Connaught Brown

06/09/2022

This charcoal drawing by British artist Leon Kossoff was inspired by Rubens’ monumental painting ‘Minerva Protects Pax from Mars’, a jewel in the National Gallery’s collection ➡️ swipe for side-by-side comparisons

At only ten years old, Kossoff visited the for the first time and become fascinated by works by Old and Modern Masters such as , , , and .

would then re-experience and re-imagine their magnificent paintings through drawing - the technique his entire practice was rooted in.

The artist created works from Rubens’ ‘Minerva Protects Pax from Mars’ for nearly a decade, which culminated in an oil painting and a series of prints that are now part of the collection (depicted, image 5)

📩 Please get in touch if would like more information about this work - it’s also available on via the .

Leon Kossoff (1926 - 2019)
‘From “Minerva Protects Pax from Mars” by Rubens’
c. 1980 - 1981
Charcoal on paper

02/09/2022

This collage is a study for Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s ‘Wrapped Reichstag’, an iconic project.

It attracted millions of visitors to this historical building in Berlin in 1995, after 24 years of planning.

The installation took:
- 90 professional climbers,
- 120 workers to complete,
- over 200,000 kilos of steel frames,
- and 100,000 square meters of fabric

It was entirely funded by the artists through the sale of preparatory sketches such as this one.

The Reichstag is the seat of the German parliament and a site of immense historical significance.
It had been at the heart of divided Berlin during the Cold War, and always stood for Christo as a symbol of Democracy.

Despite the huge success, the artists refused to extend the project, emphasising the transience of the installation - which now lives on in photographs and preparatory works, including this study.

📩 Please get in touch for more info on this work - it is also available on via the !

🖼 It currently hangs in our Mayfair gallery

Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Wrapped Reichstag (Project for Berlin), 1979
Pencil, fabric, twine, charcoal, map and wax crayon on board

10/08/2022

Paul Richards’ portraits are as much about capturing emotion as they are about physical likeness.

In works like ‘Noodle Eater’ (images 1 & 2), ‘The Italian’ (3 & 4), and ‘Hiroshi’ (5 & 6) sitters are not posed and the artist’s expressive style allows elements of their personalities to shine through.

Each portrait is shaped by the particularities of the people depicted and by the unique moment of interaction between artist and sitter.

The transience of each encounter is evoked in the seeming fragility of the pastel, which gives the impression that the image could blow away.

Drop by our gallery to see these beautiful works in person and get in touch if you’d like more information.
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Works by Paul Richards:

‘Noodle Eater’, 2019. Pastel on watercolour paper.

‘The Italian’, 2019. Pastel on watercolour paper.

‘Hiroshi’, 2019. Pastel on watercolour paper.

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30/07/2022

Happy Birthday to Henry Moore, born in 1898.

One of the most important figures in 20th century sculpture, Moore was also a prolific draughtsman, creating almost 7500 drawings over the course of his life, which often developed into sculptural ideas.

Created at the height of the Second World War, ‘Reclining Figures’ (1943, image 2) shows a subterranean landscape with bodies cocooned in space that relates closely to his Shelter Drawings, which depict people taking refuge from the Blitz in the tunnels of the London Underground.

Displayed at the National Gallery in 1942, these works enhanced the artist’s reputation, and continue to be some of his most admired works on paper to this day.

Next to each of the ‘Reclining Figures’ in the image, Moore wrote down ideas for the materials that could be used for six sculptures in the future, hinting at how, like the shelter sleepers, the figures could emerge anew.

Moore continued to draw for the ‘pleasure of looking more intently and intensely’. In works such as ‘Three Figures Seated in a Landscape’ (1950-51, image 8), his use of different materials and techniques adds dimension and movement to the two-dimensional figures, whose poses and texture also resemble his stone carvings.
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Works:

‘Reclining Figures’, 1943. Pencil, charcoal, wax crayons, pen and ink and wash on paper (image 2, details on images 3, 4, 5, 6)

‘Three Figures Seated in a Landscape’, 1950-51. Wax crayon, coloured crayon, chalk and wash on paper (image 8, details on images 9, 10)
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Please get in touch with the gallery if you’d like more info
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14/07/2022

CLOSING SOON: Last chance to see ‘Simon Edmondson: Studio Estudio’, an exhibition exploring the very personal relationship between the artist and his studios.

