Cheltenham: Montpelier Walk

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, Whitehall

John Piper was born in Epsom, Surrey and worked in his father’s solicitors’ firm until 1926. He later studied art in Richmond and London. Meeting Braque in Paris inspired him to make abstract art and to exhibit with the Seven and Five Society (1934–35). In 1935 Piper collaborated with Myfanwy Evans (later, his wife) on the pioneering review, ‘Axis’. He abandoned abstract art for Neo-Romanticism and during the Second World War, as an Official War Artist, he recorded bomb-devastated buildings of England’s disappearing architectural heritage. A versatile artist, Piper made book illustrations, theatre designs, ceramics, stained-glass and textiles. He collaborated with Patrick Reyntiens on stained glass projects which included the baptistry window for what was then the new Coventry Cathedral, and the stained glass lantern for Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral. Retrospectives of Piper's work were held at the Museum of Modern Art (Oxford, 1973) and the Tate (1983–84).

Places

England, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

Subjects

statue (as Subject), sculpture (as Subject), topography, townscape/cityscape, street, balustrade, column, pillar (architectural feature), balcony, plinth (represented)

Materials & Techniques

canvas, oil, oil painting

Artist

John Piper (1903 - 1992)

Title

Cheltenham: Montpelier Walk

Date

1949

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

height: 197.50 cm, width: 123.00 cm

Acquisition

Commissioned from the artist, January 1949

Inscription

bl: John Piper

Provenance

Ministry of Works Commission for HM Embassy, Rio de Janeiro, 1949

GAC number

12049