Piano Nobile
Skip to main content
  • Menu
  • Artists
  • Exhibitions
  • Viewing Room
  • News
  • InSight
  • Publications
  • About
  • Contact
Cart
0 items £
Checkout

Item added to cart

View cart & checkout
Continue shopping
Menu

Peter Coker

  • Biography
  • Works
  • Publications
  • Exhibitions
  • News
  • Previous artist Browse artists Next artist
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Peter Coker, Still Life with Fish, 1957

Peter Coker

Still Life with Fish, 1957
Oil on hardboard
120 x 79 cm
47 1/4 x 31 1/8 in
Copyright The Artist
Enquire About Similar Works
%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22artist%22%3EPeter%20Coker%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22title_and_year%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_and_year_title%22%3EStill%20Life%20with%20Fish%3C/span%3E%2C%20%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_and_year_year%22%3E1957%3C/span%3E%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22medium%22%3EOil%20on%20hardboard%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22dimensions%22%3E120%20x%2079%20cm%3Cbr/%3E47%201/4%20x%2031%201/8%20in%3C/div%3E
Still Life with Fish, 1957, was exhibited at Peter Coker’s third solo exhibition with the Zwemmer Gallery in 1959, one of only two still-life oils in an exhibition dominated by...
Read more
Still Life with Fish, 1957, was exhibited at Peter Coker’s third solo exhibition with the Zwemmer Gallery in 1959, one of only two still-life oils in an exhibition dominated by landscapes. On Coker’s usual grainy wooden table, a black frying pan holds a whole
fish, probably a mackerel, with a handful of vegetables including a cauliflower and garlic scattered across the table top. Coker has alighted upon the domesticity of a meal in progress, a brief pause as ingredients are prepared but cooking not yet begun. The extraordinary angle of Still Life with Fish, so that the table top is parallel to that of the picture plane, was formulated in reality by Coker: “I worked from drawings, finding much greater imaginative freedom, lifting the tables up (inclining the plane by
propping up the back legs) creating the impetus for particular distortions.”

An exhibition in 1979 at the Royal Academy, that toured the UK, presented Coker’s Butcher’s Shop works as a distinct and potent part of his oeuvre. The catalogue was introduced by Coker’s son, Nicholas, who emphasised the significance of texture to the
oils: “Texture is important, a smooth slab of paint for example, becomes our sense of a roll of fat. The tactile quality of the images is due to this kind of correspondence, and is part of an attempt to make the form more real.” The immensely dense impasto paint
laid over lead white applied to the board support takes on a near sculptural quality. Coker continues: “In that the painting is made as a reality, ultimately independent of the subject, the thickness of the paint attains to the objective reality formerly associated with the shape of the object.” As well as depicting the form of the still-life, the painting adopts the substance of the objects within the still-life, laying claim to its own objectivity through the sheer weight of its materiality.

Still Life with Fish was acquired by Stanley J. Seeger, the prominent American collector, to hang above his bed in Sutton Place, reportedly replacing a Francis Bacon triptych. It is one of the last remaining examples of Coker’s Kitchen Sink Group works
to remain in private hands with the majority held in public collections including Sheep Carcasses on a Bench, 1955; Royal Academy of Arts, Man Carrying Pig, 1955; Tate, Table and Chair (featuring Nicholas Coker as a child), 1955; Tate, and Butcher’s Shop No. 1, 1955; Museums Sheffield.
Close full details

Provenance

Zwemmer Gallery

Private Collection

Julian Hartnoll

The Maas Gallery, London, 13 June 2003

The Stanley J. Seeger Collection

Private Collection, UK

Exhibitions

1959, London, Zwemmer Gallery, Peter Coker, no. 1.

2017, London, Piano Nobile, Peter Coker: Mind and Matter, 5 April - 13 May 2017, cat. no. 5, col. ill. p. 23.

Literature

David Wootton with contributions by John Russell Taylor and Richard Humphreys, Peter Coker RA (Chris Beetles Ltd, 2002), cat. rais. no. 64, p. 119, col. ill., p. 119.
Share
  • Facebook
  • X
  • Pinterest
  • Tumblr
  • Email
Previous
|
Next
4 
of  7

 

 

PIANO NOBILE | Robert Travers (Works of Art) Ltd

96 / 129 Portland Road | London | W11 4LW

+44 (0)20 7229 1099

info@piano-nobile.com 

Monday - Friday 10am - 6pm | Saturday 11am - 4pm    

Closed public holidays

 

 Instagram        Join the mailing list   

  View on Google Map

  

Privacy Policy
Manage cookies
Terms & Conditions
Copyright © 2025 Piano Nobile
Site by Artlogic

This website uses cookies
This site uses cookies to help make it more useful to you. Please contact us to find out more about our Cookie Policy.

Manage cookies
Accept

Cookie preferences

Check the boxes for the cookie categories you allow our site to use

Cookie options
Required for the website to function and cannot be disabled.
Improve your experience on the website by storing choices you make about how it should function.
Allow us to collect anonymous usage data in order to improve the experience on our website.
Allow us to identify our visitors so that we can offer personalised, targeted marketing.
Save preferences