John Craxton, R.A. (1922-2009)

In the late summer of 1945 John Craxton and Lucian Freud travelled to the Scilly Isles, where Craxton was inspired to produce a series of dazzling dark landscapes of Tresco paying homage to Picasso and Miró. Exhibited in Switzerland in 1946, they were to form a bridge between Craxton’s “Neo-Romantic” war-time work and pending pictures of Greece where love of the modern masters blended with that of archaeology, iconography and Byzantine art in a brightening palette all his own.

We are very grateful to Ian Collins for preparing this catalogue entry.