Peter Lanyon

Catherine Viviano Gallery, New York, where acquired by the present owner in the 1960s

New York, Catherine Viviano Gallery, Peter Lanyon, 26th January - 21st February 1959, cat. no.11;
Minneapolis, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, European Art Today: 35 Painters and Sculptors, 1959 - 1960, cat. no.65, illustrated, with tour to San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore;
Lincoln, University of Nebraska, Nebraska Art Association’s 71st Annual Exhibition, 1961, cat. no.71;
San Antonio, Marion Koogler McNay Art Institute, Peter Lanyon, March 1963, cat. no.6;
Bloomington, Illinois Wesleyan Museum, School of Art, Annual Purchase Exhibition, 1963 (no catalogue produced);
Katonah, Katonah Gallery, Contemporary British Artists, 1964 (no catalogue produced);
Michigan, Grand Rapids Art Museum, International Painting Exhibition, 1965, un-numbered exhibition.

Andrew Causey, Peter Lanyon, Aidan Ellis Publishing Limited, Henley-on-Thames, 1971, pp.21, 56, cat. no.104, illustrated pl.62.

The board appears sound. There is some very light surface dirt in places. Subject to the above, the work appears to be in excellent overall condition. Ultraviolet light reveals no obvious signs of fluorescence or retouching. The work is presented in a painted and gilded wooden frame. Please telephone the department on +44 (0) 207 293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
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We are grateful to Martin Lanyon and Toby Treves for their kind assistance with the cataloguing of the present work, which will feature in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the oil paintings and three-dimensional works, to be published by Modern Art Press in association with Yale University Press.

Peter Lanyon’s name has always been intimately tied with Cornwall. He was born, raised and buried there and is the lone native among the major figures of the Post-War St Ives School. As Toby Treves has pointed out: ‘No article, book or exhibition fails to list the core biographical facts that tie him to West Penwith, the duchy’s westernmost tip and in truth so many of Lanyon’s own statements and works carry references to Cornwall that the approach is more than justified’ (Toby Treves, ‘Cornwall Inside Out’, Tate Etc. issue 20: Autumn 2010, 1st September 2010). Yet Cornwall was not the only location that fed into his paintings. Italy also had an important place in Lanyon’s heart and offered enormous fresh stimulus for his art.

Lanyon was twenty-five when he first went to Italy in December 1943. He was a flight mechanic in the RAF and stayed for exactly two years, in which time he learned Italian and travelled the southern provinces, drawing, painting and taking photographs. After the war he returned three times. The first of these trips was made in 1950 with his wife Sheila. Together, they visited Florence, Siena, San Gimignano, Assisi, Arezzo, Perugia, Urbino, Pesaro, Bologna and Venice. In 1953 he was awarded an Italian painting scholarship and spent four months, from January-April, in Anticoli Corrado near Tivoli. Four years later he returned to Rome and visited Nemi, Albano, Saracinesco and Anticoli. He was a fascinated observer of Italian peasant life and rituals. A large body of work evolved from Lanyon’s experiences in Italy and amongst these are important paintings such as Nemi, Albano, Saracinesco and the present work.   

A keen walker, Lanyon explored the hilltop towns of Italy on foot. The artist labelled a colour 35mm slide of the present painting 'Dry Wind Italy' and in his own catalogue records he called the work 'Wind in Italian Mountains'. In the later years of the 1950’s Lanyon began to move his painting away from trying to depict the land itself and instead attempted to capture the momentary qualities of the dramatic weather effects seen there. He wrote: ‘Many of my paintings are paintings of weather. I like to paint places where solids and fluids come together, such as the meeting of sea and cliff, of wind and rock, of human body and water, I wasn't satisfied with the tradition of painting landscape from one position only. I wanted to bring together all my feelings about the landscape, and this meant breaking away from the usual method of representing space in a landscape painting - receding like a cone to a vanishing point. I wanted to find a new way of organising the space in a picture' (Peter Lanyon, recorded interview, 1962, reproduced in Alan Bowness (intro.), Peter Lanyon, London, Tate, 1968).

One can interpret the composition of the present work as Lanyon encountering a ferocious dry wind, which buffets the hard Italian mountains, and whips the thick cloud up against a deep blue sky. Dry Wind epitomises Lanyon at his expressive best. Through the gestural spontaneity of his brushwork the painting projects a feeling of exhilaration and demonstrates Lanyon’s confidence in his ability. The viewer is immediately transported upwards into the clouds and down low over the red soil. The tall, upright format of the present work was not unusual for Lanyon, appearing throughout the decade, but here the complex colour arrangements suggest a variety of references. Dry Wind shows the rich palette and use of strong reds and browns commonly found in Lanyon’s Italian inspired paintings. These warm colour tones help to stabilise the blues and whites that sweep across the surface. In the 1960s, red came to signify the flight-path of a glider - as can be seen in the wonderful exhibition, Soaring Flight: Peter Lanyon’s Gliding Paintings, currently showing at the Courtauld Gallery, London.