John Piper Art
British, 1903-1992
Born in Epsom, John Egerton Christmas Piper studied at Richmond School of Art and the Royal College of Art from 1926-8. In the mid 1930a, after a visit to Paris, he turned to abstraction. He became a member of the London Group in 1933 and the ‘Seven and Five’ group in 1934-5. During this period he became friends with Oliver Simon of the Curwen Press and his interest in lithography and print making grew. During the Second World War, Piper was appointed as an official war artist recording the effects of the blitz on Britain’s buildings. After the war, he became a Trustee of the Tate and National Galleries and in 1959 he became a member of the Royal Fine Art Commission. Piper is best known for his extensive studies of British architecture and landscape in oil, watercolour and print, and for his photography, stained glass, ceramics, fabric design, murals, stage sets and costume design. His work is held in many Museums and Galleries.to
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Artist: John Piper
"Dryslwyn Castle" original lithograph
By John Piper
Located in Henderson, NV
Medium: original lithograph. Printed in 1955 and published in New York by Curt Valentin. Sheet size: 12 1/4 x 9 1/2 inches (312 x 244 mm). Not signed.
Category
1950s John Piper Art
Materials
Lithograph
"Niton, Isle of Wight" original lithograph
By John Piper
Located in Henderson, NV
Medium: original lithograph. Printed in 1955 and published in New York by Curt Valentin. Sheet size: 9 1/2 x 12 1/4 inches (244 x 312 mm). Not signed.
Category
1950s John Piper Art
Materials
Lithograph
"Figures from a Seal" original aquatint
By John Piper
Located in Henderson, NV
Medium: original etching and aquatint. Printed in 1955 and published in New York by Curt Valentin. Plate size: 8 1/4 x 6 1/8 inches (212 x 156 mm). Sheet size: 12 x 9 3/8 inches (307...
Category
1950s John Piper Art
Materials
Etching, Aquatint
John Piper original gouache painting 'Warning to travellers', British, 20th Cent
By John Piper
Located in Petworth, West Sussex
John Piper (British, 1903 – 1992)
Warning to travellers, number 18 from India Love Poems’
Signed ‘John Piper’ (lower right)
Mixed media pencil and watercolour and gouache
16 x 11.3/8...
Category
20th Century Modern John Piper Art
Materials
Watercolor, Gouache, Pencil
John Piper Bullslaughter Bay c. 1955 Pembrokeshire abstract watercolour painting
By John Piper
Located in London, GB
John Piper (1903-1992)
Bullslaughter Bay
Watercolour, gouache and pastel on paper
27.5 x 35.5cm
John Piper CH was an English painter, printmaker, and designer of stained-glass windo...
Category
1950s Abstract John Piper Art
Materials
Pastel, Watercolor, Gouache
John Piper: 'Nursery Frieze II' lithograph
By John Piper
Located in London, GB
To see our other Modern British Art (including many other John Piper prints), scroll down to "More from this Seller" and below it click on "See all from this Seller" - or send us a m...
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1970s Modern John Piper Art
Materials
Lithograph
John Piper, Eye and Camera: Red, Blue and Yellow, Screenprint Modern British Art
By John Piper
Located in London, GB
To see our other Modern British Art, scroll down to "More from this Seller" and below it click on "See all from this Seller" - or send us a message if you cannot find the artist you ...
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1980s Modern John Piper Art
Materials
Screen
John Piper, Exeter College, Oxford (1977) Screenprint Modern British Art
By John Piper
Located in London, GB
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John Piper (1903-1992)
Exeter College, Oxford
Screenprint, signed in pencil
81.9 x 61.0 cm
Including hand-finished, black-painted frame.
One of Piper’s largest and most impressive prints, here featuring Gilbert Scott’s chapel at Exeter. It is often claimed that he based it on Paris’s Sainte Chapelle...
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1970s Modern John Piper Art
Materials
Screen
Metropole Hotel from West Pier, from Brighton Aquatint by John Piper, 1939
By John Piper
Located in Kingsclere, GB
Metropole Hotel from West Pier, from Brighton Aquatint by John Piper, 1939
Additional information:
Medium: etching with aquatint
30 x 38 cm
11 3/4 x 15 in
John Piper was a painter of architecture, landscape and abstract compositions, a designer for the theatre and of stained-glass windows, and a writer on the arts.
