KennethEvolutionWebb
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KennethEvolutionWebb
Kenneth KennethEvolutionWebbWebbisconsidered to be one of the finest landscape painters of the last 100 years.
All the team at Gladwell & Patterson
The past two years have impacted us all greatly, and none more so than Kenneth. Removed from the great outdoors, kept apart from his beloved Connemara and the necessity to remain indoors for the first time in his career have challenged him. It has produced an outpouring of works - Kenneth’s own inner landscapes, from memory, mind and heart. Painted in his new studio in Devon, accompanied by classical music, these are some of the most emotive and vibrant works of his career to date. One can feel the melody and lilt of the music across every surface, emanating through the colours and Kenneth’s tangible and textured brushstrokes.
In the five years that have passed since the monumental exhibition Kenneth Webb at 90 , Kenneth has continued to produce some of the most spectacular paintings of his career to date. His work has never ceased to be admired in both our London and Rutland galleries and at many of our overseas exhibitions. The acclaimed exhibition Kenneth Webb and the Tech-Tank took place in December of 2018 at the RDS in Dublin, showcasing one-hundred and sixty of Kenneth’s paintings, both historical and contemporary. This exhibition allowed us to meet so many of Kenneth’s collectors and we are eager to see those friendly faces again for this stunning celebration of Kenneth’s recent oeuvre.
We are most grateful to Jenny Davies, Kenneth and Joan’s daughter, whose eloquent and powerful text for this catalogue has enabled us all to understand Kenneth’s passion and talent so much more deeply. We very much look forward welcoming you in both London and Rutland very soon.
Over the course of his career, Kenneth’s landscape painting has evolved through several significant phases over his many decades of painting - in terms of both subject and technique, and today he continues to create and innovate through his art.
One constant, however, is that Kenneth has always painted landscapes in the landscape itself. For decades he has battled the wind to hold onto his canvas, struggled to shelter from searing heat or driving rain to capture the true mood of the scene before him. The challenges of the past two years have thus necessitated
Kenneth’s technique and approach to his subjects has evolved through several significant phases over his many decades of painting. From vibrant, attention grabbing poppies to ethereal waterlilies, Kenneth has always sought out the beauty in the natural world that surrounds him. From the south coast of Devon to the rugged landscape of Connemara, Kenneth’s artistic milieu has enabled him to constantly evolve and reimagine his Despitesubjects.their range, none of these themes has been entirely isolated or completed; Kenneth continually revisits subjects and techniques, adapting his approach and combining ideas in his eternal quest to truly capture the mood, the emotion - the spiritual essence - of a landscape.
Presented here, then, are the landscapes formed in Kenneth’s mind and heart. Without doubt, there is a return to his early bond with the forest through seasonal moods and colour. And reflection in every sense, marrying his key earlier themes of water and waterlilies, of shape and colour and perspective, all united in lyrical peace. Kenneth envisioned this group of paintings as a series, rather than as one independent painting after another, viewing his private meditative scenes both through the year’s changes and at varying degrees of perspective. As any 95 year old might, Kenneth’s view is more retrospective than futuristic, and most of the landscapes here are focused more on reflection and revisiting themes from his earlier years.
Following a series of worldwide lockdowns, many of us surely can relate to such introspection. However, there is much here devoted to hope and joy, also, and wide vistas, open skies and Kenneth’s crusade to capture the spirit of a landscape continues with optimism. - Jenny Davies
enormous changes in the way Kenneth works. He has been forced to become a studio-based artist, painting landscapes laid out in his mind - part memory, part imagination. The scent and caress of the wind has been replaced with the melody and lilt of the music played in his studio. Throughout his career, Kenneth has repeatedly made links between his painting and music; for him, the two arts are intrinsically linked - the same concept, explored through paired senses. With Covid threats removing Kenneth from his beloved landscapes in the physical sense, by flooding his studio with music - classical piano and strings being his mainstay - Kenneth has managed to achieve an emotional connection that has sustained him. It might even be argued that his latest works have achieved a stronger colour-to-emotion portrayal than a physical representation could, but Kenneth would still far prefer painting in the midst of a rain-soaked bogland, to the dry, music-filled studio! Over the course of his seventy-year artistic career, Kenneth has developed his own approach to his art, whereby he uses colour to increasingly replace tone and shape, which become subordinate in their roles. Kenneth uses colour itself to represent landscape in the abstract form. Achieving the right balance of drama and impact of the colour, whilst maintaining the mood and atmosphere of the landscape, is Kenneth’s ultimate goal. In pursuit of this, he has continuously experimented with texture and technique, style and subject matter. Paints and colours, too, have evolved through the years that Kenneth has journeyed this path. He remembers animated conversations with his mentor, Ivon Hitchens, when acrylic paints made their debut, sharing their enthusiasm for the possibilities the new medium offered, both alone and in conjunction with oils. Kenneth has continued to experiment in this way, seeking out and trying new palettes, exploring the subtlety of emotions they might convey.
