St. Paul’s from the South

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Department for Transport, Great Minster House, Marsham Street

Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson, painter and printmaker, has been described as 'a vital and contentious figure, among the most important British artists of the twentieth century.' Nevinson studied art in London and then in Paris. In March 1914 he became a founding member of the London Group of artists, and in June of that year issued a Futurist manifesto, Vital English Art, with the Italian Futurist artist, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. During the First World War, Nevinson served in Flanders and France as an ambulance driver and became a member of the Royal Army Medical Corps. In March 1915 his first war paintings were shown at the London Group. In June and July of that year he exhibited as a Futurist at the Vorticist exhibition (Vorticism was a British derivation of Cubism and Futurism) and contributed to the second and last issue of the Vorticist magazine Blast. Nevinson's first solo show, primarily of war paintings, was held in September 1916 at the Leicester Galleries in London, and was a great success. That year he was 'invalided' out of the Army and appointed an Official War Artist in 1917. He became the first artist to draw from the air. In 1919 he visited Paris and New York. He was created Chevalier of the Legion d'Honneur in 1938, and Associate of the Royal Academy in 1939. Suffering deep depression and breakdowns as a result of the outbreak of the Second World War, his health broke down due to overwork and he died in London in October 1946.

Places

England, London, St. Paul's Cathedral, City of London

Subjects

signal, railway, crane, topography, townscape/cityscape, Vorticism, steam, smoke, mist/fog, man, house, cathedral, dome, chimney

Materials & Techniques

canvas, oil, oil painting

Artist

Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson (1889 - 1946)

Title

St. Paul’s from the South

Date

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

height: 51.00 cm, width: 76.50 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Leicester Galleries, June 1961

Inscription

none

Provenance

Collection of the Honourable Lionel Breck; from whom purchased by the Leicester Galleries, London; from whom purchased by the Ministry of Works in July 1961

GAC number

5527