Lot 327
EDWARD ARTHUR WALTON (SCOTTISH 1860-1922)
STILL LIFE OF PINK GERANIUMS
Auction: 10 October 2018 at 11:00 BST
Description
Oil on canvas
60cm x 42.5cm (23.5in x 16.75in)
Footnote
Provenance: Lady Hutchison (The Artist’s Daughter); her son Robin Hutchison;
The Fine Art Society, London
Note: 'Glasgow Boy' Edward Arthur Walton was a landscape artist at heart, and professionally in demand as a portraitist, and so rarely turned his hand to still-life subjects, making Still-Life of Pink Geraniums exquisite in its rarity, and execution.
Here, Walton is particularly concerned with the refinement of the decorative, and the fluidity and joy of oil paint on canvas. He creates his own decorative framing design within the composition, and leaves areas of exposed canvas, creating a subtle interplay of texture and tone. There is an ease and fluidity to the soft brushwork, yet the painting is carefully composed to be delicately balanced and subtle in colouring and composition. The central flowers lack visible roots, or a source to grow from, ethereally emerging from exposed canvas and sandy pigment, while leaves and petals are gently evoked and delicately blurred, with brown, green and pink pigments softening into the blue background.