Christopher Wood 1901-1930
Anemones in a Wine Glass
oil on canvas
11 x 11 ins


Literature
Richard Ingleby, Christopher Wood, Allison & Busby, London, 1995, pl.13



'Wood is an English painter' wrote Jean Cocteau in his catalogue introduction to the exhibition Wood shared with Ben and Winifred Nicholson at the Beaux Arts Gallery in 1927 'his painting speaks little, it takes exercise in the fresh air - before the canvas you don’t think, you live. A bunch of flowers is a bunch of flowers. Smell it.'. It is a nice description of one of the essential qualities of Wood’s work, his still-lifes and flower pieces especially, and it is worth observing that compared with the 1925 painting of a very similar subject (Plate XI) that his style has developed considerably. His close friendship with Ben and Winifred Nicholson, which had begun late in 1926, as well as his particular interest at this time in Van Gogh’s painting reveal themselves here in the more deliberately 'primitive' character of this painting, and though Wood himself was worried that his 'pictures are getting darker and darker and so black. No black is black enough' it is a painting that shows clearly the distinctive and entirely personal mature style that marks him out as one of the most influential painters of his generation.