6 May’s Rainbow Oil on Canvas 35.5 x 46 cms / 14” x 18” Price Code B
7 Where the Sunrays Fall Oil on Canvas 41 x 61 cms / 16” x 24” Price Code D
8 Forest Transcept Oil on Canvas 35.5 x 46 cms / 14” x 18” Price Code C
9 The Beauty of Mourning Oil on Canvas 30.5 x 23 cms / 12” x 9” Price Code B
Over seventy years later, at the very pinnacle of his career, the same sentiment can be said of Kenneth’s contemporary oil paintings. The graduations of colour have been replaced with vivid contrasting tones and the balance of light and tone is ever apparent in his forestscapes of the present day. Kenneth’s influence of the Forest of his past is subconsciously intwined with motifs that have been long established throughout his oeuvre.
The interplay of light and shadows in his woodland scenes is altogether delightful, his gradations of colour are subtle and effective, his balance and tone satisfying.”
Forestscapes
Autumn Adagio Oil on Canvas 51 x 102 cms / 20” x 40” Price Code E Into the Dark, Forest of Dean Executed in 10½”27Watercolour1950sx37cmsx14½”
Since permanently relocating his studio to Devon two years ago, Kenneth has rediscovered his delight in the forest landscape and the memories it evokes in him from his youth. In the 1940s the Webb family moved to Warren Farm, a derelict sixteenth century fortified farmhouse in the beautiful Gloucestershire countryside. The nearby Forest of Dean was an unending source of delight to Kenneth, who began to paint and sketch spontaneously and freely at this time. Kenneth was an observant young man, and the changing seasons of the Gloucestershire countryside, the beauty of trees and landscape, and the atmosphere of the woodland environment that Kenneth would walk through every day on his way to school, deeply impacted his imagination and creativity. The woodland landscape of the Forest of Dean, which inspired Kenneth’s earliest works, has influenced his most recent body of paintings. These striking, lineal paintings recall the gestural brushstrokes of Kenneth’s early watercolours from the 1950s but have evolved with his memories of the landscape of Connemara, wildflower meadows and the recurring theme of the Poppy; each combined with Kenneth’s unique approach to a deeply intense colour palette.
Not for Sale
Kenneth’s most recent monumental paintings, the Lyrical Series, is first and foremost a celebration of the woodland landscape. Kenneth portrays an imagined landscape of a lake surrounded by stiffly upright, and at times overpowering, trees – a reflection of the feeling confinement and isolation that has arisen over the past two years. From Kenneth’s Art College years to the present day, his love and appreciation of nature has formed the nucleus for his creativity. Kenneth’s first London exhibition in 1951 at the Wardour Gallery in Soho consisted entirely of watercolours of the River Severn and the Forest of Dean. Max McCabe in the Sunday Independent wrote; “Few artists capture the shimmer of leaves or the glint of water so effectively as [Kenneth] does. Fewer still use watercolours with such an elastic smoothness...
