Landscape at Saliés-de-Béarn, Pyrénées-Atlantiques

Details

David Jones, C.H. (1895-1974)
Landscape at Saliés-de-Béarn, Pyrénées-Atlantiques
signed and dated 'David Jones/28.' (lower right)
pencil, ink and watercolour on paper
19 ¾ x 24 in. (49.8 x 61 cm.)
Executed in 1928.

Provenance

René Hague, 1972.
with Anthony d'Offay, London, where purchased by the present owner in 1982.

Literature

N. Gray, The Paintings of David Jones, London, 1989, no. 16, illustrated.

Exhibited

Aberystwyth, Arts Council of Great Britain Welsh Committee, The National Library of Wales, David Jones Paintings, Drawings and Engravings, July - August 1954, no. 16: this exhibition travelled to Cardiff, National Museum of Wales, August - September 1954; Swansea, The Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, October 1954; Edinburgh, The Diploma Galleries, The Royal Scottish Academy, November - December 1954; and London, Tate Gallery, December 1954 - January 1955.
London, Austin Desmond Fine Art, David Jones & The Seven and Five Society, June - July 1991, exhibition not numbered.
Chichester, Pallant House Gallery, The Art of David Jones: Vision and Memory, October 2015 - February 2016, exhibition not numbered: this exhibition travelled to Nottingham, Djanogly Art Gallery, March - June 2016.

Special Notice

Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.

Brought to you by

Philip Harley

pharley@christies.com +44 207 389 2687

Lot Essay

The two Salies-de-Béarn landscapes, this one and lot 371, were executed in the spring of 1928 during a trip with Eric Gill to stay in a villa at Salies, a commune in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in south-western France, after a visit to Chartres Cathedral. The villa was part-owned by Gill, whose presence was undoubtedly enlivening though the two did not always agree. It was an immensely fruitful sojourn for Jones, who finished a dozen large watercolours in seventeen days, mostly painted from the villa’s first floor balcony. He responded to the southern light by heightening his palette and loosening his paint structure, and clearly admired the foothills of the Pyrenees (which reminded him of the Black Mountains in Wales) which he depicted with energy and enthusiasm. The freshness of his attack is hard to resist. It was Jones’ first trip abroad since the war and he was entranced by the countryside which he connected with the troubadour legends of Le Chanson de Roland.

A.L.

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