Peter Lanyon

Sheila Lanyon
Gimpel Fils, London
Sale, Sotheby's London, 24th May 1990, lot 726
Thomas Agnew & Sons, London, where acquired by the previous owner, January 2011
Sale, Christie’s London, 20th June 2016, lot 35, where acquired by the present owner

London, Gimpel Fils, Recent Paintings, Gouaches and Constructions by Peter Lanyon, March 1958, cat. no.3;
Oxford, Bear Lane Gallery, Five Cornwall Artists, November 1958 (details untraced);
Tokyo, Metropolitan Art Gallery, Fifth International Art Exhibition, May - June 1959, cat. no.5, with Arts Council tour to Tomiya Gallery, Fukushima;
London, Gimpel Fils, Recent Paintings by Peter Lanyon, October - November 1960, cat. no.4;
Norwich, Castle Museum, Exhibition of Contemporary Painting, 7th - 31st December 1961 (details untraced);
London, Congress House, Festival of Labour Exhibition of New Art, 13th - 27th June 1962, cat. no.32;
Eindhoven, Stedelijk van-Abbe Museum, Kompas II - Contemporary Paintings in London, October - December 1962, cat. no.46;
Cambridge, Arts Council Gallery, Three Contemporary Painters: Peter Lanyon, Henry Mundy, Ceri Richards, 12th October - 2nd November 1963, cat. no.2, with tour to Fermory Art Gallery, King's Lynn, Art Gallery, Glasgow, Midland Group Gallery, Nottingham and the Art Gallery, Cheltenham;
London, Tate, Peter Lanyon: Arts Council Retrospective, 30th May - 30th June 1968, cat. no.45, with tour to City Art Gallery, Plymouth, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, City Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham and Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool.

'Five Cornwall Artists', Art News and Review, 22nd November 1958;
Herbert Read, Art Since 1945, Penguin, London & New York, 1959, illustrated pl.116;
Andrew Causey, Peter Lanyon, Aiden Ellis, Henley-on-Thames, 1971, no.86;
Andrew Lanyon, Peter Lanyon 1918-1964, Penzance, 1990, illustrated p.165.

The board is sound. There is a tiny possible old nail hole in the upper left corner. There is some minor frame abrasion around the extreme edges, including some rounding to the corners and with a few tiny associated losses, only visible upon close inspection. There are some small spots of minor surface dirt in places. There is a small area of light staining or possibly studio detritus to the centre of the composition, approximately 12 inches above the bottom edge. Subject to the above the work is in very good overall condition. Inspection under ultraviolet light reveals sensitive spots of retouching along the extreme edges possibly filling old frame abrasion, as well as a few small areas close to the edges, and a small area of retouching in the extreme upper left corner. The board is float mounted within a simple white painted wood frame. Please telephone the department on +44 207 293 6424 if you have any questions.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
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We are grateful to Toby Treves and Martin Lanyon for their kind assistance with the cataloguing apparatus for the present work, which will feature in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the Artist’s oil paintings and three-dimensional works, being prepared by Toby Treves, to be published by Modern Art Press in association with Yale University Press.

Towards the end of the 1950s, Lanyon’s focus began to shift away from landmarks and the landscape per se, and towards more temporal events, especially weather and the elements, as he continued to draw inspiration from his native Cornwall. His paintings from the years immediately before he took up gliding in 1959 illustrate the significance of his ever-changing surroundings: wind-wracked coast lines, the ebb and flow of tides, the flight of birds over cliffs, and the swirl of air currents. The resultant paintings, suffused with the colours of the Cornish coast, carry suitably evocative titles; Zennor Storm (Tate, London), Bird Wind (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco), Silent Coast (Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester), and Long Sea Surf (Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.). Writing about Silent Coast of 1957, Lanyon noted: ‘after a year of elimination I produced the Silent Coast which became the first of many weather paintings and led to the later paintings of air rather than shore or coast’ (Peter Lanyon quoted in Andrew Lanyon, Peter Lanyon 1918-1964, Penzance, 1990, p.168).

Coast Wind, painted in the same year as Silent Coast, wonderfully demonstrates Lanyon’s focus on the elements at this time. Taking inspiration from his American Abstract Expressionist counterparts, the work is executed on a large scale – in January of 1957 Lanyon had his first solo American exhibition, at the Catherine Viviano Gallery in New York, also meeting Robert Motherwell, Clement Greenberg and others – yet Lanyon fills the canvas with a subject all his own. Jagged, triangular shapes in a muted Cornish green may be read as either strips of land jutting into the sea, or the sails of boats, surrounded by a veritable maelstrom of brushstrokes. His application of paint takes on a mimetic quality: the generously gestural strokes of blue, white, green and black are swept and scrubbed onto the surface, representing turbulent winds, roiling waves and frothing surf. Scale and surface leave the viewer in no doubt of the intensely-felt physicality Lanyon seeks to convey: Coast Wind conjures an image of powerful gusts of Atlantic air, buffeting cliffs, sea and gulls alike, with clouds scudding overhead, and boats bobbing beneath.

Sixty years after its completion, Coast Wind has lost none of its energetic impact: exhibited in 1958 in Five Cornwall Artists at the Bear Lane Gallery, it inspired the following review alongside another painting, Beach Wind: ‘Peter Lanyon provides in Beach Wind and the larger Coast Wind the two most exhilaratingly successful pictures in the show… He paints his wind-smitten blue and white scenes as though spray were running down his glasses, blurring the forms he sees. He shows the unseen forces that attack and play over a landscape - the rocketing up-draught, the white squall flowing round a dark promontory; we approach his cliffs and uplands with the weather-sensitivity of a bird who can only reach the safe brown cleft by rocking and ducking through the invisible rumpus in the air…’ ('Five Cornwall Artists', Art News and Review, 22nd November 1958). Coast Wind shows Lanyon at his most masterful: harnessing the power of the elements, the viewer is transported in a flurry of brushstrokes to the Cornish coast, seen through the eyes of one of the region’s most individual artists.