Craxton-Picasso

About

John Craxton (1922-2009) was one of the great hopes of modern painting. Influenced by William Blake and Samuel Palmer, he was a youthful star of the neo-romantic movement of the 1940s, about whom the first monograph was published when he was just twenty-six years old.

An early encounter with Picasso’s Guernica and later Night Fishing in Antibes –would have a resounding impact on John Craxton. The overall composition, rendered in startling colours, like a midnight fireworks display, gave John his own rocket fuel. Craxton said, “From Picasso I took danger. He made you walk a tightrope. He made you relook at nature and rethink what painting should be.”

Craxton was also greatly influenced by the emotion conveyed by the ground-breaking underground station "Shelter Drawings” by commissioned war artist Henry Moore, which depicted in Moore's words, "the fear and anxiety, but also the defiance of the English,” which are so very poignant today. The show includes the moving and rarely seen 1941 example, Two Shelter Sleepers from a private collection not exhibited in the UK for over sixty years.

As well as Craxton loans from private collections, institutions and museums, and Picasso ceramics from the Attenborough Collection at Leicester Museum, the exhibition will feature many never previously exhibited works by the artists by whom he was inspired and surrounded. Among them are fascinating, unpublished and never-before exhibited illustrated letters from his great friend and fellow 1940s renegade Lucian Freud and compelling works by John Piper, Robert Colquhoun, Niko Ghika, Graham Sutherland, John Banting, Jacob Epstein, Eduardo Paolozzi, & Ben & E Q Nicholson.  

From an early age, Craxton longed to live and work in Greece and in 1946 he escaped first to Poros, then Hydra, and finally to Crete, where he found creative inspiration for the rest of his life. His work evolved as a personal response to Byzantine mosaics, El Greco, and the art of Greek life. It is the essence of this way of living which infuses his work, combined with an energy of light and colour.

In the Peleponnese, Craxton’s circle included the legendary travel writer Patrick Leigh Fermor - whose books he illustrated - and his wife, photographer Joan Leigh Fermor, whose glorious photographs will feature alongside the exhibition.

A highlight of the exhibition will be a recently rediscovered bronze chandelier by Alberto Giacometti. Newly-designated “Chandelier for Peter Watson” by Fondation Giacometti in Paris, this unique chandelier was designed for Peter Watson, one of Britain’s greatest wartime and post-war art collectors who personally funded both the foundation of the ICA in London and Horizon magazine, the period’s most important literary and artistic magazine. Since the late 1960s, the chandelier hung in The Music Room of Craxton’s Studios in Hampstead until after the artist’s death in 2009.

"We are very excited at the prospect of putting on this highly significant show in Holt.  John Craxton admired and was friends with many of the key players in mid-20th Century art in Europe.  He was influenced by the work of Picasso and we are fortunate to have Picasso ceramics from the Attenborough collection for this exhibition, the foremost collection of its type in the UK.  Also of great importance is the recently-rediscovered Alberto Giacometti chandelier which was owned by John Craxton. This has never before been exhibited publicly and will be hanging in St Andrews church, Holt.” James Glennie, Fine Art Director, Holt Festival

Among the events surrounding the exhibition will be films, courses and an education programme and a talk by D J Taylor, Whitbread Award winning author of George Orwell: A Life about Horizon, the foremost literary and art magazine published in London in the 1940s and its hugely important contributors. Ian Collins, Craxton’s biographer, will also be giving talks and exhibition tours for both the public and Art Fund groups. The specialist subscription Arts Channel is releasing a one-hour documentary “John Craxton – A Life of Gifts”, filmed on location in Greece, Berlin, London and Holt, which will premiere in the autumn.