JOHN BRATBY R.A. (BRITISH 1928-1992)
VENICE WASHING
£3,800
Scottish Contemporary & Post-War Art
Auction: 25 August 2011 at 10:00 BST
Description
Signed and dated 1988, and inscribed label verso, oil on canvas
Dimensions
122cm x 92cm (47.5in x 35.8in)
Footnote
Provenance:Garvey Collection
Despite inauspicious beginnings at Kingston School of Art (which he left upon failing an intermediate exam in arts and crafts), John Bratby's enormous artistic potential soon earned him a scholarship to the Royal College of Art, and would see him become one of the major, and most colourful, figures in twentieth century British art. Originally drawn to Neo-Romanticism, in the post-war years Bratby would become a key exponent of the Kitchen Sink Movement, representing a dramatic shift towards realism and a sharp focus on the details of everyday existence, coupled with an angry sense of social inequality. Unlike other artists connected with the movement, such as Jack Smith, Edward Middleditch,
and Derrick Greaves, however, Bratby's work was always suffused with intense colour, and this, along with the less specifically working-class setting of his paintings, distinguished his art from that of his contemporaries, though collectively they would represent Britain in the Venice Biennale of 1956. Although initially left uninspired by Italy when he visited it on a travelling scholarship, after the tumultous years of the 1950's in which he was decried and celebrated in equal measure by the British media, Italy, and Venice in particular, would prove an enduring fascination for Bratby. Following the breakdown of his marriage to fellow artist Jean
Cooke, Bratby found love again in the form of actress Patti Prime, with whom he would travel throughout the eighties, creating works such as this painting, typical of his oeuvre in its thickly-applied and vibrant-toned paint, and in its celebration, not of the architectural glories of Venice, but rather the somewhat more quotidien detail of its residents' washing stretching over a canal to dry.