Piper was born in 1903 in Epsom, Surrey, the son of a solicitor. Throughout his childhood, he regularly visited Italy, and by 1924 he had published a book of poems and his own illustrations. He worked in his father's office in Westminster until 1928 when he began studying at the Richmond and Kingston Schools of Art. This was followed by two years study at the Royal College of Art. In 1927 he exhibited with David Birch at the Arlington gallery, and in 1931 with Clarice Moffat, P. F. Millard, and his first wife Eileen Holding...
Category
20th Century John Piper Art
Materials
Etching
"Eye and Camera: Blue and Red"
By John Piper
Located in Astoria, NY
John Egerton Christmas Piper, C.H. (British, 1903-1992), "Eye and Camera: Blue and Red", Serigraph in Colors on Paper, circa 1975, marked "A/P" lower left and signed in pencil lower ...
Category
1970s Contemporary John Piper Art
Materials
Paper, Screen
Eye and Camera, Red, Blue and Yellow
By John Piper
Located in London, GB
A striking piece by Piper also presented in the Tate collection.
This print is one of an extensive series titled ‘Eye and Camera’, the first of which were made in 1967. For these prints, which are distinctly different from his topographical work, Piper uses photographic images fragmented and collaged, and juxtaposed with drawing.
This is a signed original screenprint from the Kelpra/Tate Gallery portfolio of seven prints published in 1980 in an edition of 150, to celebrate the Kelpra Studio Exhibition at the Tate Gallery. The other artists were Patrick Caulfield, Gordon House, R.B. Kitaj, Victor Pasmore, John Piper, Joe Tilson and Gerd Winner...
Category
1980s John Piper Art
Materials
Paper, Screen
$1,691 Sale Price
20% Off
Nursery Frieze II by John Piper, 1936
By John Piper
Located in Kingsclere, GB
Nursery Frieze II by John Piper, 1936
Additional information:
Medium: lithograph
45.7 x 119.4 cm
18 x 47 in
signed and dated
John Piper was a painter of architecture, landscape and abstract compositions, a designer for the theatre and of stained-glass windows, and a writer on the arts.
Piper was born in 1903 in Epsom, Surrey, the son of a solicitor. Throughout his childhood, he regularly visited Italy, and by 1924 he had published a book of poems and his own illustrations. He worked in his father's office in Westminster until 1928 when he began studying at the Richmond and Kingston Schools of Art. This was followed by two years study at the Royal College of Art. In 1927 he exhibited with David Birch at the Arlington gallery, and in 1931 with Clarice Moffat, P. F. Millard, and his first wife Eileen...
Category
20th Century John Piper Art
Materials
Lithograph
Price Upon Request
Kirby Hall, Northamptonshire, Gouache with Ink and Wash Painting, 1940-42 circa
By John Piper
Located in Kingsclere, GB
Kirby Hall, Northamptonshire, Gouache with Ink and Wash Painting, 1940-42 circa
Additional information:
Medium: Gouache with ink and wash
15.2 x 18.5 cm
6 x 7 1/4 in
As part of an eight-page pamphlet for The Colour of English Country Houses in 1944, Piper included a lovely auto-lithograph of Kirby Hall in Northamptonshire. This work was most likely sketched on the occasion of his visit to the Hall at this time and is of a slightly different angle. It is a working version of the cover of C Aspinall-Oglander's 'Admiral’s Widow’, 1942 (Hogarth Press). The print is cat. no.51.\\\
Piper gives a lovely description of this Elizabethan country house in the introduction to the pamphlet as follows: ‘A yellow stone house of the seventeenth century, in rolling green hunting-country. It gleams in the sun, forms a warm eye-catcher in dull weather and glimmers whitely in moonlight. It is another ruin, partly roofless, and has recently taken over by the Office of Works to be preserved as a show-place.’ (John Piper). Here, Piper, painting at night in the light of the moon, depicts the north front from the inner courtyard, capturing the brilliance of the moonlit night as it dances over the ruins making it in Piper’s own words ‘glimmer whitely’ whilst the dramatic shadows darken the archways and windows.
John Piper was a painter of architecture, landscape and abstract compositions, a designer for the theatre and of stained-glass windows, and a writer on the arts.
