Kenneth Rowntree Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
British, 1915-1997
Kenneth Rowntree was born in Scarborough on March 14, 1915, and educated in York where his father managed the local department store. Young Kenneth’s work was displayed there and his first major commission arose from an advertisement at the store. After studying at the Ruskin School of Drawing in Oxford, he went on to study at the Slade School. At the Slade School, he met Eric Ravilious and Edward Bawden and then moved to north Essex to work with them as members of the group of Great Bardfield Artists. Between 1940–43, he was one of the teams of over 60 artists engaged by the War Artists’ Advisory Committee for the Recording Britain project, to record the face of England and Wales before wartime action or before development changed it forever. Rowntree’s keen sense of design and fascination with the quirky and the vernacular made him an ideal candidate to interpret our built heritage’s more unusual aspects. In 1951, he painted murals in the Lion and Unicorn Pavilion for the Festival of Britain and he decorated the route of the Queen’s Coronation procession. During a teaching job at the Ruskin School of Drawing in Oxford he was driven, perhaps by his experiences recording Britain, to record the decorated barges that belonged to the Oxford Colleges. These wooden Victorian ceremonial barges had belonged to the London livery companies but were acquired in their later life by the Colleges to be used as changing rooms and clubhouses for the College boat clubs. Partway through painting one of them, Rowntree thought his drawing was incorrect until he realized that it was the boat that was moving. It was in fact sinking. In 1959, he was appointed Professor of Fine Art at Newcastle University, which as British art schools went was one of the most progressive. The Master of Painting was the abstract constructionist Victor Pasmore, and his assistant the father of British pop art, Richard Hamilton. Also Master of Sculpture was John Robert Murray McCheyne. In this environment Rowntree became receptive to assemblage and constructivism and other modernist idioms, incorporating them into his own work. Kenneth Rowntree worked with the architect Ernő Goldfinger to produce colored glass panels in Goldfinger’s Alexander Fleming House in the Elephant and Castle. He died in Hexham on February 21, 1997.
to
1
1
1
Overall Height
to
Overall Width
to
1
1
1
718
412
288
228
1
1
Artist: Kenneth Rowntree
Kenneth Rowntree: 'Abstract Australian Landscape' watercolour Modern British Art
By Kenneth Rowntree
Located in London, GB
Kenneth Rowntree
Abstract Australian Landscape
Watercolour
27.5 x 33cm
Signed (top left) and dated ‘Kenneth Rowntree ’85’
Provenance: Anderson & Garland Studio sale of Kenneth Rowntree lot 263 Tuesday 8 September 2009
For biographical details and other works by Rowntree click here.
Rowntree visited Australia in 1984/85. In this painting he picks up various vignettes from the Australian landscape in six separate blocks. Two relate to the sky, with almost-unbroken blue skies stretching from horizon to horizon, three relate to desert areas, with a whole array of different textures, and one is a luscious green. In one of the desert scenes he has picked out two road signs, in typical Rowntree fashion, reducing them to their simplest form. In her essay Kenneth Rowntree: A Strange Simplicity (published in Kenneth Rowntree A Centenary Exhibition Published by Moore-Gwyn Fine Art and Liss Llewellyn Fine Art, on behalf of the artist’s estate, on the occasion of the centenary of Kenneth Rowntree’s birth) Alexandra Harris makes reference to this painting noting:
"Later, in 1986, just when the young David Hockney was collaging the signs and road-markings of Route 138 in Pearblossom Highway, Rowntree was in Australia painting yellow diamond-shaped road-signs as bright icons in open country. Wherever he went, Rowntree captured both the unfamiliarity of places and their relationship to things he knew. Heading into the Australian outback, he painted a road-sign as he would paint a rail signal at Clare in Suffolk or nautical markers at Swansea."
Hockney’s 1986 Pearblossom Highway may be seen in the Getty and it is worth noting that Rowntree was in fact painting the yellow sign in 1985, so a year before Hockney.
Kenneth Rowntree (1915-1997)
Rowntree was born in Scarborough and educated in York where his father managed the local department store. Young Kenneth’s work was displayed there and his first major commission arose from an advertisement at the store. After the Ruskin School of Drawing in Oxford he studied at the Slade School, meeting Eric Ravilious and Edward Bawden and then moving to north Essex to work with them as members of the group of Great Bardfield Artists.
Between 1940 and 1943 he was one of the team of over 60 artists engaged by the War Artists Advisory Committee for the ‘Recording Britain’ project, to record the face of England and Wales before wartime action – or development – changed it for ever. Rowntree’s keen sense of design, and fascination with the quirky and the vernacular made him an ideal candidate to interpret our built heritage’s more unusual aspects.
In 1951 he painted murals in the Lion and Unicorn pavilion for the Festival of Britain, he decorated the route of the Queen’s Coronation procession (some of the works being acquired by Her Majesty).
