Charles Cundall:
Sketch for Stourport Power Station, 1956
Framed (ref: 6937)
Pencil and oil on paper

Tags: Charles Cundall oil pencil architecture topography work Charles Cundall Works in Progress Cundall: A Grand Tour

Provenance: Acquired directly from the Artist's Daughter

Exhibited: - A Working Method,Young Gallery Salisbury, March- April 2016, Sotheran's, April-May 2016. 

Literature: Charles Cundall - A Working Method, Edited by Sacha Llewellyn & Paul Liss, published by Liss Llewellyn Fine Art, February 2016.

For Cundall, painting war-time industry had led on with a certain inevitability to similar peace-time subjects, and eventually to Exhibited: - A Working Method,Young Gallery Salisbury, March- April 2016, Sotheran's, April-May 2016. 

Literature: Charles Cundall - A Working Method, Edited by Sacha Llewellyn & Paul Liss, published by Liss Llewellyn Fine Art, February 2016.

In the years after the war my father was commissioned to do a lot of industrial paintings, and he was skilled at finding a good subject to paint, from what seemed initially to be rather unpromising buildings, Jackie Setter, the artist's daughter

For Cundall, painting war-time industry had led on with a certain inevitability to similar peace-time subjects, and eventually to the massive modern effort of regeneration and new industrial plant. His long-standing interest in architecture, coupled with early experience of industrial design at Pilkington’s, was applied to post-war growth, and in the late 1950s he became sought-after as a chronicler of industrial buildings. Cundall treated his new subjects as he had done his old, and pointed out that ‘I’m not trying to “express the machine age” as I suppose a painter like Léger wished to do, which seems to me to lead to a kind of decoration instead of picture painting.’ Always thoughtful, he was an artist who gave serious consideration to the broader artistic implications of a new subject.

Cundall's working technique was dependant upon sketching on the spot to create images that would later be worked up into larger paintings in the studio. Here one would find him working form many drawings and colour notes accumulated during some recent journey. He prefers working with such aids to memory, on a fine canvas with soft hog and sable brushes, occasionally using a palette knife, and laying on colour instinctively rather than by methodical system. (William Gaunt, Charles Cundall R.A, A Study of his Life and Work).

We are grateful to Jackie Setter for assistance.