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Lot 213
CHRISTOPHER WOOD (1901-1930)
Bridge and Notre Dame, Paris
Closed20 October 2022
Price Realised
GBP 47,880
More Information
CHRISTOPHER WOOD (1901-1930)
Bridge and Notre Dame, Paris
oil on board
18 x 15 in. (45.7 x 38 cm.)
Painted in 1924.
Bridge and Notre Dame, Paris
oil on board
18 x 15 in. (45.7 x 38 cm.)
Painted in 1924.
CHRISTOPHER WOOD (1901-1930)
Bridge and Notre Dame, Paris
oil on board
18 x 15 in. (45.7 x 38 cm.)
Painted in 1924.
Bridge and Notre Dame, Paris
oil on board
18 x 15 in. (45.7 x 38 cm.)
Painted in 1924.
with Redfern Gallery, London, where purchased by Russell Trenchard in August 1959.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, South Kensington, 12 December 1989, lot 251.
with Sandra Lummis Fine Art, London, where purchased by the present owner.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, South Kensington, 12 December 1989, lot 251.
with Sandra Lummis Fine Art, London, where purchased by the present owner.
E. Newton, Christopher Wood 1901-1930, London, 1938, no. 38.
In March 1921, at the invitation of the influential collector and patron, Alphonse Kahn, Christopher Wood moved to Paris and settled in Kahn’s house at 41 Bois de Boulogne. Soon after his arrival, Wood enrolled at the Académie Julian and the Grande Chaumière atelier, and then at the Académie Montparnasse. It was Kahn who first initiated Wood into the avant-garde, taking him to the studios of contemporary painters and introducing him to a rich network of patrons, collectors and dealers. Kahn also had a prestigious art collection - including works by Picasso, Van Gogh and Matisse - to which Wood had free access. Wood later acquired a studio in the Rue des Saints Pères, and from 1924, he began sharing it with the French artist and poet, Jean Cocteau - fully assimilating him into the heart of the Parisian art scene.
Wood completed several paintings which show bridges over the River Seine but, stylistically, they are all quite different. Eric Newton, in the wider context of Wood’s oeuvre, suggests that this constant series of new twists to his artistic vision would not have been possible had he not been to Paris:
‘He painted swiftly and without hesitation, as though he had merely to obey the commands of his inner eye … If Wood had not lived a cosmopolitan existence, with Paris as his headquarters, I doubt whether he would have achieved that confident grip of his craft as early as he did. The series of decisions and accidents that cut him off from England and threw him into the cross-currents of continental life set his art free' (see E. Newton, Christopher Wood, London, 1959, p. 18).
Wood completed several paintings which show bridges over the River Seine but, stylistically, they are all quite different. Eric Newton, in the wider context of Wood’s oeuvre, suggests that this constant series of new twists to his artistic vision would not have been possible had he not been to Paris:
‘He painted swiftly and without hesitation, as though he had merely to obey the commands of his inner eye … If Wood had not lived a cosmopolitan existence, with Paris as his headquarters, I doubt whether he would have achieved that confident grip of his craft as early as he did. The series of decisions and accidents that cut him off from England and threw him into the cross-currents of continental life set his art free' (see E. Newton, Christopher Wood, London, 1959, p. 18).