During a teaching job at the Ruskin School of Drawing in Oxford he was driven, perhaps by his experiences recording Britain, to record the decorated barges that belonged to the Oxford Colleges. These wooden Victorian ceremonial barges had belonged to the London livery companies, but were acquired in their later life by the Colleges to be used as changing rooms and clubhouses for the College boat clubs – depending on the size of the barge rowing eights were stored on board too. Part way through painting one of them Rowntree thought his drawing incorrect until he realised that it was the boat that was moving. It was in fact sinking. These days the Colleges have modern (but unromantic) boat houses; a handful of the barges remain – restored – in private hands.
In 1959 he was appointed Professor of Fine Art at King’s College, Newcastle (latterly part of the University), which as British art schools went was one of the most progressive. The Master of Painting was the abstract constructionist Victor Passmore...
Category
Late 20th Century Abstract Kenneth Rowntree Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor
Related Items
'Sunset Landscape', Hamburg, Rivne, Volhynia, Rivne Museum
Located in Santa Cruz, CA
Signed lower right, 'G. Kosmiadi' for Georg Kosmiadi (Ukranian-German, 1886-1967) and dated, '66'; additionally signed verso, 'Georg Kosmiadi', inscribed with serial number and dated, '20/9/66'.
Georg Kosmiadi was a resident of Rivne before moving to Hamburg in 1940 where he worked as an art teacher. Kosmiadi exhibited at the Rivne Regional Museum and a regional art...
Category
1960s Abstract Impressionist Kenneth Rowntree Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Paper, Gouache
"Sierra Country", Abstracted Landscape Watercolor
By Erle Loran
Located in Soquel, CA
Vibrant abstract landscape watercolor titled "Sierra Country" by Erle Loran (American, 1905-1999), 1984. Titled, signed, and dated on verso. Presented in a painted metal frame, without glass. Image, 23"H x 31"L. Measures: 30"H x 37"W.
Erle Loran was a modernist of urban and coastal views and geometric painting.
Erle Loran was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He studied at the Minneapolis School of Art under the direction of Cameron Booth...
Category
1980s Abstract Expressionist Kenneth Rowntree Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor, Archival Paper
Llangorse Lake, Brecon Beacons, Wales, circa 1964. Welsh Landscape. Abstract.
By Roger Cecil
Located in Sutton Poyntz, Dorset
Roger Cecil.
Welsh ( b.1942 - d.2015 ).
Llangorse, Brecon Beacons
Watercolor and pastel on paper. Signed.
Image size 19.5 inches x 29.5 inches ( 49.5cm x 75cm ).
Frame size 24.6 inches x 34.6 inches ( 62.5cm x 88cm ).
Available for sale; this original painting is by the Welsh artist Roger Cecil and dates from around 1964.
The watercolor and pastel work is presented and supplied in a sympathetic contemporary frame (our stock frame, which is shown in these photographs), mounted using conservation materials and behind glass. The original backboard has been reused but the artwork has been isolated from it using conservation barrier materials.
This vintage artwork is in good condition, commensurate with its age. Previous cockling (rippling) of the paper has been eliminated by stretching and the use of a new mounting. Previous foxing and age marks have been mechanically removed and the coarse fiber of the paper has been made good in these areas. The painting is now ready to hang and display.
The watercolor is signed lower left.
Provenance: Previously with the Howard Roberts Gallery, Imperial Buildings, 69/74 St Mary Street, Cardiff.
Roger Cecil was a reclusive painter, draughtsman and teacher who was born in Abertillery, Monmouthshire in 1942. He lived and worked in Wales for the last four decades of his life, much of it in the house where he was born and brought up.
Cecil produced abstract work rich in imagery, poetry and color, which were drawn from his environment, the industrial valley towns and mountains. Prolific and obsessive, he was always a solitary artist, with no affiliations to any group or artistic movement.
He worked for more than forty years, with an ever evolving and prolific creative output. His pictures capture the geology and the history of the places he knew so intimately, and the impact of man of that environment.
Cecil studied Fine Art at Newport College of Art from 1959 to 1963, where his teachers included John Wright and Thomas Rathmell; in 1963 he gained the College’s highest award in the national diploma in design and a place at the Royal College London. In 1964 he won the David Murray Landscape Award from the RA. He took up his place at the Royal College of Art, but after just a few weeks he was unsatisfied and instead took up manual work in opencast mines and building sites.
Cecil later spent some time teaching at Ebbw Vale. From 1995 to 1998 he did his MA, which he gained with distinction in communication design at St. Martin’s College of Art.
The BBC made a television documentary on Cecil's work called The Gentle Rebel.
For a long time Cecil did not exhibit, through choice, and it was friends who helped to promote him. He then had a series of exhibitions at Business Art Galleries from 1987, and in 1995 the Hill Court Gallery, Abergavenny, held a retrospective of his work. In 1998 Gordon Hepworth and Y Tabernacl both showed Cecil's pictures.
Cecil’s works were also shown at the Oriel Myrddin Gallery in 2006 and 20011. The small book which takes the name of the earlier exhibition ”Cariad”; has an introduction by gallery manager Meg Anthony which states;
“The magic of Roger Cecil’s work is in part down to the man, for he is enigmatic and surprising, diffident and proud. He has deliberately avoided the art establishment, remaining shy of its protocol and systems of exposure and recognition. He has consciously created the space to pursue his art, away from the pressures of publicity and celebrity...... paint is Roger’s passion.”