Still Waters Oil on Canvas 41 x 101 cms / 16” x 40” Price Code E
This monumental painting, the first of Kenneth’s Lyrical Series , evokes the memory of the dark forest which surrounded the home where Kenneth grew up in the remote Gloucestershire countryside near to the Forest of Dean. The trees are portrayed stiffly upright, recalling ships’ masts (as many of them may have one day become), and only a single avenue allows daylight through the dense green and brown hues of the canopy above. As the trees meet the water’s edge, they merge with the green trails of waterlilies and weeds in the lakes, and the promise of open skies is seen within the reflection upon the water. Webb’s choice to show blue skies, an iconic symbol of hope and freedom, predominantly in the water rather than above the trees, is perhaps a subconscious statement of being ‘trapped’ indoors. Heightened during lockdowns but a universal, eternal theme for all of us, trapped in some way, at some points in our lives, whether by health or age or confidence or pandemic - sometimes we see hope in the least likely of places.
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La Forêt Deco Oil on Canvas 25.5 x 30.5 cms / 10” x 12” Price Code B
15 Solace Oil on Canvas 25.5 x 35.5 cms / 10” x 14” Price Code B Windows in the Forest Oil on Canvas 25.5 x 35.5 cms / 10” x 14” Price Code B
16 Quiet Lament Oil on Canvas 53 x 122 cms / 21” x 48” Price Code E
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In the 1960s, Kenneth visited Lanzarote and the vibrant fields of poppies upon the volcanic land inspired perhaps one of Kenneth’s most recognisable motifs. Kenneth became interested in the evocative ‘riot’ of red colours he saw. The tumultuous ensemble of various hues of rich colour, whether red, orange or purple, became ingrained in Kenneth’s artistic psyche and has evolved into his paintings today. His return home to Ballywalter coincided with a proliferation of poppies on the sweeping sand dunes, inspiring a whole series of work and experimentation that focused on the abundant blooms infused within the landscapes and seascapes of Ireland which came to be known as “Webbscapes”. By the 1970s, the poppies that had so brightly furnished Ballywalter had become a natural aspect of Kenneth’s works. Gerald Goldberg, Governor of the National Gallery in Ireland, wrote in 1973; “Last year in America, I saw a study by Henri Matisse of poppies. I do not think Mr. Webb could have seen it. Yet, today I see the same treatment, the same use of texture, the proper use of colour in the wonderful, fascinating, living poppies from Mr. Webb’s brush. They are fresh and strong, overbearing in pride, upright with knowledge that they are among the rare, the rich and the beautiful, shimmering with light, an exciting never-to-be-forgotten experience.”
The tint and colour of the poppy varies so greatly, with season and light and movement. Sometimes the light shines entirely through the petal as though transparent, at other times the colour is opaque, creating what Kenneth describes as ‘an exhilarating impact’. Whilst an individual poppy may enchant, when grouped in a great display, the impact can be tremendous.
Poppies Summer Swathes Oil on Canvas 41 x 101 cms 16” x 40” Price Code E
20 Parade Oil on Canvas 51 x 76 cms / 20” x 30” Price Code E
21 Midsummer Spree Oil on Canvas 51 x 79 cms / 20” x 31” Price Code E
23 Poppy Cascade Oil on Canvas 146 x 51 cms / 57” x 20” Price Code F
24 Summer’s Lease Oil on Canvas 41 x 102 cms / 16” x 40” Price Code E
25 Sweet Morning Oil on Board 20 x 15 cms / 8” x 6” Price Code B Meadow’s Delight Oil on Panel 21.5 x 16.5 cms / 8” x 6” Price Code B
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27 Glorious Oil and Acryllic 51 x 127 cms / 20” x 50” Price Code F
This fabulous cornfield infused with poppies is extravagant with intense colour, laid thick with palette knife. Once a common sight across the land, chemical use and intensive farming all but eradicated wild poppies in fields of crops, but thankfully they are making a comeback. Kenneth adores the power of the colour and shape of these poppies, contrasted against the gold of the ripening harvest, and has set these to canvas as an everlasting memory. This landscape radiates with the heat and potency of a perfect summer’s afternoon.