These paintings and drawings depict the studios of in Old Ford Road (Hackney, London), Carpenter’s Road (Stratford) and Calle Fernando Barrachina (Madrid)

While these spaces no longer physically exist, they live on in his memories and in the works, which form a kind of self-portrait, mapping Edmondson’s life and artistry

Drop by the gallery by Friday, 15th July, to experience the nostalgia and athmosphere of these irretrievable spaces

13/07/2022

Connaught Brown updated their business hours.

Connaught Brown updated their business hours.

30/06/2022

Our exhibition ‘Simon Edmondson Studio Estudio’ runs until the 15th July.

Based on Simon’s three former studios: Old Ford Road; Carpenter’s Road and Barrachina, the exhibition explores the painter’s relationship with the studio.

27/06/2022

Delighted to be back
Maastricht. Come and visit us at Stand 451

20/06/2022

We welcome you to view our new exhibition:

‘Simon Edmondson
Studio: Estudio’

The painter´s relationship with the studio has been the subject of many masterpieces. Acting as a ‘portrait’ of their world, the studio has served as a metaphor or allegory at the very heart of artistic intention and intimacy.

This exhibition follows the work of Simon from his two London studios in the 80’s, Old Ford Road and Carpenter’s Road, to his studio in Madrid, Barrachina in the 90s.

In Simon’ own words: “Each of these studios have generated a geology. Strata of paint building up on floors, walls and furnishing, worn out brushes that never get thrown away, the nails in the walls just where you need them, all witnesses to the hours spent working. Much of the paraphernalia I have carried along with me, even from London to Madrid, from place to place. Chairs, plan chests, buckets, ladders, it’s hard to throw away these old friends.

It’s almost as though these studios are all the same studio.”

20/06/2022

We welcome you to view our new exhibition:

‘Simon Edmondson
Studio: Estudio’

The painter´s relationship with the studio has been the subject of many masterpieces. Acting as a ‘portrait’ of their world, the studio has served as a metaphor or allegory at the very heart of artistic intention and intimacy.

This exhibition follows the work of Simon from his two London studios in the 80’s, Old Ford Road and Carpenter’s Road, to his studio in Madrid, Barrachina in the 90s.

In Simon’ own words: “Each of these studios have generated a geology. Strata of paint building up on floors, walls and furnishing, worn out brushes that never get thrown away, the nails in the walls just where you need them, all witnesses to the hours spent working. Much of the paraphernalia I have carried along with me, even from London to Madrid, from place to place. Chairs, plan chests, buckets, ladders, it’s hard to throw away these old friends.

It’s almost as though these studios are all the same studio.”

06/06/2022

Edgar Degas 1834-1917
‘Danse Espagnole’, c.1885
41.3 x 17.6 x 16.6cm

Edgar Degas’ art is inextricably associated with depictions of dancers. 'La danse espagnole', stands out amongst Degas’ three-dimensional works for its spontaneous sense of licence and sensuality, characteristics that clearly relate to its Spanish theme.

In so much of Degas’ work the n**e itself is the subject and the dance is the means by which he can explore the pose, catching it in a moment of abandon.

The present work is a prime example of this. As Charles Millard has observed in 'La danse espagnole' "a spiral configuration that rises through the hip-shot torso, around the curving left arm, turned head, and up through the raised right arm, whence it returned to the body by the relationship of the hand to the head...a sculptural statement of a sophistication unrivalled in the nineteenth century. The curving and spiraling of the forms completely does away with any sense of frontality, and the figure is wholly satisfactory from any angle" (Charles Millard, 'The Sculpture of Edgar Degas', Princeton, 1976, pp. 102-103).

23/05/2022

Edgar Degas, ‘Chez la modiste (modiste garnissant un chapeau),’ c.1885, 46 x 58.8 cm

Our exhibition ‘Towards Modernity’ in parts:

A NEW PARIS AND THE NEW WOMAN

The changes in society at the end of the nineteenth century were reflected in artists’ work. Under the direction of Baron Hausmann Paris was remodelled from a maze of winding Medieval streets to wide tree lined boulevards and parks. A culture of people watching and cafés emerged.

With the new emphasis on observation, artists such as Toulouse-Lautrec, Degas and Caillebotte took to recording those on the fringes of popular society with dignity and honesty. The Realist artists Courbet, Manet and Corot – who preceded Toulouse-Lautrec and Degas - had depicted the realities working class life, from afar with a detachment from their subjects. Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec thrust the viewer into the scene.

