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NOTRE DAME DE MARTIGUES

53.5 by 32cm., 21 by 12½in.

signed and dated 1910

oil on board

PROVENANCE

Mrs Mary Neame
Arthur Tooth & Sons Ltd, London

EXHIBITED

Johannesburg, British Council Fine Art Section, Empire Exhibition, no.320;
Leeds, Temple Newsam House, Augustus John, 1946, no.15;
London, Royal Academy, Augustus John, 1954, no.103.

NOTE

Painted in 1910, the year of John's initial, joyous discovery of the Provencal town of Martigues. Glimpsed from a train en route to Italy, John referred to this enchanting town on the banks of the Etange de Berre as 'the goal of my dreams', and would return regularly with his family to stay at the Villa Ste Anne for the next eighteen years. Characteristically, it was not only the colour and beauty of the Provencal landscape that delighted John, but also that of the handsome local population. In a letter to Ottoline Morrell written shortly after his first arrival in Martigues, Augustus remarked, '... I have seen so many powerful women whose essential nudity no clothing can disguise.'