WHYTES
SINCE 1783
,
21
28
William John Leech RHA ROI (1881-1968)
HAYSTACK
oil on panel
signed lower left; inscribed with title on original label on
reverse
15.50 by 13.50in. (39.37 by 34.29cm)
Provenance:
Kitty Le Marquand, Jersey;
Thence to her son, the late Richard Wigginton;
By whom given to the previous owner;
Whyte’s, 29 September 2008, lot 109;
Private collection
Exhibited:
Possibly
‘Paintings by William J. Leech RHA’, Dawson Gallery,
Dublin, 1-8 June 1945, catalogue no. 8 (£35)
Haystack
epitomises Leech’s awareness of Monet’s work and his
assimilation of Impressionism, first apparent in Leech’s paintings of
c.1912.The more strident yellows and greens of
A Secret Garden
and
A
Convent Garden
are resolved into a harmonious arrangement of the
foreground’s pink and blue shadows in
Haystack
, which contrasts
against the yellow greens of the newly-mown meadow.The change in
Leech’s painting technique is apparent; textured strokes have been
replaced by smooth brush strokes, freely drawn, leaving areas of the
support to shine through.This free execution indicates that Leech
probably painted this work directly in the landscape, perhaps from the
upper level of the Devon Cider barn, with its wide opening, planned for
easy access of loads of apples but ideal as an artist’s advantage
viewpoint and studio workspace.
The Blitz of 1941 twice damaged Leech’s Steele’s Studio in Hampstead
but May Botterell’s Abbey Road flat escaped damage and became
home and studio for them both. Leech’s family, especially his brother
Cecil and wife ‘Babs’, who ran an apple orchard in Devon, provided a
refuge for the couple in the countryside away from the bombings in
London for months at this time. Cecil Leech cleared the upper part of
one of the cider barns as a studio for his younger brother William John
who began a series of paintings of farmyard gates, meadows of hay
and apple orchards during these war years, a respite from London back
gardens and views from the fifth floor of May’s flat.
Leech exhibited a similar work,
A Haystack
, at the RHA in 1944, the
same year he exhibited
Back Gardens
and
A War Time Garden
, all care
of Leo Smith.This present work was probably included in Leech’s first
solo exhibition at the Dawson Gallery in June 1945. He exhibited his oil
Haystack and Window, Evening
, which depicts a haystack in a farmyard
scene with chickens, at the Oireachtas Exhibition of 1945 and at the
RHA in 1948 and which was also included in Leech’s exhibition with
Frances Kelly and Evie Hone at the Dawson Gallery in July/August
1953.
His journeys to France were ended by the Second World War and Leech
was never to return to his earlier Breton subject matter or his later
paintings in the South of France.These were replaced by sunlit Regent
Park gardens, flowers on windowsills and later his garden at Candy
Cottage, but during the war years his work focuses on a series of
haystacks in farmyards framed though open windows or, as in
Haystack
, through a five barred wooden gate and the diagonal trunk of
a nearby tree.
Dr Denise Ferran
€
10,000-
€
15,000 (£8,550-£12,820 approx.)