16/05/2022

Further exhibition highlights from our current exhibition ‘Towards Modernity’

Camille Pissarro
‘Pommiers, effet d'automne’, c.1900
Oil on panel
14 x 20.1 cm

Like great masters before him Camille Pissarro found a renewed and emboldened expressiveness to his art in later life.

His early pioneering role amongst the Impressionists gave way to an affiliation with Pointillism.

He dispensed with the intuitive attitude which had driven his art in his early years and embarked, for a short time, upon a journey focused on precision, system and science.

Later works like, ‘Pommiers, effet d’automne’, combine the strictures of pointillism with his more instinctive, Impressionist manner.

09/05/2022

Alexander Archipenko
Statue on a Triangular Base, 1914
75.6 x 19.7 x 14.9 cm


Born in Kyiv in 1887, Archipenko was one of the most influential sculptors of the twentieth century.

Archipenko was an innovator of Cubist sculpture, adapting the style’s principals from canvas to bronze. Crucial to this was the disturbance of space and shape.

In ‘Statue on a Triangular Base’ the artist toys with the notion of negative space and receding forms. The abstracted figure is a medley of concave and convex forms. From every angle the sculpture transforms, revealing a new plane and perspective.

This sculpture was cast by Archipenko’s wife, Frances, and gifted to the Museum of Modern Art where it remained until it was recently deaccessioned. The sculpture has featured in several important exhibitions including the Museum of Modern Art’s 1970 presentation of the artist’s Parisian years. In the accompanying catalogue the famed critic Katherine Kuh described how “his greatest contribution was metaphysical. He made what is, seem what is not. It was the duality of vision that interested him, less the image itself than our reaction to the image.

By turning total voids into solid form, he also discovered that surrounding space could become as potent as dense mass”.

Archipenko’s Parisian years (1908 – 1921) are often heralded as his greatest, with this present work being an exceptional example from that period.

05/05/2022

Our current exhibition
‘Towards Modernity’ is open and today we focus on Marc Chagall‘s ‘Corbeille au soleil (Gordes)’, c.1938-9
60.5 x 48.6 cm

Chagall fled Paris and the N**i regime in 1939. His subsequent work exuded a new appreciation and lust for life.

‘Corbeille au soleil’ is a celebration of freedom and abundance. The plentiful fruit topples from the table and the shutters are swung open to allow in the breeze. In the background are picturesque roofs and figures relaxing in the sunshine.

This painting marks a very important moment in Chagall’s life. He created ‘Corbeille au soleil’ in Gordes in Provence, where in May 1940 be bought a house on the advice of his friend Andre Lhote who also lived there. Chagall described how " There, in the south of France, for the first time in my life, I saw that rich greenness—the like of which I had never seen in my own country."

Chagall’s stay in Gordes was not long. As the N**i occupation of France spread and the threat to his life increased, Chagall left Gordes in 1941 for New York and did not return until 1947.

28/04/2022

Connaught Brown is proud to present ‘Towards Modernity’, an exhibition that delves into the extraordinary trajectory of Modernism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Impressionists found a new method of painting traditional subjects, the Pointillists explored colour theory and the Cubists redefined the concept of form. This was an remarkable period for art in which change was embraced and the long accepted canon challenged with an inquisitive spirit.

The exhibition opens tonight and will run until Friday 27 May

11/04/2022

Our exhibition ‘Towards Modernity’ will begin
29th April - 27th May 2022.

This exhibition follows the extraordinary trajectory of Modernism through the ages

Thank you Antiques Trade Gazette!

04/04/2022

Today we celebrate the birthday of one of the greatest fauve artists, Maurice de Vlaminck 1876-1958

‘Le Guéridon au vase de fleurs,’ 1914-15
Signed lower right
Oil on canvas
64 x 51.5 cm

Please get in touch for more info on this work

24/03/2022

Our Viewing Room for Paul Richards: A Day at the Zoo is now live on

Paul Richards is the first major British portraitist to build an emotive profile of ZSL London Zoo. Over a three year period he spent time getting to know its creatures, allowing him to create poignant studies that convey the same level of intimacy as his human portraits.

Following the course of great masters such as Van Eyck, Rembrandt and Stubbs, Richards brings his distinct form of psychological drama to the canon of animal painting. The artist's representations communicate the artist’s powerful affiliation with his subjects and an enduring concern for the welfare of each creature as an individual spirit.

Please get in touch for more information or head over to the Artsy Viewing Room

21/03/2022

Graham Sutherland,
‘Rock Form Against Woods’, 1973,
Oil on canvas, 100 x 81cm

Graham Sutherland was a leader of the Neo-Romantic generation of painters that rose to prominence in Britain during the 1930s and 1940s.

