Patrick Heron 1920-1999
The Boats and The Iron Ladder, 1947
oil on panel
12 by 24 inches
signed

Provenance
Private Collection, UK

Exhibited
London, Redfern Gallery, Patrick Heron, October 1947, cat no.48
Wakefield, City Art Gallery, Patrick Heron Retrospective Exhibition, 5 April - 3 May 1952, cat no.29 illus colour
Edinburgh, Richard Demarco Gallery, Retrospective Patrick Heron, June - July 1967, cat no.18 illus colour
London, Tate Gallery, St Ives 1939-64: Twenty Five Years of Painting, Sculpture and Pottery, 13 February - 14 April 1985, cat no.108
London, Tate Gallery, Patrick Heron, 25 June - 6 September 1998, cat no.5, illus colour p54



Painted in London either just before or just after a visit to St Ives in 1947. Heron had lived in St Ives as a child and remembered well the harbour with upturned boats, lobster pots and the iron ladders attached to granite piers. The Boats and the Iron Ladder merges memories of St Ives harbour with Mousehole, where he spent the summer of 1946.

As in other paintngs from this period, such as Sunset Abersoch, 1947, and Hyacinths and Fish, 1946, here one can see the influence of French Post-Impressionism. In 1946, Heron had seen the large exhibition of recent works by Georges Braque held at the Tate Gallery and was enormously impressed by the elder painter’s ability to create space and depth with planes of pure colour. Later that year he wrote a long article on Braque for The New English Weekly. Having visited Braque in France in 1949 and looked closely at Matisse, Derain and Vlaminck, Heron’s work of the late 1940’s and early 1950’s has a very strong French flavour, particularly in its use of colour.