NZ & International Fine Art - Day Sale Thursday, 15 February 2024 - 12:00 PM start
Douglas MacDiarmid (1922-2020) - Still Life with Flowers
Lot Details
Douglas MacDiarmid (1922-2020) Still Life with Flowers oil on board signed (lower left) 60.5 x 49.5cm PROVENANCE Fleischl Collection NOTES Supplied by Anna Cahill, Director, MacDiarmid Arts Trust A domestic tableau of flowers formally arranged in a deep blue jug on a table. Douglas had a great passion for flowers inherited from his parents, the more colourful and exotic the better. He always had vases of fragrant blooms in his home, and regularly painted still lifes throughout his career both in virtual and more abstract forms. Some appear gentle and lyrical, others more dynamic or evoking an intimacy as if you’ve just stepped into the room. Often, he depicted bowls of fruit or flowers with a window view of a landscape beyond. In 1962 he was recently returned to Paris, grief stricken by the tragic death of his French fiancée Jacqueline after a skiing accident, while he was visiting his parents in New Zealand. He was broke and broken, unable to travel to nourish his creativity, painting available objects and local Paris scenes, as he passed through a succession of cheap rented rooms while trying to resurrect his career in France. Still, there is no sign of his inward distress in his art, which was a release; when he was unable to paint he worked his emotions out in writing, including a privately published novel Love Forty based on Jacqueline’s life.
