Mark Gertler (1891-1939)

A love of still life runs throughout Gertler's career and, perhaps because he lived next to Spitalfields Market in East London, fruit and vegetables were amongst his favourite subjects. The present work prefigures the three large paintings of fruit and vegetables that Gertler was commissioned to make for the Empire Marketing Board (now in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London) in 1931. In these, Andrew Causey writes, 'Gertler maximised intensity of colour and glamourized his subjects' (see exhibition catalogue, Mark Gertler: Paintings & Drawings, London, Camden Arts Centre, 1992, p. 30).