DUNCAN GRANT | VIEW OF ST TROPEZ

Gillian Jason Gallery, London

Sale, Christie's London, 12th June 1981, lot 62

Acquired by the late owner, 22nd January 1991

London, The Independent Gallery, Catalogue of Recent Paintings and Drawings by Duncan Grant, June 1923, possibly.

We are grateful to Richard Shone for his kind assistance with the cataloguing of the present work, and for preparing the note below.

The present work depicts the church (Notre-Dame de l’Assomption) and town of St Tropez painted during a lengthy winter stay (1921-22) in the South of France, spent by the artist along with Vanessa Bell and her family. Several works from this period are in public collections, including another St Tropez Landscape South of France (1922, Tate). Writing in the Tate catalogue (1999) to The Art of Bloomsbury, Richard Shone describes Grant’s style at that time which corresponds well with the present painting, it is: ‘notable for sober but warm colour, an elimination of detail, firm contour’ and constructive contrast between architecture and the natural setting. It is almost certain that Grant finished this and other St Tropez paintings after his return to London in January.