During the 1970s Sutherland created a series of rock form paintings, a number of which were shown in an exhibition at Galleria Bergamini, Milan in 1973, including the ‘Rock form against woods’. Although working for many Italian patrons during this period, Sutherland’s work still refers to the romanticism of the Pembrokeshire landscape. This final period in Sutherland’s art is focused on the growing human condition and its relation to nature.

By the 1970s Sutherland had established an international reputation, having exhibited at the Festival of Britain (1951), Venice Biennale (1952) and Tate, London (1953), as well as painting the now infamous portrait of Winston Churchill in 1954 that was subsequently destroyed.

For more information please contact the gallery 📨

08/03/2022

Celebrating International Women’s Day with some of the incredible female artists whose works we are proud to exhibit at Connaught Brown.

28/02/2022

Howard Hodgkin, 1932-2017
Untitled (After Lunch), 1981
56.6 x 76 cm

“For me, as I have often said, the subject and object must become one thing. If this doesn’t happen then for me there is nothing – the picture doesn’t exist”
Howard Hodgkin

By the 1980s Howard Hodgkin was established as one of the greatest British artists of his generation. Hewould often spend years working on a single picture, returning to it until again and again until it captured the moment or feeling he had experienced.

He worked on 'Untitled (After Lunch)' for around two years. Hodgkin gifted 'Untitled (After Lunch)' to the artist Jean Gibson, wife of fellow Royal Academician Anthony Whishaw, after she visited his studio in 1981.

Two years after completing the painting Hodgkin represented Britain at the 1984 Venice Biennale to rave reviews and the year following was awarded the coveted Turner Prize.

Hodgkin had two major retrospectives in London during his lifetime, first at Tate Britain in 2006 and then at the National Portrait Gallery in 2017.

Please get in touch for more information ℹ️

17/02/2022

Henri Matisse, ‘Woman at the Piano’, c. 1923-4, 32 x 45.4 cm

Henri Matisse moved to Nice in 1917 to escape the “inner conflicts” that were tormenting him in Paris and look for a “new kind of synthesis”.

‘Woman at the Piano’ is a marvellous example of Matisse’s jewel-like sketches from the 1920s; from a technical perspective the artist’s employment of estompe, the rubbing of the charcoal lines with the blunt end of a rolled-paper stick, allowed him to simultaneously explore subtle nuances in the sitter’s character, as well as the luminous quality of light that surrounded her.

From 1920 to 1927 Henriette Darricarère, the subject of this drawing, was Matisse's most important model. She is particularly closely associated with the odalisque poses from the 1920s. Matisse was drawn to "her natural dignity, the graceful way her head sat on her neck and, above all, the fact that her body caught the light like a sculpture."

She had originally trained as a dancer and this gave her the athleticism and patience necessary for Matisse’s long and demanding sittings.

However, she also trained as a musician and was a highly accomplished performer, much like Matisse, with whom she would play duets.

Darricarère at the piano in Matisse’s Nice apartment is the subject of several iconic paintings of this period work, ‘Piano Player’ and ‘Still Life’, 1924 at Kunstmuseum Bern, ‘Pianist and Checker Players’, 1924 at National Gallery, Washington are two examples of several important works of this scene.

For more info please get in touch with us 📩

09/02/2022

A throwback to our Autumn Exhibition. New exhibitions to be announced soon.

#2022

03/02/2022

Jean Hélion, ‘Perroquet au miroir’, 1975

The present study for the oil painting 'Le perroquet et ses échos' ('Coat-tree and echoes') was completed at Bigeonnette, a studio Hélion took on near Chartres in 1962.

In his journal, Hélion discussed the coat-tree and its relation to the figure: "The coat-tree, the old clothes and the shadow, second attempt - 'Le perroquet et ses échos'. I know that, on a vertical wall, the shadow of a coat-tree is also vertical. Yet, irresistibly, it becomes oblique. The shadow is a being related to the figure, but it emancipates itself, though in the direction of that being."

'Perroquet au miroir' is dripping with the Surrealist motifs that preoccupied Hélion for his entire oeuvre: the coat, hats, shoes and umbrellas, in their meeting on a coat stand, produce the perfect outline of a figure.

The oil painting 'Le perroquet et ses échos', 1975, for which the present painting is a study, forms part of the collection of the Musée d'Art Moderne de St-Etienne.

Please get in touch for more info 📨