Cecil’s methods were complex; he worked with a mixture of materials, including oil pastels, sandpaper, primer and plaster. He built up layers and then he rubbed and scratched them away. His work is textured and nuanced, and the color reverberates as if it has a life of its own. The paintings are abstract, but there are echoes of monumental shapes and undulations of the female form, the Valleys - the dark hills embracing the bowls of space and the rich, gritty textures of the industrial and post-industrial landscape, highlighted by intricate, personal marks.
Sarah Bradford states:
“Scale is an important feature of Roger Cecil’s work; he constantly shifts from near and the far off. He also moves his viewpoint from looking at, to looking down on to. This looking down, as though a bird, onto the world of the painting, comes from exploration of his surroundings and from the ordinance survey maps he takes with him when he walks. He has often said how he is inspired by the language of symbols and lines that are used in maps to delineate the landscape. It is easy to see the connection when looking at the networks of invented footpaths, waterways, and other pinpoint features that can be found in his work.” …
Mary Lloyd...
Category
Mid-20th Century Abstract Expressionist Kenneth Rowntree Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Paper, Pastel, Watercolor
H 24.61 in W 34.65 in D 0.99 in
Monhegan Wharf, Maine Coast, Island, Harbor, Watercolor, Abstract
By Yolanda Fusco
Located in Wiscasset, ME
Born in Czechoslovakia, Yolanda Fusco came to the United States in 1930. With a full scholarship, Fusco attended the Art Students League in New York where she studied with Vaclav Vyt...
Category
20th Century Abstract Kenneth Rowntree Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor
"Chimneys at Dusk", Small Pastel San Francisco Abstract Urban Landscape
Located in Soquel, CA
Abstracted Bay Area skyline against a pink sunset creates beautiful and soft geometries in this small pastel urban landscape by San Francisco artist Chris Cacciotti (American, 20th C...
Category
1990s Abstract Impressionist Kenneth Rowntree Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Paper, Pastel, Watercolor
H 16.5 in W 17.13 in D 0.75 in
Wyoming Mountains, Modern Abstract Geometric Landscape Watercolor
By Erle Loran
Located in Soquel, CA
Wyoming Mountains, Modern Abstract Geometric Landscape Watercolor
Energetic modern abstract watercolor in blue and orange hues, by Erle Loran (Ame...
Category
1980s Abstract Expressionist Kenneth Rowntree Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Paper, Watercolor
H 30 in W 37 in D 2 in
Dormant Sap
Located in THOMERY, FR
"Dormant Sap" portrays the essence of winter's embrace, where the tree's bare branches stand as silent sentinels against the pale backdrop of a frost-kissed landscape. Executed with ...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Expressionist Kenneth Rowntree Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Ink, Watercolor
Early 20th Century Fauvist Abstracted Landscape
By Charles Henry Harmon
Located in Soquel, CA
A colorful, expressive fauvist watercolor landscape of a pond in the forest (Pan Pacific Exposition Palace Ruins) by Charles Henry Harmon(American, 1895-1936). Presented in a giltwoo...
Category
1920s Abstract Impressionist Kenneth Rowntree Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Paper, Watercolor
"Domus Series" - Abstract Geometric Futuristic Neon Landscape
Located in Soquel, CA
A bright neon futuristic geometric landscape, depicting a detailed imaginative deconstructive dome structure in a polychrome world, titled "Domus Series" by Anita Margrill (American,...
Category
1980s Abstract Geometric Kenneth Rowntree Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor, Archival Paper
H 22 in W 28 in D 0.1 in
Cathedral Woods, Monhegan Island, Maine Coast, Yolanda Fusco, Abstract
By Yolanda Fusco
Located in Wiscasset, ME
Born in Czechoslovakia, Yolanda Fusco came to the United States in 1930. With a full scholarship, Fusco attended the Art Students League in New York where she studied with Vaclav Vyt...
Category
20th Century Abstract Kenneth Rowntree Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor
Landscape - Australian art 60s exhib Abstract landscape painting female artist
By Judy Cassab
Located in London, GB
An original watercolour on paper by famous listed Australian female artist Judy Cassab. This stunning painting is a bold, adventurous and confident abstract expressionist landscape w...
Category
20th Century Abstract Kenneth Rowntree Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor
"Abstract Landscape" Watercolor Painting
By John Guerin
Located in Austin, TX
Abstract landscape resembling a blue, green, yellow, and white. This piece is painted with watercolor and measuring 13" x 13".
The frame measures 22" x 24".
Category
1970s Abstract Kenneth Rowntree Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor, Archival Paper
Kenneth Rowntree drawings and watercolor paintings for sale on 1stDibs.
Find a wide variety of authentic Kenneth Rowntree drawings and watercolor paintings available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Kenneth Rowntree in paint, watercolor and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the abstract style. Not every interior allows for large Kenneth Rowntree drawings and watercolor paintings, so small editions measuring 13 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Angela Wakefield, Shaun O'Dell, and Ben Hancocks. Kenneth Rowntree drawings and watercolor paintings prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $5,586 and tops out at $5,586, while the average work can sell for $5,586.