Ceri Richards (1903-1971)

The present work was painted three years before Ceri Richards would receive a commission from Sir Colin Anderson to paint a mural decoration for the first class restaurant of the Orsova (1954), the ocean liner built by Anderson's Orient Line shipping company. Sir Colin wrote in the introduction to the catalogue for the 1972 exhibition, Homage to Ceri Richards, 'Beyond being the most steady friend, Ceri had the extra quality of being at the same time a fount of visual pleasures and surprises. It was an uncommon admixture of quiet efficiency with an intense poetic reaction to outsize stimuli. Few painters can have been more inspired by music and poetry than he - but then, he could equally have made a career in music. This range of responsiveness explains the width of stylistic variation within his total work. He never dreamed of denying the inspiration he had from other artists. He honoured them too much for that and, besides, he transmuted these experiences so that the resulting works flew unmistakably on strong Ceri-given wings' (Sir Colin Anderson, quoted in exhibition catalogue, Homage to Ceri Richards 1903-1971, London, Fischer Fine Art, 1972, p. 21).