Modern British Art, Contemporary British Art at Jonathan Clark Fine Art
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28
Composition Variation 1 1963
Oil on board
Signed, dated, numbered 67/ 12, studio stamped & inscribed verso
48 3/8 x 18 1/8 ins 123.5 x 46.5 cms
Exhibited: Waddington Galleries, London, 1964, no. 14
Following the commercial success of his more loosely handled landscape
evocations at the 1960 Waddington exhibition, Wells appears to have become
dissatisfied with the lack of structure and coherence in the larger work. He
wrote to Ben Nicholson in January 1961, ‘You may have heard I had a show at
Waddingtons in September last. It seems to have gone quite well. I wish I
could say the same of the work since then. I have produced virtually nothing
and feel as if I never will. I know a show is upsetting but three months is too
long – in fact pathological.’ He eventually turned to his love of geometry and
systems of proportion and musical structure as a means of support. The first
paintings produced in this new austere hard edge style date from later that
year. The present example is an essay in tonal and structural harmony and
recaptures some of the purity of his earliest constructivist work.
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