same time
making it clear that a painting was in fact a balance of shapes,
colours and patterns on a flat canvas.
|
|
