39
DOUGLAS MACDIARMID - Window & Wall 1970
Starting Bid: $3,000
Estimate:
$5,000 - $7,500
Ended
Timed Auction
Collectable
Size
48 x 72 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
Literature
This is one of Douglas’ Window & Wall series of paintings – sweeping views of familiar Paris monuments seen over the rooftops from MacDiarmid’s studio in the heart of the city. At top left is one of the distinctive square towers of Notre-Dame Cathedral, with the tall spire of the ancient royal chapel of Sainte-Chapelle on the central skyline. He painted these scenes day and night, in all moods and weathers, during the three years he lived and worked in the two top floors of a 16th century house at 77 rue Saint-Martin, a short stroll from The Louvre.
Douglas moved into these two flats - his first real estate purchase – in November 1970. This inner-city address, creaky, leaky and old (but still standing today) was immediately opposite a site about to be redeveloped as the Pompidou Centre, France’s celebrated modern art gallery.
At the time, Paris the place rather than people was Douglas’ preferred subject. He revelled in the endless creative possibilities of glorious architecture and ever-changing vistas on his first visit to Paris in 1947, and fell in love with the city all over again from his new home. Instead of having to seek out the iconic monuments of the Paris skyline, they came to him at every turn – the Pantheon, Tour Saint-Jacques down the road, Église Saint-Merri across the street, Notre-Dame Basilica and all, spoiling him with choice.
Paris art historian Nelly Finet’s catalogue notes for MacDiarmid’s 1972 Galerie Motte solo exhibition observe: “The city, seen from his window, is for him a great source of inspiration. Dozens of canvases reveal it to us, never the same and always known (recognisable). MacDiarmid looks at the city in the same way in which he embraced nature. For him, the urban landscapes are as changeable as natural landscapes. The constant creative process to which the artist abandons himself, responds to the visual necessity which each artist has in him to communicate, be it of a fashion which seems instinctive to us as in his landscapes, or in the contrary very elaborate, as in his construction of the city. The latter are constructed around a real skeleton, constructed by great black lines, where the real nervous centre is attached – which constitutes rhythmic points. Beyond these encounters of energy, concentrated in black, forms taken up again by colour, gush forth. MacDiarmid opposes laziness, born from photographic vision, by another physical truth, offered through our bifocal vision.”
- Anna Cahill
Douglas moved into these two flats - his first real estate purchase – in November 1970. This inner-city address, creaky, leaky and old (but still standing today) was immediately opposite a site about to be redeveloped as the Pompidou Centre, France’s celebrated modern art gallery.
At the time, Paris the place rather than people was Douglas’ preferred subject. He revelled in the endless creative possibilities of glorious architecture and ever-changing vistas on his first visit to Paris in 1947, and fell in love with the city all over again from his new home. Instead of having to seek out the iconic monuments of the Paris skyline, they came to him at every turn – the Pantheon, Tour Saint-Jacques down the road, Église Saint-Merri across the street, Notre-Dame Basilica and all, spoiling him with choice.
Paris art historian Nelly Finet’s catalogue notes for MacDiarmid’s 1972 Galerie Motte solo exhibition observe: “The city, seen from his window, is for him a great source of inspiration. Dozens of canvases reveal it to us, never the same and always known (recognisable). MacDiarmid looks at the city in the same way in which he embraced nature. For him, the urban landscapes are as changeable as natural landscapes. The constant creative process to which the artist abandons himself, responds to the visual necessity which each artist has in him to communicate, be it of a fashion which seems instinctive to us as in his landscapes, or in the contrary very elaborate, as in his construction of the city. The latter are constructed around a real skeleton, constructed by great black lines, where the real nervous centre is attached – which constitutes rhythmic points. Beyond these encounters of energy, concentrated in black, forms taken up again by colour, gush forth. MacDiarmid opposes laziness, born from photographic vision, by another physical truth, offered through our bifocal vision.”
- Anna Cahill