Piper was born in 1903 in Epsom, Surrey, the son of a solicitor. Throughout his childhood, he regularly visited Italy, and by 1924 he had published a book of poems and his own illustrations. He worked in his father's office in Westminster until 1928 when he began studying at the Richmond and Kingston Schools of Art. This was followed by two years study at the Royal College of Art. In 1927 he exhibited with David Birch at the Arlington gallery, and in 1931 with Clarice Moffat, P. F. Millard, and his first wife Eileen Holding...
Category
20th Century John Piper Art
Materials
Gouache
Cheltenham (Fantasia/Panorama), Pen and Ink Painting by John Piper, 1939 circa
By John Piper
Located in Kingsclere, GB
Cheltenham (Fantasia/Panorama), Pen and Ink Painting by John Piper, 1939 circa
Additional information:
Medium: Pen and ink
19 x 26.5 cm
7 1/2 x 10 3/8 in
Inscribed extensively
The upper image closely resembles a 1940 painting, Cheltenham Fantasia, which was sold to a Mr Anderson at the Leicester Galleries in March of that year. The lower image is a study for Piper's 1940 Curwen Press auto-lithograph 'Cheltenham', produced while he was also working on illustrations for the Shell and BP Shilling Guide to Gloucestershire (1939; not used in the project). Betjeman, then head of the project, also used the image to illustrate his article "Book Illustration Can Colour a Whole Town or City" in 'Signature' in 1940. The Cheltenham design is covered and reproduced in Hugh Fowler-Wright's book on Piper.
John Piper was a painter of architecture, landscape and abstract compositions, a designer for the theatre and of stained-glass windows, and a writer on the arts.
Piper was born in 1903 in Epsom, Surrey, the son of a solicitor. Throughout his childhood, he regularly visited Italy, and by 1924 he had published a book of poems and his own illustrations. He worked in his father's office in Westminster until 1928 when he began studying at the Richmond and Kingston Schools of Art. This was followed by two years study at the Royal College of Art. In 1927 he exhibited with David Birch at the Arlington gallery, and in 1931 with Clarice Moffat, P. F. Millard, and his first wife Eileen Holding...
Category
20th Century John Piper Art
Materials
Ink
Foot of Pistyll Rhaeadr, Ink and Wash Painting by John Piper, circa 1939-1941
By John Piper
Located in Kingsclere, GB
Foot of Pistyll Rhaeadr, Ink and Wash Painting by John Piper, circa 1939-1941
Additional information:
Medium: Ink and wash
12.5 x 17.7 cm
4 7/8 x 7 in
Titled under the mount
John Piper was a painter of architecture, landscape and abstract compositions, a designer for the theatre and of stained-glass windows, and a writer on the arts.
Piper was born in 1903 in Epsom, Surrey, the son of a solicitor. Throughout his childhood, he regularly visited Italy, and by 1924 he had published a book of poems and his own illustrations. He worked in his father's office in Westminster until 1928 when he began studying at the Richmond and Kingston Schools of Art. This was followed by two years study at the Royal College of Art. In 1927 he exhibited with David Birch at the Arlington gallery, and in 1931 with Clarice Moffat, P. F. Millard, and his first wife Eileen Holding...
Category
20th Century John Piper Art
Materials
Ink
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Executed in 1950 according to Buchholz Gallery label verso
Provenance: Buchholz Gallery (Curt Valentin), New York
Exhibited: Bucholz Gallery (Curt Valentin), John Piper, Recent Work, October 17th–4th November, 1950, Cat. no. 10
Related to: In the monograph on Piper by John Woods, the picture most like it is a larger oil, Rock Face, Cwm Tryfan 1950, plate 121, collection of Museum of Modern Art, New York. Rock-face is probably an observation at Tryan also.
Reference: John Piper : Special Exhibition, Blenheim Palace until 9th April. The Mountains of Wales, National Museum Cardiff, until 9th May
Height 15.8 cm., 6 ¼ in., Length 20 ½ cm., 8 in.,
In a color washed, bevelled frame
Frame Height 35 cm., 13 ¾ in., Length 40 cm., 15 ¾ in.
