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Lot Essay
Carnival was one of two paintings which the artist showed in an exhibition of contemporary art at the Leger Galleries in October 1930. Writing in the Daily Mail on 3 October 1930, the art critic P.G. Konody described Carnival as 'one of the most attractive features of the exhibition'.
The subject and movement of this painting marks an exciting development in the artist's work. It was painted in his final year at the Slade and captures a moment of figures and a clown dancing in the foreground of a busy funfair. There is something very immediate about the picture, a type of freedom not yet seen in in the more formal portraits and still lives which Luke painted during the 1920s. It disappears on his return to Belfast where he settled into producing landscapes in oil and tempera that took months to produce. Painted at the crossroads of Luke's career, Carnival is a statement that he too can paint in a short time difficult subjects - at night with light coming from behind - in the tradition of other Slade School graduates such as Walter Richard Sickert.
The subject and movement of this painting marks an exciting development in the artist's work. It was painted in his final year at the Slade and captures a moment of figures and a clown dancing in the foreground of a busy funfair. There is something very immediate about the picture, a type of freedom not yet seen in in the more formal portraits and still lives which Luke painted during the 1920s. It disappears on his return to Belfast where he settled into producing landscapes in oil and tempera that took months to produce. Painted at the crossroads of Luke's career, Carnival is a statement that he too can paint in a short time difficult subjects - at night with light coming from behind - in the tradition of other Slade School graduates such as Walter Richard Sickert.