Oracle

Details

DENIS MITCHELL (1912-1993)
Oracle
signed, inscribed and dated 'ORACLE/1955 GUAREA/WOOD/DENIS MITCHELL' (on the underside of the base)
guarea, on a hardwood base, unique
54 ¼ in. (137.8 cm.) high, including base
Carved in 1955.

Provenance

with Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert, London, where purchased by the present owner in 2005.

Literature

Exhibition catalogue, Festival Exhibition of Sculpture by Denis Mitchell, Swansea, Welsh Arts Council, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, 1979, n.p., no. 42, illustrated.
Exhibition catalogue, St Ives 1939-64: Twenty Five Years of Painting, Sculpture and Pottery, London, Tate Gallery, 1985, p. 204, no. 178, illustrated.
J. Halkes, exhibition catalogue, Denis Mitchell: Drawings, Paintings, Sculpture 1932-1992, St Ives, Penwith Galleries, 1992, pp. 38-39, no. 44, illustrated.
P. Curtis and C. Stephens (eds.), exhibition catalogue, Barbara Hepworth: Sculpture for a Modern World, London, Tate Britain, 2015, pp. 88, 89, 191, fig. 82.

Exhibited

London, A.I.A. Gallery, Denis Mitchell: Sculpture, February 1957.
Bristol, Arnolfini Gallery, Denis Mitchell, Sculpture: John Plumb, Paintings, March - April 1967, no. 19.
Bath, Festival Gallery, Denis Mitchell: Sculpture 1950-1978, April - May 1978, no. 3.
Swansea, Welsh Arts Council, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Festival Exhibition of Sculpture by Denis Mitchell, October - November 1979, no. 42.
London, Tate Gallery, St Ives 1939-64: Twenty Five Years of Painting, Sculpture and Pottery, February - April 1985, no. 178.
St Ives, Penwith Galleries, Denis Mitchell: Drawings, Paintings, Sculpture 1932-1992, June - August 1992, no. 44.
London, Flowers East, Denis Mitchell: Sculptor, 1993, no. 59.
Brighton, Gardner Arts Centre, Denis Mitchell Sculptor: A Life of Art, October 1993, no. 32.
Swansea, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Denis Mitchell: Sculpture, March - June 1994, no. 24.

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Lot Essay

Between 1949 and 1960, Denis Mitchell was an assistant to Barbara Hepworth, and it was from her that he acquired the guarea wood which he used to make Oracle. Hepworth had acquired a consignment of the wood from Nigeria, which totalled 17 tons. A.M. Hammacher recalls, 'The heavy pieces of African tree trunks arrived in the garden of her Trewyn Studio in St Ives, filling the space with their 'savage quality of smell', their enormous size and weight - they were between forty-two and forty-eight inches in diameter and weighed two to four tons a piece' (Barbara Hepworth, London, 1968, pp. 115, 117, cited in P. Curtis and C. Stephens (eds.), exhibition catalogue, Barbara Hepworth: Sculpture for a Modern World, London, Tate Britain, 2015, p. 87).

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