Offer Waterman
Skip to main content
  • Menu
  • Home
  • Artists
  • Exhibitions
  • Notable Sales
  • News
  • Publications
  • About
  • Contact
Cart
0 items £
Checkout

Item added to cart

View cart & checkout
Continue shopping
Menu

St Ives

Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Peter Lanyon, Gwennap, 1964
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Peter Lanyon, Gwennap, 1964

Peter Lanyon 1918-1964

Gwennap, 1964
oil and collage on board
25 by 19 inches
63.50 x 49.53 cms
signed, titled and dated verso and inscribed Viviano March '64

Further images

  • (View a larger image of thumbnail 1 ) Thumbnail of additional image
  • (View a larger image of thumbnail 2 ) Thumbnail of additional image
Listed by Peter Lanyon as 'Construction, no.162A'. Taking its title from a small village and china clay pit near Redruth in Cornwall, this painting dates from the last year of...
Read more
Listed by Peter Lanyon as 'Construction, no.162A'. Taking its title from a small village and china clay pit near Redruth in Cornwall, this painting dates from the last year of Lanyon’s life. A trip to Prague at the beginning of 1964 had included meetings with other artists, visits to cultural sites and a journey into the High Tatra Mountains of Northern Slovakia in wintertime as well as a brief, intense romance with his Slovakian interpreter. All of this proved intensely stimulating to Lanyon’s last months of work; not only were they among the most productive of his life but during this time he pushed his art in intriguing and tantalisingly significant new directions. The chief impact of the visit seems to have been in the brighter, sharper colours that all his 1964 paintings employed. It is tempting to trace the intense greens, whites and blues of Gwennap, for example, to the snowy mountain landscapes, forests and brilliant winter skies we know he experienced during this visit, and these colours characterised the Czechoslovakian subjects he completed immediately after his return. The re-introduction of collaged elements into his paintings also dates from this point. In Gwennap this is apparent in the incised and cut away masonite board surface, a development that marks a return to those early concerns with pictorial space represented by his pre-war (1939-46) box constructions.
It is very moving to see how in this, one of his last Cornish subjects, his extensive travels, most notably to the USA (this work was first shown, at the Catherine Viviano Gallery in New York) and close friendships with Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning, had stimulated him into making these final, astonishingly vigorous and foward-looking visions of his own native landscape.
Close full details

Provenance

Catherine Viviano Gallery, New York, 1964
Iola Haverstick, U.S.A
Offer Waterman, London
Private Collection, London
Offer Waterman, London

Private Collection, London, since 2011

Exhibitions

Catherine Viviano Gallery, New York, Lanyon : Exhibition of Paintings, Collages, Constructions and Watercolours, 5 - 23 May, 1964, cat no.22

Previous
|
Next
8 
of  16

info@waterman.co.uk

+44 (0)20 7042 3233

Join our mailing list

Join the mailing list
Instagram, opens in a new tab.
View on Google Maps
Privacy Policy
Modern Slavery Statement
Manage cookies
Copyright © 2025 Offer Waterman
Site by Artlogic

This website uses cookies
This site uses cookies to help make it more useful to you. Please contact us to find out more about our Cookie Policy.

Manage cookies
Accept

Cookie preferences

Check the boxes for the cookie categories you allow our site to use

Cookie options
Required for the website to function and cannot be disabled.
Improve your experience on the website by storing choices you make about how it should function.
Allow us to collect anonymous usage data in order to improve the experience on our website.
Allow us to identify our visitors so that we can offer personalised, targeted marketing.
Save preferences
Close

Join our mailing list

Interests *

Signup

* denotes required fields

We will process the personal data you have supplied to communicate with you in accordance with our Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe or change your preferences at any time by clicking the link in our emails.