Ithell Colquhoun

(British, 1906-1988)

Roman Sun 78.2 x 50.4 cm. (30 7/8 x 19 7/8 in.)

Footnotes

Provenance
Sale; Sotheby's, Ithell Colquhoun Studio Sale, London, 24 April 1985, lot 481
Private Collection, U.K.

Exhibited
London, Mayor Gallery, Exhibition of Paintings by Ithell Colquhoun, 5-29 March 1947, cat.no.17
Bradford, Cartwright Hall, 57th Spring Exhibition, 24 March-4 June 1950, cat.no.267
Cambridge, Heffer Gallery, Ithell Colquhoun: Paintings and Drawings 1942-1953, cat.no.11
Exeter, City Museum and Art Gallery, Ithell Colquhoun: Paintings, Collages and Drawings, 26 September-21 October 1972, cat.no.11
London, Leva Gallery, Ithell Colquhoun: An Exhibition of Surrealist Paintings and Drawings from 1930-1950, 29 October-16 November 1974, cat.no.22

Literature
Richard Shillitoe, Ithell Colquhoun: Magician Born of Nature, 2009, cat.no.457, p.300


The present work carries an intriguing, enigmatic air. The tropical feel of the palm trees, the ornamental aspect of the foreground and the blazing sun belie a more fundamental, underlying essence – one of untethered energy indecipherable through the jungle of towering, interlocking blocks that populate the background. The maze-like nature of these blocks brings a subtle, enclosing feel of uncertainty and claustrophobia that is relieved as it opens up above the flattened rooftops and in front of the portal-like entrance.

The massive blocks and the flights of steps, in an environment very clearly of human design and construction yet seemingly bereft of ongoing habitation, feature regularly in Colquhoun's work of the late 1930s and '40s. Whilst largely naturalistic in the application of paint, there are passages of decalcomania to the plantation: the leaves of the palm trees, the shrubbery at their feet and the centre-piece of the courtyard addressed directly by one of several piercing shafts of energy emitted from the sun. The technique, closely associated with Surrealist automatism and more prominent in Colquhoun's Painting (see lot 14), involves transferring paint from a sheet pressed against the surface to give a ribbed aesthetic. Here, the effect is of a veiny, skeletal structure underpinning the vegetation – imagined, larger scale reflections of the more naturally occurring feature that Colquhoun so delighted in emphasising for it's inherently surreal qualities in botanical works such as Anthurium (1936), sold in these rooms 23 November 2022 for £258,600.

Colquhoun's engagement with the occult, and with polytheistic and nontheistic belief systems, took on new impetus in the decade leading up to this work. Roman Sun is imbued with a mystical sense of this spirituality; the sun itself is deified as it sears the sky and radiates majestically across the composition. In this sense, the work combines some of Colquhoun's most prominent preoccupations and stylistic techniques of this period with a somewhat more Realist element than in her abstract work exemplified by the previous lot – perhaps a more sincere expression of Colquhoun's wider frame of thinking beyond the realm of purely artistic experimentation.

We are grateful to Dr Richard Shillitoe for his assistance in cataloguing this lot.