Ceri Richards (1903 - 1971), Coster & Piano Player, circa 1938, pencil & gouache on paper, 11 x 9 in. / 30 x 23 cm.
'Apart from his radiant gifts as a colourist Ceri Richards is also an exceptionally rare draughtsman. In his best work... these two attributes combine together with singular power and persuasiveness.'
- B. Robertson, Ceri Richards: A Retrospective Exhibition (exh. cat.), Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, 1960, p.3
Browse & Darby is delighted to announce our upcoming exhibition of Works on Paper by Ceri Richards (1903 - 1971).
Ceri Richards was born in Dunvant, near Swansea in Wales. He studied at Swansea School of Art (1921-1924) and at the Royal College of Art, London (1924-1927) where he was exposed to the variety and innovation of modern European art. Particularly inspired by the work of Max Ernst, Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, Richards was also heavily influenced by the Surrealists of the 1930s, culminating in his inclusion in the 1936 International Surrealist Exhibition in London, where he was viewed alongside the likes of Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró, Max Ernst, Pablo Picasso, and Rene Magritte. Famous for his versatility, Richards absorbed the many influences available in mid-twentieth century Britain, yet retained his own originality of thought, draughtsmanship, and composition.
The subject matter of this exhibition includes the people who featured in Richards’ day to day life during the 1930s and early 1940s. Reminiscent of his time living in London before the war, Richards produced numerous drawings, watercolours and paintings portraying costermongers - the street traders of London’s East End - who were distinguished by the mother-of-pearl buttons on their clothing, earning them the title of the Pearly Kings and Queens. These figures are prominent within Richards’ oeuvre of this time, and recognisable by the extravagance of their hats, and the vibrancy of their depiction.
“Richards was fascinated in particular by the
flamboyance of the costumes and headgear of the
East End costermongers.
They seemed to the artist at once sinister, beautiful,
demonic, erotically charged, comic, mundane, artificial
and magically human. They were extravagantly poetic
and visually fantastic. In short, to the eye in what
Breton called ‘its primitive state’- untrammelled by
cognitive perception - they were surreal.” – Mel Gooding
Studies of the tinplate workers of the foundry near his birthplace in Wales - whose muscular frames and spiralling strokes of pen and ink imply the hard labour they faced daily – are reminiscent of his one-time tutor, Henry Moore’s Coal Miner and Shelter Drawings which were first produced around the same time, and which introduce the viewer to a similarly charged atmosphere of the many struggles of humanity in Second World War Britain at that time.
With the outbreak of war, Richards left his teaching at Chelsea School of Art, and colleagues including Henry Moore and Graham Sutherland, and spent a short time as a farm labourer in Suffolk, before he was appointed head of painting at the Cardiff School of Art, in Wales, where he also contributed to the war effort as a Home Guard on night watches. Returning to London in 1944, Richards returned to his post at Chelsea, also teaching at the Slade and the RCA, and was represented by Marlborough Fine Art.
Richards went on to win international prizes, becoming a trustee of the Tate, and in 1960 the Whitechapel Art Gallery mounted a major retrospective of his work. In 1962, Richards represented Britain at the Venice Biennale.
