Beach Scene with Bathers, Pier and Ships, 1925
Oil on Canvas
Six folding panels each 168 x 61cm (66 x 24 in)


In the late 1920’s Christopher Wood’s charm and talent gained him effortless entry into more than one élite. Augustus John bought a painting. Ben and Winifred Nicholson became close friends and they worked together in Cumberland and St Ives. Jean Cocteau became a devoted friend and Picasso, whom Wood met in 1923, visited his Paris studio and warmly admired his designs for the ballet ‘Romeo and Juliet’ which Diaghilev had commissioned. Mainly due to his close friendship with the cultured Chilean diplomat Antonio (Tony) Gandarillas, Christopher Wood
travelled more widely in Europe than any other British artist of his generation. Through travel he found both cultural education and inspiration. In April 1925 he was in Marseilles and Monte Carlo; in May in Rome; from September to November in London where he painted Beach Scene with Bathers Pier and Ships. ‘This large work shows his authentic touch’ wrote the critic and historian
Eric Newton in his 1938 biography.

Wood wrote about the painting to his mother as follows: ‘On the left there are two women lying down in bathing costumes, one combing her hair and the second standing up against the bathing cabin in a bath gown. The sea is bright green. Three fishermen with brown bodies are pulling up a
fishing net onto the shore where, at their feet is a still life of lobster (cooked!) and gaily coloured fish.’ Possibly the women bear some resemblance to Meraud Guinness and Frosca Munster with whom Wood was close. The half concealed man on the right could well be Tony Gandadarillas.

Although Christopher Wood was only 24 years old in 1925, Beach Scene with Bathers, Pier and Ships was illustrated in Vogue and Colour. It appeared in various magazines, both as a subject in its own right and as a backdrop for the likes of Lady Mountbatten - as Richard Ingleby puts it in his 1995 biography of Wood. Ingleby also observes that in terms of scale and composition it was his most ambitious project so far, and one of the most complicated he ever attempted. The screen sold immediately for 60 guineas to the gentleman-dealer Lord Lathom who sold it on to Lady Cunard.

It continues to encapsulate a certain spirit of the mid 1920s exceptionally well. In 1925 the feeling of freedom and relief that followed the 1914-18 war was still potent. 1925 was the year of the Ballets Russes’ premiere of Les Matelots. All eyes focused on sailors and ships. In 1924 the Ballets Russes had premiered Cocteau’s Le Train Bleu. It was all about the exodus of Paris society to the Riviera on the Blue Train. The Picasso drop curtain was a typical of his early twenties’ work in its monumentality and Neo-Classicism. Its title is Two Women Running on the Beach (The Race) 1922. They are running against a deep blue sea and sky.

The theatrical inspirations behind Wood’s painting are clear but his figures are statuesque as distinct from monumental. Wood’s women are not nearly so large limbed as Picasso’s massive women of that period. Beach Scene with Bathers,Pier and Ships does not look anything like an early 1920s Picasso, let alone a distorted late 1920s Picasso beach painting; but the sea, the sky and the figures create a not dissimilar feeling of joy and abandon. As Eric Newton put it: ‘He never strove to paint with a French accent, as so many pseudo-cosmopolitans do, but he did learn, while retaining the British integrity of his vision, to shed the British inflexibility of his craftsmanship’.
167.6 x 365.8 cm (66 x 144 inches)

Notes:
In the late 1920’s Christopher Wood’s charm and talent gained him effortless entry into more than one élite. Augustus John bought a painting. Ben and Winifred Nicholson became close friends and they worked together in Cumberland and St Ives. Jean Cocteau became a devoted friend and Picasso, whom Wood met in 1923, visited his Paris studio and warmly admired his designs for the ballet ‘Romeo and Juliet’ which Diaghilev had commissioned. Mainly due to his close friendship with the cultured Chilean diplomat Antonio (Tony) Gandarillas, Christopher Wood travelled more widely in Europe than any other British artist of his generation. Through travel he found both cultural education and inspiration. In April 1925 he was in Marseilles and Monte Carlo; in May in Rome; from September to November in London where he painted Beach Scene with Bathers Pier and Ships. ‘This large work shows his authentic touch’ wrote the critic and historian Eric Newton in his 1938 biography.

Wood wrote about the painting to his mother as follows: ‘On the left there are two women lying down in bathing costumes, one combing her hair and the second standing up against the bathing cabin in a bath gown. The sea is bright green. Three fishermen with brown bodies are pulling up a fishing net onto the shore where, at their feet is a still life of lobster (cooked!) and gaily coloured fish.’ Possibly the women bear some resemblance to Meraud Guinness and Frosca Munster with whom Wood was close. The half concealed man on the right could well be Tony Gandadarillas.

Although Christopher Wood was only 24 years old in 1925, Beach Scene with Bathers, Pier and Ships was illustrated in Vogue and Colour. It appeared in various magazines, both as a subject in its own right and as a backdrop for the likes of Lady Mountbatten - as Richard Ingleby puts it in his 1995 biography of Wood. Ingleby also observes that in terms of scale and composition it was his most ambitious project so far, and one of the most complicated he ever attempted. The screen sold immediately for 60 guineas to the gentleman-dealer Lord Lathom who sold it on to Lady Cunard.

It continues to encapsulate a certain spirit of the mid 1920s exceptionally well. In 1925 the feeling of freedom and relief that followed the 1914-18 war was still potent. 1925 was the year of the Ballets Russes’ premiere of Les Matelots. All eyes focused on sailors and ships. In 1924 the Ballets Russes had premiered Cocteau’s Le Train Bleu. It was all about the exodus of Paris society to the Riviera on the Blue Train. The Picasso drop curtain was a typical of his early twenties’ work in its monumentality and Neo-Classicism. Its title is Two Women Running on the Beach (The Race) 1922. They are running against a deep blue sea and sky.

The theatrical inspirations behind Wood’s painting are clear but his figures are statuesque as distinct from monumental. Wood’s women are not nearly so large limbed as Picasso’s massive women of that period. Beach Scene with Bathers,Pier and Ships does not look anything like an early 1920s Picasso, let alone a distorted late 1920s Picasso beach painting; but the sea, the sky and the figures create a not dissimilar feeling of joy and abandon. As Eric Newton put it: ‘He never strove to paint with a French accent, as so many pseudo-cosmopolitans do, but he did learn, while retaining the British integrity of his vision, to shed the British inflexibility of his craftsmanship’.
POA