Beschreibung:

λ AUGUSTUS JOHN (BRITISH 1878-1961) ÉTANG DE BERRE - LA MONT SAINTE VICTOIRE Oil on panel Inscribed (verso) 23.5 x 32.5cm (9¼ x 12¾ in.) Painted in 1910. Provenance: The Adams Gallery, London Spink, London (Possibly), Sale, Phillips, London, 24 January 1989, lot 81 Private Collection, Tim Rootes and Obby Waller, Barton Hill House, Gloucestershire John first travelled to the lagoon of L'Étang de Berre in 1910. He was so enchanted with the region between Marseilles and Arles that he chose to rent a house, Villa Ste. Anne, in the small fishing village of Martigues, nestled on the banks of L'Étang. The family visited frequently until 1928. For Augustus, the beauty of the translucent sunlight against the shimmering water and pale hills beyond inspired him to embark upon a series of sketches on panel, some studies for larger paintings. "After a necessary interval spent in observation and experiment, I attuned my eye at last to the marvellous light of this region, and a series of panels attest, I think, to the beneficial effect of it upon my palette" Augustus John Chiaroscuro, London, 1952, p. 107 The resulting body of work, forty-eight small oil panels of 'Provençal Studies' of which at least three depicted L'Étang de Berre, was exhibited in London in November-December 1910. In his book on the artist, Michael Holroyd describes how "The oil sketches at the Chenil Gallery revealed, for the first time, a gift for colour. The pale hills of Provence with their olives and pines and their elusive skies, the summer light across the Étang mysteriously moving with sun and shade, seemed to have brought Augustus into a more vivid contact with nature". Michael Holroyd, Augustus John London, 1996, p. 339 Whilst the present two works (lots 128 and 129) do not seem to have featured in the Chenil Gallery exhibition, they undoubtedly belong to this body of work. Mont Sainte Victoire appears in the background of the painting 'Children Paddling', oil on panel, dating from 1910 (Private Collection), and included in the Tate Gallery catalogue 'Gwen John and Augustus John', 2004, no 59. We are grateful to Rebecca John for her kind assistance in cataloguing these lots.