Bidding on this item has ended.
Nevill Johnson
WINTER SOLSTICE
Lot 23
Price Realised:
€5,500
Estimate:
€3,000 - €5,000
Nevill Johnson, 1911-1999
WINTER SOLSTICE
Oil on board, (48.2 x 81.3cm), signed; signed and inscribed verso; artist label verso.
Solstice appears to date from the early 1950s, a period of great success for Johnson, during which the critic of the D...
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Lot 23
Nevill Johnson
WINTER SOLSTICE
Lot 23
Nevill Johnson
WINTER SOLSTICE
Estimate:
€3,000 - €5,000
Nevill Johnson, 1911-1999
WINTER SOLSTICE
Oil on board, (48.2 x 81.3cm), signed; signed and inscribed verso; artist label verso.
Solstice appears to date from the early 1950s, a period of great success for Johnson, during which the critic of the Dublin Magazine wrote that he ''can be numbered amongst that first half-dozen important modern painters in the country''. During this time, Johnson's work was included in the exhibitions of Irish painting organised by Victor Waddington that toured the USA and there was a solo Nevill Johnson exhibition held in Washington in 1958, the year in which this painting was purchased. The visual ambiguity, the wit and the subtle sense of dislocation are three constant elements in Johnson's work of the late 1940s and 1950s. The spatially contradictory landscape of the present painting is actually more like a stage set, while the strange drama pushed to the edge of the foreground, played out between two spiky etiolated creatures, has a quality that is eerie rather than disturbing. The dry and roughly worked surface, with its tonally restrained palette, is equally in harmony with the mood of much post-war European art, and there are interesting comparisons with Ben Nicholson and Paul Nash that are not always obvious in Johnson's work. There is poetry in Johnson's solstice but it also depicts a moment where the natural world has been left as a barren post-atomic landscape, peopled with vicious caricatures of the human and animal world, subtle and sophisticated yet gently disturbing. The solstice symbolises a moment at which the harmonious cycles of the natural world have stopped. Johnson returned to the subject in 1978, but that painting Summer Solstice (Ulster Museum Collection) has taken on the nostalgic richness of Johnson's later work. Dickon Hall, October 2010
WINTER SOLSTICE
Oil on board, (48.2 x 81.3cm), signed; signed and inscribed verso; artist label verso.
Solstice appears to date from the early 1950s, a period of great success for Johnson, during which the critic of the Dublin Magazine wrote that he ''can be numbered amongst that first half-dozen important modern painters in the country''. During this time, Johnson's work was included in the exhibitions of Irish painting organised by Victor Waddington that toured the USA and there was a solo Nevill Johnson exhibition held in Washington in 1958, the year in which this painting was purchased. The visual ambiguity, the wit and the subtle sense of dislocation are three constant elements in Johnson's work of the late 1940s and 1950s. The spatially contradictory landscape of the present painting is actually more like a stage set, while the strange drama pushed to the edge of the foreground, played out between two spiky etiolated creatures, has a quality that is eerie rather than disturbing. The dry and roughly worked surface, with its tonally restrained palette, is equally in harmony with the mood of much post-war European art, and there are interesting comparisons with Ben Nicholson and Paul Nash that are not always obvious in Johnson's work. There is poetry in Johnson's solstice but it also depicts a moment where the natural world has been left as a barren post-atomic landscape, peopled with vicious caricatures of the human and animal world, subtle and sophisticated yet gently disturbing. The solstice symbolises a moment at which the harmonious cycles of the natural world have stopped. Johnson returned to the subject in 1978, but that painting Summer Solstice (Ulster Museum Collection) has taken on the nostalgic richness of Johnson's later work. Dickon Hall, October 2010
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In the event of a tied bid, the preference will be given to the bid submitted first. The second bidder will receive immediate notification of being outbid.
PLEASE BID EARLY TO AVOID DISAPPOINTMENT.
In order to allow rival bidders the opportunity to respond to a late bid the following extensions will apply:
IF A BID IS RECEIVED WITHIN THE FINAL 45 SECONDS OF THE COUNTDOWN THE CLOCK WILL RESET TO 60 SECONDS.
At any point you can leave a maximum bid, representing the highest price you are prepared to pay for a particular lot. Bidding only advances when there is competition from a rival bidder. In that case the system bids on your behalf, only up to the maximum if required. All bids are relayed to you be email, along with notification if you have been outbid.
All maximum bids are confidential and not disclosed. The system will endeavor to purchase the lot for you for the least price. Bids are subject to buyer’s premium of 25% (incl vat), with no additional charges.
In the event of a tied bid, the preference will be given to the bid submitted first. The second bidder will receive immediate notification of being outbid.
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