Sir Matthew SMITH

In an account of a visit to Matthew Smith’s studio in London in 1957, an anonymous journalist wrote, ‘How joyously the red and blues of his later still-lifes sing together! How interesting is the combined impression of the artist’s personality, surroundings and works! These were my thoughts after a recent visit to Sir Matthew Smith…to the visitor’s eye [the studio] was full of atmosphere, with its easels and rows of canvases and the ‘properties’ – jugs, bowls – there was one asymmetrical fruit dish of French manufacture, a basket in porcelain which he handled with particular affection – oranges, lemons and quinces…the quince (at a momentary loss for its English name he referred to it in a manner recalling his many years spent in France as “coing”) that appears so often as an exhilarating yellow, and an element of design in his still-lifes. These solids of nature occupy him more, nowadays, than the flowers he used to paint so well.’ By this time Smith was working almost exclusively on paper, producing works aptly described by his biographer as ‘marvelously rhythmic and joyful.’

Among similar watercolours by Smith is a Still Life with Apples and Pears, formerly in the Tim Ellis collection and sold at auction in 2014, as well as a Still Life with Fruit in a Bowl which appeared at auction in 1972.