Peter Lanyon

Sheila Lanyon
Private Collection, U.K., where acquired by the present owner

London, Gimpel Fils, Peter Lanyon, 9th April - 17th May 2003, un-numbered exhibition;
London, Scholar Fine Art & Berkley Square Gallery, Peter Lanyon, March - April 2004, un-numbered exhibition.

 

Original canvas. There are some very minor old possible frame abrasions visible upon close inspection, and a fine horizontal line running along the extreme top edge, with minor resultant traces of very light craquelure. There are a couple of minor lines of very fine craquelure to the centre of the left hand edge, with further minor traces appearing to the top and bottom right corners, the bottom left corner and a couple of further scattered traces visible to the upper right quadrant, most noticeable to the red pigment. There is reticulation to the blue pigment in the lower right quadrant. There is flattening to some of the raised elements of thicker impasto and scattered, very minor traces of very light studio detritus. There is a tiny fleck of loss to the bottom left hand edge in the pale blue, and an uneven paint surface to the body of the red in the bottom right quadrant, which appears in keeping with the nature of the artist's techniques and materials. This excepting the work appears in good overall condition. Ultraviolet light reveals trace of fluorescence and probable retouchings in the extreme top left corner, and further, minor flecks appearing to the pale blue pigment in the left hand side of the composition, all executed in a very sympathetic manner. Housed in a thin strip frame. Please telephone the department on +44 (0) 207 293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
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'I live in a country which has been changed by man over many centuries of civilisation. It's impossible for me to make a painting which has no reference to the very powerful environment in which I live. I have to refer back continually to what is under my feet, to what is over my back, to what I see in front of me…' (The Artist, 1962, in conversation with Sir Alan Bowness, quoted in Peter Lanyon, exh. cat., Tate London, 1968, unpaginated).

Born in St Ives to Cornish parents, Lanyon lived and worked in Cornwall for the best part of his life. The intoxicating blend of dramatic coastal topography, unique light and forever changing weather fronts, together with a rich tapestry of history and mythology embedded in the region was the beating heart of his artistic output. But such ‘provincial’ roots shouldn't detract from the power, innovation and wider impact of Lanyon’s mission. Indeed, within his lifetime, he had the same number of one-man exhibitions (five) in New York with Catherine Viviano, that he had in London with Gimpel Fils. Together with his friends and contemporaries Patrick Heron, Alan Davie, William Scott, Terry Frost and Roger Hilton, the story of his artistic development is the story of post-war painting in Britain. Using Ben Nicholson and Naum Gabo's avant-garde example as a spring board for his own ideas, Lanyon forged ahead in the later 1940s and 1950s to create a radical new conception of what it was to be a landscape painter.

Painted in 1960, Iron Coast exemplifies the dynamic style and utterly personal response to the landscape which he developed in the proceeding decades. In comparison to the intensely layered, scraped and worked surfaces of earlier paintings such as Trevalgan (1951, Witte Memorial Museum, San Antonio) and Sarascinesco (1954, City Museum and Art Gallery, Plymouth), the energetic free flowing brushwork and sweeping passages of rich colour mark an important transition – the looser handling and expansive scale certainly nod to developments in American painting that Lanyon would have witnessed both at the 1956 exhibition at Tate, Modern Art in the United States, but also from his visit to New York for his first American one-man show at Catherine Viviano’s Gallery in 1957. However, it was his experience of gliding which he first attempted in 1959 that perhaps had the greatest impact – his earlier, heavily-worked paintings with a more literal sense of place, became airborne: ‘the whole purpose of gliding was to get a more complete knowledge of the landscape, and the pictures now combine elements of land, seas and sky - earth, air and water, I had always watched birds in flight exploring the landscape, moving more freely than man can, but in a glider I was similarly placed' (The Artist, 1962, in conversation with Sir Alan Bowness, quoted in Peter Lanyon, exh. cat., Tate, London, 1968, unpaginated).

The canvas support is also significant – during the late 1950s, Catherine Viviano encouraged him to transition from working principally on board to canvas, in part to reduce the cost of trans-Atlantic transportation. The canvas allowed not only a greater facility with oil but also scope, which coincided with his ambitious designs for the first of three monumental works - a major ceramic mural for the Engineering Department of Liverpool University.

In terms of subject, the bold red and brown hues relate to the Red River that once poured red-brown tin-waste into St Ives bay close to the Godrevy lighthouse. As such, the painting is the culmination of an important eight year series of works referencing the once prolific Cornish mining industry including paintings such as Levant Old Mine (1952, Private Collection), Botallack (1952), Levant Zawn (1953, Private Collection), St Just (1953, Private Collection), Wheal Owles (1958, Private Collection) and Lost Mine (1959, Tate, London).

We are grateful to Martin Lanyon for his kind assistance with the cataloguing of this work.