NZ & International Fine Art - Day Sale Thursday, 15 February 2024 - 12:00 PM start
Douglas MacDiarmid (1922 - 2020) - Abstracted Landscape
Lot Details
Douglas MacDiarmid (1922 - 2020) Abstracted Landscape watercolour signed & dated '64 (lower) 31.5 x 49cm PROVENANCE Fleischl Collection NOTES Supplied by Anna Cahill, Director, MacDiarmid Arts Trust This wild rocky landscape belongs to the mountainous island of Corsica, more than 200 kilometres off the Mediterranean coast of mainland France. Douglas’ first impressions in 1951 stayed with him forever…as he wrote home to his parents: “First sight of Corsica fabulously rocky, all the stories one hears of its fragrance are true, even out at sea. The air is calm as two centuries back. Really one takes a leap out of the familiar world. Many burdens still carried on the head, the women in voluminous black. Toured around marvelling at the hard, rose rocks and cliffs, tawny burnt grass, green sea and dull orange and grey villages…” For Douglas, the island was everything he had imagined as a child the Mediterranean would be– a place of ancient history, rugged rocky vistas, sunbaked landscapes, intense light, rich traditions, ramshackle villages, long human continuity and adventure. This wild rocky landscape belongs to the mountainous island of Corsica, more than 200 kilometres off the Mediterranean coast of mainland France. Douglas’ first impressions in 1951 stayed with him forever…as he wrote home to his parents: “First sight of Corsica fabulously rocky, all the stories one hears of its fragrance are true, even out at sea. The air is calm as two centuries back. Really one takes a leap out of the familiar world. Many burdens still carried on the head, the women in voluminous black. Toured around marvelling at the hard, rose rocks and cliffs, tawny burnt grass, green sea and dull orange and grey villages…” For Douglas, the island was everything he had imagined as a child the Mediterranean would be– a place of ancient history, rugged rocky vistas, sunbaked landscapes, intense light, rich traditions, ramshackle villages, long human continuity and adventure.
