Lot 193
SIR ROBIN PHILIPSON R.A., P.R.S.A., R.S.W., R.G.I., D.LITT., L.L.D. (SCOTTISH 1916-1992) §
POPPIES AND STRIPES
£23,940
Scottish Paintings & Sculpture
Auction: Evening Sale | Lots 103-196 | Thursday 05 December from 6pm
Description
Signed and dated 1991/92 on the backboard, oil on board
Dimensions
91cm x 96.5cm (36in x 38in)
Footnote
With the artist's label verso.
‘What attracted me to the poppies was their splendour - the sheer power and yet the delicacy of their colour - the cold and warm reds and the very subtle translucent lights.’ (Sir Robin Philipson, quoted in Gordon Smith, W., Sir Robin Philipson, Atelier Books, Edinburgh, 1995, p.112)
Poppies bloomed from the tip of Philipson’s brush in the final ten years of his career and the resulting paintings were so effective that the artist became synonymous with the flower. After a prolific and successful career as Head of the School of Drawing and Painting at Edinburgh College of Art, Philipson retired in 1982, enabling him to commit himself fully to his easel. Poppies recurred as subject matter, with their sculptural blooms and intense hue proving to be irresistible to the artist.
Philipson later recalled: ‘I began by modelling their form in whites and a range of neutral colours. When this “white” stage was quite dry, the strong colours were created by layering thin glazes of pale transparent paint over the top, sometimes up to ten or more on top of the other. Some of the blacks are built up in the same way over a bed of very rich blue or crimson.’ (Gordon Smith, op.cit., p. 104) W. Gordon-Smith observed that the ‘choreographed, large-scale paintings of these fragile blooms which…[Philipson]…set to his own dynamic music’ were the ‘achievements of his artistic lifetime’. (Gordon Smith, op.cit., p.112)
