John Minton

(British, 1917-1957)

London, 1941 25.4 x 40.1 cm. (10 x 15 7/8 in.)

Footnotes

Provenance
The Artist, from whom gifted to
Peter Mackenzie-Young
Thence by family descent to the present owner
Private Collection, U.K.

German bombing of the capital had intensified throughout 1940, but in early 1941 the ferocity of the raids increased and huge swathes of the East End of London, with its docks and wharves, were damaged, burnt or destroyed. Areas such as Wapping and Poplar which Minton was well acquainted with from evening visits in the early days of the blackout, were particularly hard hit and in the drawings and paintings he produced, this sense of desolation is pronounced. London, 1941 does not depict an immediately identifiable part of the city and Minton did not seek topographical accuracy in his work of the period but rather 'a theatre of the soul, an arena in which to explore Kafkaesque feelings of wretchedness, guilt and alienation' (Frances Spalding, John Minton: Dance Till the Stars Come Down, Lund Humphries, London, 1991, p.40). The painting is imbued with an inescapable melancholy with the ragged and waif-like figure at the left foreground of the composition a depiction of the artist himself. He stands, alongside the few others within the painting, surrounded by the bleak scene of a city savaged by war with its crumbling structures, blown out buildings and derelict streets. An overwhelming sense of desolation pervades the composition, reinforced by the oppressive sky that casts its fading light over the landscape.

The majority of works by Minton at this time were executed in pen and ink on paper, usually with a little sepia wash to give tone. The artist's work was strongly featured in the Barbican Art Gallery's 1987 exhibition titled A Paradise Lost: The Neo-Romantic Imagination in Britain 1935-1955 yet no oils were included, perhaps owing to their rarity. London, 1941 was a personal gift from the artist to his friend Peter Mackenzie- Young and bears some close similarities to London Street (Private Collection, 1941), illustrated in Frances Spalding's biography on the artist. Bonhams have been privileged to offer two further works from 1941, which include the current world auction record for the artist with Figure in Ruins, which was sold for £72,000 on March 6th 2007.