John Piper is famous for architecturally detailed pictures of houses, churches and ruins. As S. John Woods writes in John Piper: Painting, Drawings and Theatre Designs 1932-1954 (London: Faber & Faber, 1954) 'his approach was that he wanted to paint a house as if he were designing it, understanding not just its appearance but its anatomy and its sentiment’. John Carter wrote in an exhibition catalogue, that Piper, is 'acutely aware of the bones of a building.'' This approach Piper also brought to his landscape paintings, and it is clear in the present work. A sense of painting while keeping at the front of the mind the inner structure of the stone in front of him; its age and architecture. There is the sense of the boulder as the result of someone's intention, as an object of a Creation.
In British Romantic Artists (London: William COX, 1942) John Piper wrote: 'Romantic art is the result of a vision that can see in things something significant beyond ordinary significance: something that for a moment seems to contain the whole world; and, when the moment is past, carries over some comment on life or experience beside the comment on appearances.'
In 1950 John Piper was well into his post-war period which was characterised by techniques such as the scratching in the oil paint apparent in the present work, a more sombre palette generally, and a concentration on landscape and natural features, particularly those of Portland in Dorset, where his fascination for geology in a form which has been changed by man could have full rein in the quarry; and also, extensively, those of North Wales, which he had been visiting since a commission in 1943 to paint the underground quarry in which the Nation Gallery's collection of art was being stored for the duration of the war. He returned for periods of the winter over the next seven or eight years, for part of that time, including in 1949-50, renting a cottage at Bodesi, below the Tryfan Mountain. Boulder fields at Bodesi, Bodesi Farmhouse, 2011
Here there was much inspiration: in the extreme geology of the land, and in the effect of winter light on mountains. Piper was inspired by the IDEA of the sublime, and the eighteenth century landscape work of Richard Wilson, and spent time trying to locate Wilson's viewpoints. Richard Wilson, Llyn-y-Cau, Cader Idris, 1774
Cited in John Piper: Painting, Drawings and Theatre Designs 1932-1954 (London: Faber & Faber, 1954), Piper is quoted as saying: 'In paintings of North Wales, as of many mountain areas, a rock in the foreground often shows the same form and, in its fractures and the way it lies, the same direction as the whole mountain range in the distance'. Boulder at Cwm Tryfan
In the same book, S John Woods writes: 'the near abstract paintings he did about 1950, based on rocks and walls, are among his best works'. Writing in The Listener on March 29 1933, (the article entitled Younger English Painters II) Piper quotes DH Lawrence writing in 1915: ''One can only build great abstraction out of concrete units... The architecture comes in painting only with the suggestion of some whole, some conception which conveys in its own manner the whole universe. Most puerile is this clabbing of geometric shapes behind one another, just to prove that the artist is being abstract, that he is not attempting the representation of the object. The way to express the abstract whole is to reduce the object to a unit, a term, and then out of these units and terms to make a whole statement''.
Piper's landscapes and works with a natural subject are knowingly situated in the traditions of landscape painting reaching back to the seventeenth century. In the seventeenth century landscape painting was an expression of religion - the veneration of that which is made by the hand of God. In the eighteenth century, the century of Enlightenment, it became an expression of the Cult of Nature - venerating the rules and laws which were being derived and discovered in the natural world. Piper's approach, of spending long periods of time in order to understand and express the intrinsic nature of the rock in front of him is very much a development of this long tradition, and a clear in the present work. As Woods wrote: 'These (paintings of North Wales) are not dramatised, but their greys and browns and black are rich with the sense of place and climate'.
John Piper, a note written near the Summit of the Glyders, Snowdonia: ' Mist blowing across all day: visability about 15 - 20 yards only, curious sensation in presence of gigantic boulders, giant coffin slabs, pale trunk-shaped rocks, disappearing into grey invisibility even at close range. The affectionate nature of the mountain not changed by the acute loneliness and closed-in feeling induced by the mist'.
‘ I felt then that I was seeing the mountains for the first time and seeing them as nobody had seen them before. This was due partly to the feeling of release after the confining of the war, partly to a “spurt” in my capacity to observe more clearly at this particular time. Each rock lying in the grass, had a positive personality: for the first time I saw the bones and structure and the lie of the mountains, living with them and climbing them as I was, lying on them in the sun and getting soaked with rain in their cloud cover and enclosed in their improbable, private rock-world in fog.’ Pipers Places, p105.
