
caption
William Nicholson, Elm Tree and Church
Photo courtesy of Dave Penman (All Rights Reserved)
Details
- Country House
- Mells Manor
- Title(s)
- Elm Tree and Church
- Date
- c.1927
- Medium and support
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- Overall height: 40.5 cm, Overall width: 33 cm
- Artist
- William Nicholson (1872-1949)
- Catalogue Number
- MM86
- Signature
-
- Signed lower left (sgraffito) and lower right (painted) ‘N’
Bibliography
Lillian Browse, William Nicholson, London : Rupert Hart-Davis, 1956, p. 331, entitled View of a Church Tower and a Tree
Sanford Schwartz, William Nicholson, New Haven and London : Yale University Press, 2004, p. 152, illustrated in colour
Patricia Reed, William Nicholson: Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, London : Modern Art Press, 2011, cat. no. 577, p. 459
Footnotes
-
Raymond Asquith, Earl of Oxford and Asquith, private communication, 17 July 2020.
1
Description
The principal focus of the present composition is a large elm tree, which no longer exists, as it was felled during the 1970s. To the left is the parish church of St Andrew. The view in the painting looks south-east, although Nicholson has taken liberties with the actual topography, having placed the high wall along the Manor House entrance drive, inaccurately, in the same plane as Lutyens’s summer house, which appears at the extreme left of the composition. Also, in reality, the elm tree was not near the church but at least four hundred yards away in a field.1 In the left foreground the shadow of the artist at his easel can be discerned on the grass.