St Paul du Var

Details

Sir Matthew Smith (1879-1959)
St Paul du Var
oil on canvas
15 x 21 ¾ in. (38.1 x 55.2 cm.)
Painted circa 1933.

Provenance

Purchased by Commander G.L. Lowis at the 1934 exhibition.
Mr and Mrs John Stanley-Clarke.
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 16 March 1977, lot 102.
Dean Walter Hussey, Chichester.
with New Art Centre, London, as 'Landscape with distant church'.
The Sebastian Walker Sale; Sotheby's, London, 20 November 1991, lot 2, where purchased by Brooks Buxton.
His sale; Christie's, London, 9 June 2006, lot 51.

Literature

J. Russell, 'Matthew Smith in France', Apollo, Vol. 76, July 1962, pp. 372-376, illustrated.
J. Gledhill, Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings of Matthew Smith, Farnham, 2009, p. 177, no. 432, illustrated.

Exhibited

London, Arthur Tooth & Sons, Matthew Smith: Exhibition of Recent Paintings, May - June 1934, no. 5.
London, Royal Academy, A Memorial Exhibition of Works by Sir Matthew Smith C.B.E., 1879-1959, October - December 1960, no. 207.

Special notice

Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.

Lot Essay

In 1933 Smith moved to Cagnes-sur-Mer in the South of France between Nice and Cannes and the Hôtel Le Cagnard became his base for the next two years. The hotel was set on a hill with views towards Cap d'Antibes and from here Smith was able to explore and paint the surrounding French countryside. Malcolm Yorke comments on Smith's French landscape paintings, 'Smith worked en plein air and scribbled opaque paint on to his white canvas in a race against his own failing staying power and tired eyes. This is not the sunny Provence tourists come in search of, but one tinged with melancholy or made slightly ominous by an approaching storm or night ... It is also noticable that he never includes a car, telegraph pole, railway or any sign of modernity in his unpeopled vistas because, like Cézanne, he had no interest in the Impressionists' determination to record the transient effects of modern life' (see Matthew Smith: His Life and Reputation, London, 1997, p. 153).

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