John Piper
36 x 48 cm
Piper, with his wife Myfanwy, moved to Fawley Bottom
Farmhouse near Henley-on-Thames, just south of Thame, in 1934. Residing at the
farmhouse until his death in 1992, Piper frequently visited the nearby parish of
Thame; he painted Rycote Chapel, St Mary’s Church in the neighbouring town
Lewknor, and photographing Thame’s St Mary’s Church.
High Street, Thame is particularly rich in texture, drawing
rom Piper’s experience as a commissioned artist during the war, when he
developed a fascination for the raw and decaying qualities of ruined
architecture and varied surfaces. The work also marks a transitional moment in
Piper’s artistic development in terms of palette. In the early 1950s, Piper
began to experiment with bolder, more vibrant colours, distancing from the sombre,
darker tones that characterised much of his earlier work.
Provenance
Wilfred Evill, circa 1951-52.
Miss Honor Frost, 1965.
Private collection, UK.
Exhibitions
London, Leicester Galleries, 1952, no. 29.
Sussex, Brighton Art Gallery & Museum, Wilfred Evill Memorial Exhibition, June – August 1965, no. 131.
Henley on Thames, River & Rowing Museum, John Piper: Master of Diversity, March – July 2000, no. 7.
Literature
S. John Woods, John Piper: Paintings, Drawing and Theatre Designs, London, 1955, n.p., pl. 147.
Exhibition catalogue, John Piper: Master of Diversity, Henley on Thames, River and Rowing Museum, 2000, n.p., no. 7, illustrated.