John Piper Abstract Paintings

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...

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...

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...