Description
Signed, oil on canvas
Dimensions
50cm x 65cm (20in x 25.5in)
Footnote
Provenance: Collection of Roy and Mairi Rankin
Exhibited: The Scottish Arts Council, Robin Philipson - Cock Fight/Rose Window 1961
Note: Throughout various points in his career, Sir Robin Philipson became occupied with the exploration of particular motifs.
Just as Picasso had been drawn to the spectacle of the bull fight a few decades earlier, Philipson became fascinated by cock fights while serving in India during the Second World War. He made a point of returning in the early 1950s, deepening his interest, and found continued inspiration in the subject throughout the 1960s. They are viscerally and expressively rendered to the point of abstraction - a maelstrom of flying feathers and lunging beak and claw. They occupy empty, barren landscapes, lit by a strange sky. The cock fighting series brought the artist renown, and examples can be found in the country's national collections.