Duncan Grant
Design, 1925-30, c.
Carbon pencil and gouache on paper
38.1 x 27.9 cm
15 x 11 in
15 x 11 in
Copyright The Artist
This ‘design’ is a decorative, semi-abstract study. The format suggests that it was intended to be developed as a magazine cover. The bright contrasting colours—yellow, blue, red, green, grey and...
This ‘design’ is a decorative, semi-abstract study. The format suggests that it was intended to be developed as a magazine cover. The bright contrasting colours—yellow, blue, red, green, grey and ochre—have a playful mood. The title, ‘design’, is written in a looping script in contrast to the rectilinear gridwork below. The grid is interrupted by a curling abstract shape at the lower left-hand corner, which is redolent of the scroll on a stringed instrument (a violin perhaps). The entire sheet of paper is activated by colour and line, and the gridwork aligns in parallel with the edges of the paper. The handicraft quality of the execution, with neat but imperfect ‘straight’ lines and uneven panels of colour, was a distinctive feature of Grant’s artistic apparatus throughout his career.
Provenance
The ArtistPrivate Collection, given by the above, circa 1973