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25
Landscript c.1959
Oil on board
Studio stamp verso
3 1/2 x 28 ins 9 x 71 cms
As he worked towards his first solo exhibition for the Waddington
Galleries in 1960, Wells introduced a larger scale to his paintings, up
to 24 x 58 ins for Landscape Evocation1959, by far the largest work
he had produced. These were generally characterised by a looser
more gestural technique that perhaps both indicate Wells’ awareness
of the contemporary work of his colleagues in St Ives and the
influence of his dealer urging him to make larger, more significant
statements. Many of these paintings possess an elongated horizontal
format, encouraging a linear narrative reading across the composition
and attempting to capture the enormity of the experience of
landscape within a single picture. The change in scale and technique
brought with it uncertainties that led Wells to make, for the first
time, provisional studies for the larger paintings, having abandoned
his technique of scoring the backboard with lines based on systems
of proportion such as the Golden Section. The urgency of
production brought about by the deadline of the Waddington
exhibition is evident in these loosely painted small scale studies.
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