Le Vieux Port

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, 100 Parliament Street

Composed in structured blocks and triangles, distinctively outlined in black, the compositional style of 'Le Vieux Port' is immediately recognised as a painting strongly influenced by Cubism. Its subject depicts the area of Marseilles known by this name. Christopher Nevinson knew Marseilles well and was actually in Le Vieux Port on 4 August 1914, the day that he heard at first hand that the First World War had broken out. He gave a vivid description of that day in his 1937 autobiography 'Paint and Prejudice'.

Although the date on the painting appears to read 1910, research by a former Government Art Collection curator has suggested that these numbers have almost certainly been strengthened during restoration at some time during the painting's history. The stylistic influence of Cubism strengthens this assertion as Nevinson met and saw the work of Cubist artists at first hand while studying and living in Paris from 1912 to 1914.

Nevinson was born in London and studied at St John's Wood School of Art and the Slade School of Art up to 1912. While studying at the Academie Julian, Paris, in the following year, he met radical, experimental artists notably Gino Severini and Amedeo Modigliani. In 1914 Nevinson co-founded the London Group. During the War, Nevinson served with the Royal Army Medical Corps and exhibited his work in London. His first solo show, primarily of war paintings, was held in September 1916 in London to great acclaim. Subsequent exhibitions secured his reputation as an innovative artist who captured the violence and fear of war. At the end of his life he turned to the more traditional subjects of landscapes and flowerpieces.

Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson, painter and printmaker, has been described as 'a vital and contentious figure, among the most important British artists of the twentieth century.' Nevinson studied art in London and then in Paris. In March 1914 he became a founding member of the London Group of artists, and in June of that year issued a Futurist manifesto, Vital English Art, with the Italian Futurist artist, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. During the First World War, Nevinson served in Flanders and France as an ambulance driver and became a member of the Royal Army Medical Corps. In March 1915 his first war paintings were shown at the London Group. In June and July of that year he exhibited as a Futurist at the Vorticist exhibition (Vorticism was a British derivation of Cubism and Futurism) and contributed to the second and last issue of the Vorticist magazine Blast. Nevinson's first solo show, primarily of war paintings, was held in September 1916 at the Leicester Galleries in London, and was a great success. That year he was 'invalided' out of the Army and appointed an Official War Artist in 1917. He became the first artist to draw from the air. In 1919 he visited Paris and New York. He was created Chevalier of the Legion d'Honneur in 1938, and Associate of the Royal Academy in 1939. Suffering deep depression and breakdowns as a result of the outbreak of the Second World War, his health broke down due to overwork and he died in London in October 1946.

Places

Mediterranean Sea, France, Marseilles

Subjects

steamship, crane, WW1 art, semi-figurative, townscape/cityscape, Vorticism, man, signage, port, hotel, wall

Materials & Techniques

canvas, oil, oil painting

Artist

Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson (1889 - 1946)

Title

Le Vieux Port

Date

1913

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

height: 91.50 cm, width: 56.00 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Leicester Galleries, February 1959

Inscription

br: C. R. NEVINSON 1910 (?)

Provenance

Collection of Kathleen Mary Nevinson (née Knowlman, widow of the artist); from whom purchased by the Leicester Galleries, London; from whom purchased by the Ministry of Works in March 1959

GAC number

4880