$351,000
Christopher (Kit) Wood (British, 1901-1930) Anemones in a Glass Jar Signed "C Wood" l. r. Oil on canvas, 13 x 16 in. (33.0 x 40.6 cm), framed. Condition: Minor craquelure, varnish discoloration, surface grime. Literature: Christopher Wood and Eric Newton, Christopher Wood, 1901-1930 (London: Redfern Gallery, 1938), No. 164, p. 69. Provenance: Sotheby & Co., London, Modern French and British Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture, July 13th, 1960, Lot 174. N.B. Christopher Wood, also known as Kit, was born in Knowsley, near Liverpool, on April 7, 1901. He purportedly started drawing at the age of fourteen, while convalescing from septicemia. In 1920 the young Wood met the French collector Alphonse Kahn, who invited him to Paris. Wood studied at the Académie Julian and traveled throughout Europe during the early 1920s. Charming and ambitious, Wood met the Chilean diplomat Antonio de Gandarillas, who introduced him to Picasso, Georges Auric, and Jean Cocteau. Wood learned from these Parisian artists, and although his paintings were regarded as graciously naive, he especially embraced the elegant line of Cocteau's drawings. In the mid-1920s Wood returned to England and became a member of the London Group, a clique of artists based in Camden Town, and the Seven and Five Society, the British manifestation of the return to order that followed the First World War. It is at this point that Wood painted Anemones in a Glass . A dense cluster of pink, violet, blue, and red anemones
Auctioneer:
Skinner
Date:
2016-09-23
