Bridge over the Seine
Christopher Wood (1901 - 1930)
Oil on canvas
c.1921-1927-
About the work
- Location
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Country: UK
City: London
Place: Government Art Collection
This Parisian scene by Christopher Wood is animated by figures occupied in various activities on the bank of a stretch of the River Seine. The main action of the scene focuses on a group of people at the centre. Two small girls watch anxiously as a man on the riverbank breaks up a scuffle between his dogs. Figures rowing past in a boat watch the action unfold; while in the distance, children play football and another man standing on the footbridge, watches the scene below.Although undated, Bridge over the Seine was most probably painted in the early or mid 1920s, a period when Wood lived and studied in Paris. A number of other paintings (in private collections) formally dated as 1925, also depict scenes of daily life in the affluent Parisian suburbs of Passy, Neuilly and St Cloud. In these works, Wood’s lively painting style and bold colour shows the direct influence of Fauvist artists such as André Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck, both of whom he greatly admired. In Bridge Over the Seine, one stylistic clue that supports this influence is the distinctive crosshatched diagonal strokes of paint that he used to depict the grassy riverbank. Post-Impressionist painter, Vincent Van Gogh, also employed this technique in many of his most famous landscapes and night scenes. Along with the later Fauvists, Van Gogh was another major influence on Wood’s largely self-taught painting style. Other aspects of the Dutch artist’s approach to life had also appealed to Wood. In 1922, Wood travelled across Europe to North Africa and while in Sicily, he read Van Gogh’s published letters. Shortly after, he wrote to his mother:… such a wonderful man. I have read all his memoirs and letters and how he never properly learnt to draw until he was 30 and how he struggled against every opposition, constant illness, no money and no one ever buying his pictures. He died at the age of 36.Poignantly, many aspects of Van Gogh’s life and early death by suicide pre-empted aspects of Wood’s own life. -
About the artist
Within a short life, Christopher Wood achieved a prodigious degree of painting, drawing and theatrical design. Born in Knowsley, near Liverpool, he studied briefly in Paris in 1921, after which he travelled in Europe and North Africa up to the mid 1920s, returning often to Paris. In this period, he was a popular figure in artistic circles, mixing with artists including Picasso and Cocteau. He was a close friend of British artist Winifred Nicholson and her husband, Ben Nicholson. Wood often stayed with them on painting trips to St Ives in Cornwall. Wood’s first solo exhibition was held at Arthur Tooth & Sons Gallery, London, in April 1929. That summer and autumn, he visited Brittany for the first time, a region reminiscent of Cornwall in its environment and community. Suffering from the effects of opium withdrawal, in a delirious state and apparently believing that assassins were pursuing him, Wood left Paris in August 1930 for England, to seek advice from his mother and sister. However shortly after meeting them, he threw himself under a train at Salisbury railway station. After his death, recognition of Wood increased, particularly as a British artist who had assimilated European influences into his work. By the 1940s, the style and subjects of his work, combined with the brevity of his life, appealed to a new generation of artists, including John Minton, John Craxton and Michael Ayrton.
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Explore
- Places
- France, River Seine
- Subjects
- rowing boat, playing, ball, topography, genre, townscape/cityscape, dog, river bank, river, man, girl, child, footbridge, house
- Materials & Techniques
- canvas, oil, oil painting
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Details
- Title
- Bridge over the Seine
- Date
- c.1921-1927
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- height: 54.00 cm, width: 65.00 cm
- Acquisition
- Purchased from Redfern Gallery, June 1957
- Inscription
- none
- GAC number
- 3814