A View of Hurst Castle, Hampshire

By 1950, John Piper had moved his main artistic attention from the mountains and valleys of Snowdonia to aspects of the coastal (but no less wild) landscapes of Anglesey (North Wales) and - on the South Coast of England - Portland, Dungeness, Clymping and Keyhaven (near Hurst Castle). In these places Piper's eye (just as it had been in the late 1930s) was attracted to man-made objects including older and more recent fortifications and other forms of stonework along with maritime paraphernalia, the shapes and textures of which seem to have re-ignited the artist's leanings towards structure and abstraction.

We are very grateful to Rev. Dr Stephen Laird F.S.A. for his assistance in cataloguing this lot.