Julian Trevelyan 1910-1988
Behind the Pub, 1945
oil on board
9 x 11 ins
signed lower right

Provenance
Private collection, UK



Like many of his generation, Trevelyan experimented with surrealism and abstraction in his early career but he moved back towards a more figurative idiom from the late 1930’s. The present painting is however unusually pastoral in its subject, as most of his work of the immediate post-war period looks at the complex relationship between the industrial, domestic and natural worlds. This aspect of his oeuvre is perhaps most fully seen in his images of the Thames near the Hammersmith home, Durham Wharf, which he shared with his wife, Mary Fedden.

However, the distinctive painting manner which he developed after WW II is here employed to produce a work of great charm and, emphasised by its small size, jewel-like colour.