- 97
John Bratby, R.A.
Description
- John Bratby, R.A.
- Tonked Still Life
- signed
- oil on board
- 53.5 by 71cm., 21 by 28in.
Provenance
Condition
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Catalogue Note
Painted in 1954.
In an article written for the magazine Encounter in 1954, the critic David Sylvester unwittingly gave the ‘Kitchen Sink’ tag to the four painters also often grouped together as the ‘Beaux Arts Quartet’; John Bratby, Derrick Greaves, Edward Middleditch and Jack Smith. However, recent art historical research has sought to look afresh at these painters, their relationship with each other and their position in the British art world of the 1950’s. Now, with over half a century of hindsight, it is becoming possible to see not only how these paintings are informed by the spirit and concerns of the time but also how they fit into both a tradition and context of European social realism.
Bratby’s table-top still life paintings in the 1950’s are perhaps the diametric opposite of those produced by the established artists of the decade like Ben Nicholson, and with their thickly applied paint and almost haphazard clutter of branded products littered across the image, almost assault the viewer. The appeal of packaging and brands appears in Bratby’s work well in advance of that which it was to engender amongst the later pop artist’s, but commentators have been divided over Bratby’s motive for using such subjects. Was he responding to the recent widening of choices available to the British consumer with the end of post-war rationing and revelling in the colour and vibrancy of the packaging, a modern ‘pronkstilleven’, or is this a more acid comment on consumerism?