94
DOUGLAS MACDIARMID - The Harbour, French Riviera 1954
Estimate:
$4,000 - $6,000
Sold
$3,800
Live Auction
IMPORTANT & RARE ART
Size
46 x 61 cm
Description
Oil on canvas
Condition
To request a condition report, please contact us at auctions@artcntr.co.nz or phone +64 9 379 4010
Signature
Signed & dated 1954
Provenance
Private Collection, Australia
Literature
A snapshot in time of an old Mediterranean harbour on the Côte d’Azur, in the south of France, that dates from Douglas penniless years. In 1953-54 he was dividing his time between Cannes and Paris, sharing a basic squat in an old palace called Parc Vallombrosa and an attic hovel without electricity, running water or heating in the capital with a similarly hard-up, older French painter (Pierre Havret) to try to make ends meet. It was a feast and famine life, they lived in Cannes to paint, for the agreeable climate and sources of inspiration, then returned to Paris to sell canvases to art contacts there.
The reality was they could neither afford Paris, nor risk staying away too long. In a letter dated 29 November 1954, MacDiarmid explained his predicament to his old friend composer Douglas Lilburn: “Here in Cannes, life is positively radiant, in a soft sort of way, but I sell nothing and the contacts and openings so bitterly found in Paris slap shut and fall into disorder or worse. Each time I go up, I have 2-3 weeks of despair to make a bit of money, set things going again and come back here to work till the cash runs out and then repeat the process. And all that because flats and rooms in Paris are just not to be found unless you’re frightfully rich and can pay heavy gold key money. We’ve friends hunting up there while I’m away – as soon as something comes to light it will mean staying put and building up a practice.
…must add that although living tends to be chaotic, painting feels all the time to be coming clearer, and in those ups and downs there are such satisfactions, provided the work goes on day by day...
This painting most likely came to New Zealand in Lilburn’s luggage, after a 12 month sabbatical in Europe during which he took Douglas to the 1955 Edinburgh Festival. Apart from periodic painting sales in Paris, MacDiarmid largely relied on cheques from paintings sold quietly at home by Lilburn and friends within their private networks to survive these early years in France.
- Anna Cahill
The reality was they could neither afford Paris, nor risk staying away too long. In a letter dated 29 November 1954, MacDiarmid explained his predicament to his old friend composer Douglas Lilburn: “Here in Cannes, life is positively radiant, in a soft sort of way, but I sell nothing and the contacts and openings so bitterly found in Paris slap shut and fall into disorder or worse. Each time I go up, I have 2-3 weeks of despair to make a bit of money, set things going again and come back here to work till the cash runs out and then repeat the process. And all that because flats and rooms in Paris are just not to be found unless you’re frightfully rich and can pay heavy gold key money. We’ve friends hunting up there while I’m away – as soon as something comes to light it will mean staying put and building up a practice.
…must add that although living tends to be chaotic, painting feels all the time to be coming clearer, and in those ups and downs there are such satisfactions, provided the work goes on day by day...
This painting most likely came to New Zealand in Lilburn’s luggage, after a 12 month sabbatical in Europe during which he took Douglas to the 1955 Edinburgh Festival. Apart from periodic painting sales in Paris, MacDiarmid largely relied on cheques from paintings sold quietly at home by Lilburn and friends within their private networks to survive these early years in France.
- Anna Cahill
