Les Plats du Jour

The sea was a point of consistency in Wadsworth’s oeuvre, with marine objects becoming important motifs throughout his career. This interest began in 1918, when he worked on ‘dazzle-camouflage’ for ships in Bristol and Liverpool, later manifesting itself in his art in the 1920s when he began working on a series of tempera harbour scenes and still-life paintings, and in 1936 Wadsworth was commissioned to paint two works for the first and cabin class Smoke Rooms for the new liner, Queen Mary.

In the 1930s, Wadsworth painted a series of still-lifes taking real life nautical instruments and marine subjects and combining them in unexpected ways to create unusual compositionally configured works. Wadsworth had a collection of maritime equipment and other ephemera, which he would arrange in his studio to paint from, later inserting imaginary seascapes into the backgrounds, as seen in the present work.

Les Plats du Jour and other works of this period in particular show Wadsworth’s knowledge and enthusiasm for European art trends, most notably Surrealism. He had close associations with Pierre Roy, Jean Metzinger and in particular Giorgio de Chirico, whom he greatly admired, and corresponded with in 1928 on the subject of tempera painting. He would also no doubt have seen his one-man exhibition in October - November 1928 at Arthur Tooth & Sons, who by this time was representing Wadsworth. Like his Surrealist compatriots, Wadsworth laid particular emphasis on the isolation and aggrandisement of the object, paying great attention to the contrasting relative weights, textures and forms of his motifs. He also enjoyed playing with perspective and the sense of spatial distance, often depicting still-life objects at close range granting them with a Surrealist quality, making them seem larger than they really are.