Laurence Sisson (1928-2015)

Maine Coast

oil on board

30 x 22 inches

Patrick George (1923-2016)

Garden Gateway, 1994-98

oil on panel 

13 3/4 x 40 inches

Acquired from a William Hodgins designed home in East Hampton, NY. Hodgins acquired it for his client directly from Browse & Darby, George's longtime dealer in London. Patrick George was a landscape and figure painter of distilled emotion and intelligence. A modest man of considered opinions and dry humour, he preferred to paint at his Suffolk home rather than court the art establishment, and his visits to London were mostly made in order either to teach or to see exhibitions of other artists’ work. He eschewed self-promotion, yet his paintings are much cherished by a growing band of admirers who appreciate the formal toughness, unusual structures and sensitive colours of his subtle approach. Chief among his artist supporters was Frank Auerbach, who has described George’s painting as having “the tension of a tightrope walker. I find it engrossing and admirable.” George was at the center of 20th century British painting; a student and then colleague of William Coldstream at the Slade, a contemporary of Lucian Freud and a mentor of Euan Uglow. He was celebrated for his devotion to the particularity of things, especially trees, and English light and atmosphere, and his ability to render all this most beautifully and memorably into the language of paint. In later years he read Montaigne to help prepare himself for death, but lost none of his relish for life, continuing to paint and regularly enjoying roast lamb, good wine and whisky. His later work was looser in application but none the less effective for this.