Rock-face was painted in 1949-50 when Piper was renting Bodesi farmhouse and is most likely that it is an observation of rocks at Tryfan which is nearby. In Rock Face, the rock has become metaphorical and, of an extraordinary grandeur, both observed and painted in abstract form. ‘ In his search to find the exact color of the rocks Piper imaged them to be animals feeling the shades of the weather, “ sometimes antagonistic ” as “ they react “. The paradigm of his drawings of Snowdonia was often the relation between a prostrate foreground and a distant background Summit, one pinkish and one bluish. The shapes are intricate and crafted, yet on a scale beyond human, apparently the realm of the “ enormous and untidy race of men ‘. He was surely contemplating mortality. ‘ David Fraser Jenkins
The coloring in Rock Face is bold and intense, typical of the oils executed in 1950, illustrating Piper as a brilliant colorist. ‘ The rocks can only look grey in leaden light, and then do not, commonly. Against mountain grass or scree, against peaty patches near tarns, on convex slopes, in dark cwms, the same kind of rock can look utterly different, and changes equally violently in color according to the light and time of year. ‘ JP. ‘ Lake frozen, from west end under the crags reflecting the sky – palest blue Zenith, fading downwards through orange and pinkish orange to translucent grey in reverse. White frosty rock surfaces contrasting violently with dark and shadowed ones.’ Diary entry 17th January 1946 Whether Piper intended to use the metaphor of the rock-face as a device to show human mortality or to show the effect of the weather on the rock-face is debatable. It is true that there is a small group of abstracted oils executed at this time and Rock-face appears to be the most abstracted version. Glyders Rocks, 1950, Oil, 20x29, SJ Woods, no 120. Rock Face, Capel Curig, oil 28x36, 1950, SJ Woods, no 119.
Figurative work appears in Piper’s stained glass designs. Foliate or ‘leafy’ heads are perhaps one of Piper’s most distinctive motifs, appearing in his works in a variety of media including tapestries and ceramics as well as drawings, paintings and prints. Their form is based loosely on traditional ‘green men’, found in the architecture of many medieval and nineteenth-century buildings. The recurrence of the image perhaps reflects Piper’s fascination with detailed medieval church carvings...
Category
1950s Modern John Piper Art
Materials
Oil, Panel
H 6.23 in W 8.08 in D 0.79 in
John Piper, Nursery Frieze I, Lithograph Modern British Art Surrealist Beach
By John Piper
Located in London, GB
To see our other Modern British Art, scroll down to "More from this Seller" and below it click on "See all from this Seller" - or send us a message if you cannot find the artist you ...
Category
1970s Modern John Piper Art
Materials
Lithograph
John Piper art for sale on 1stDibs.
Find a wide variety of authentic John Piper art available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by John Piper in paint, gouache, lithograph and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the modern style. Not every interior allows for large John Piper art, so small editions measuring 7 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Marc Vaux, Christopher R. W. Nevinson, and Edwin La Dell. John Piper art prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $100 and tops out at $58,288, while the average work can sell for $6,008.
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- 1stDibs ExpertAugust 20, 2024How much a John Piper painting is worth depends on its condition, history and other factors. In November 2013, his 1935 work Abstract Painting sold for more than $617,000, setting an auction record for the British artist. Piper is best known for his extensive studies of British architecture and landscapes in oil, watercolor and prints. In the mid-1930s, after a visit to Paris, he turned to abstraction, and his record-setting work reflects this shift in his style. If you own a Piper painting, a certified appraiser or knowledgeable art dealer can give you an estimate of its value. On 1stDibs, explore a selection of John Piper art.
- 1stDibs ExpertOctober 24, 2024How much John Piper paintings are worth varies based on their size, historical significance, condition and other factors. In 2013, his 1935 piece Painting sold for £482,500 at an auction in London. Piper is best known for his extensive studies of British architecture and landscape in oil, watercolor and print, and his photography, stained glass, ceramics, fabric design, murals, stage sets and costume design. His work is held in the collections of many major museums, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Tate in London. If you are the owner of a Piper, a certified appraiser or experienced art dealer can assist you with the valuation process. On 1stDibs, shop a range of John Piper art.