Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson A.R.A

(British, 1889-1946)

Hampton Court 61.5 x 46 cm. (24 1/4 x 18 1/8 in.)

Footnotes

Provenance
Sale; Phillips, London, 10 November 1987, lot 58
With David Messum, London, 1988, from whom acquired by the present owner
Private Collection, U.K.

Exhibited
London, Leicester Galleries, Paintings and Watercolours by C.R.W. Nevinson, October 1921, cat.no.6
London, David Messum, British Impressions, A Collection of British Impressionist Painting 1880-1940, from 23 June 1988, cat.no.68 (col.ill.)

Literature
'The Queen', Magazine, 15 October 1921 (ill.b&w)
'Drawing and Design', Magazine, July 1922
'Drawing and Design', Magazine, June 1922 (ill., frontispiece, where titled Henley)

"I hope my pictures make it clear that I paint what I love, how I like, for the joy of painting – a motive so rarely suspected in living artists" (C.R.W. Nevinson, catalogue introduction to the exhibition Paintings and Watercolours by C.R.W. Nevinson at the Leicester Galleries, London, 1921).

Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson's fame rests primarily on the pictures he executed in his capacity as an Official War Artist during the First World War. Shown to critical acclaim and much public attention at the Leicester Galleries in 1916 and then 1918, they remain to this day amongst the most enduring images of the conflict. However these now iconic works constitute but a small component of Nevinson's extensive output, which is overall more broadly concerned with the various themes of industry, leisure and landscape.

In the immediate post-war years of 1919-1922 Nevinson painted pictures which he referred to as his 'peace' works. Despite his futurist and vorticist roots, Nevinson did not consider himself a 'modern' and publicly declared in the introduction to his first peace time exhibition; 'I wish to be thoroughly disassociated from every "new" or "advanced" movement; every form of "ist," "ism," "post," "neo," "academic" or "unacademic." (C.R.W. Nevinson, catalogue introduction to the exhibition New Works by C.R.W. Nevinson at the Leicester Galleries, London, 1919). Indeed the 'peace' pictures, with a defiantly lyrical air, are a sharp turn away from the stylized mechanical aesthetic of his preceding output. This stance was upheld with his rather sharp tongued review of "isms" in his 1921 exhibition introduction where he introduced his public to 'Gagaism' ("The international curse of the senile who dominate all official Art Societies, especially in France") and 'Babaism' ("The propagandist sheep who bleat of pure art and significant form, and butt inanely for little periodicals").

Nevinson's tendencies towards public declarations, often pointed and unsympathetic to his peers and supporters, invited rather unkind retort. He recalls "The only oasis I had was in the friendliness and generosity of Oswald Greene, brother of the present Master of the Rolls, who used to drive us every weekend to his houseboat at Hampton Court' (C.R.W. Nevinson, Paint and Prejudice, Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1938, p.203). It is presumably on such a trip that Nevinson painted the present oil. Archetypal of the peace time works Hampton Court celebrates the leisure pursuits of the great British public in the immediate heady years of the interwar period. Our scene is likely a depiction of the view looking west from atop Hampton Court Bridge. The pier depicted at the left of the composition still stands today. The canvas throngs with the lively hubbub of the summer regatta. Yet rather than the full spectacle of the event, Nevinson chooses to direct our eye to the relaxed couple in the foreground, the young lady's hand lazily enjoying the fresh water. This simple, tranquil gesture is the antithesis to the wrought anxiety of the war works, a testament to how diverse Nevinson was as an artist.

The July 1922 Drawing and Design review remarks "to say that Hampton Court is a masterpiece of perspective in form, tone and colours, is to give no hint of its rare individual charm..." ('Drawing and Design', Magazine, July 1922).