28 Neither Here nor There Oil on Canvas 61 x 91.5 cms / 24” x 36” Price Code E
OilFiestaon Canvas 91 x 122 cms / 36” x 48” Price Code F
32 Appassionata Oil on Canvas 25 x 30 cms / 10” x 12” Price Code B
33 Melody’s Song Oil on Canvas 25.5 x 30 cms / 10” x 11” Price Code B OilPeaceon Canvas 25 x 30.5 cms / 10” x 12” Price Code B
34 Dark Enchantment Oil on Canvas 51 x 76 cms / 20” x 30” Price Code E
36 Tango in Pink Oil on Canvas 51 x 41 cms / 20” x 16” Price Code C
Tango in Blue Oil on Canvas 51 x 41 cms / 20” x 16” Price Code C
Price Code F
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Baroque Oil on Canvas 76 x 102 cms / 30” x 40”
An abundance of irises in their colourful and sculptural glory, dominate this flamboyant landscape. The subject of this landscape is a shift from the other paintings in the Lyrical Series , however, Kenneth includes this as being very much of ‘the same mind and mood’, as the woodland lakes. In the other paintings in the Lyrical Series the water, reflections and waterlily pads of the lake occupy the entirety of the foreground.
Here is a reverse, where water forms the vast middle and background, and the flowers form a barrier between the landscape and the viewer. Much the most flamboyant of the Lyrical Series , the showy flowers dance gaily on the edge of the wetland, beyond which weeds and reeds give way to open water. The mood is entirely buoyant: the vista here is open and bright, with calm blue sea reaching out to warm inviting sky. This, smiles Kenneth, captures “the eternal optimism of the artist”.
40 76.5OilAwakeningonCanvasx152.5cms / 30” x 60” Price Code F
42 Shangri La Oil on Canvas 102 x 46 cms / 40” x 18” Price Code E
Blue Remembered Hills Oil on Canvas 76 x 154 cms / 30” x 60” Price Code F
Waterlilies Waterlily Lullaby Oil on Canvas 61 x 91 cms 24” x 36” Price Code E
Kenneth and Joan purchased the Ballinaboy Studio in Connemara in 1972, and this wonderful place has offered a multitude of inspiration to Kenneth for over fifty years. When he moved to Ballinaboy, Kenneth delighted in the fourteen miles of blanket bog on his doorstep which stretched all the way to the small harbour of Roundstone. Steeped in history, the Derrygimla Bog contains a magnificent lough where wild waterlilies grow in abundance.
The Ballinaboy Studio garden is an explosion of colour and texture that incorporates both wild incursions and intricately thought-out plans. Combined with the native flowers are Kenneth’s impressive bog sculptures, bog oak “monsters” that he recovered from the bog, which loom out of deep vegetation.
Here and there Kenneth delicately places a lily in bloom, but his focus is on the lily pads and their interplay with the negative space of the deep blue water beneath. The eye dances around the surface of his paintings, evoking the playing of a melody in the heavenly blue paths that twist and pool around the waterlilies. The monumental waterlily paintings of his most recent Lyrical Series have evolved to combine the forestscape of Kenneth’s youth with the waterlily ponds of both the Derrygimla Bog and the Ballinaboy Studio garden. The theme of melody and music emanate from these paintings as the eye dances around the canvas. The viewer becomes immersed in the rich swathes of colour and texture and transported through Kenneth’s imagination to another world altogether.
The result is an entirely organic landscape that fuses native and planted flora in equal measure. The conglomerate effect of natural forms that have been allowed to develop without interference is imbedded in Kenneth’s work and in the natural but vivid impressions of the garden upon his canvases.
Kenneth’s favourite place in the garden is a stone seat overlooking his own waterlily lake. After an outbreak of invasive local rushes, cropped up from a damp spot in the garden, Kenneth removed them and dug to the base rock where a trickle of a spring was uncovered, filling the resulting hole and in time spawning lilies in a similar fashion to the gaping opening left by the peat cuttings in the nearby Derrygimla Bog. This paradise undeniably left an indelible impression on Kenneth’s work.
Kenneth delights in portraying glistening waterlily pads, in a myriad of colours depending on the season; greens, yellows, purples and oranges, often heightened with metallic pigment.
46 Set in Gold Oil on Panel 16 x 21.5 cms / 6¼” x 8½” Price Code B Set in Gold II Oil on Panel 14 x 18.5 cms / 5” x 7” Price Code B
47 OilSpectrumonCanvas 41 x 30 cms / 16” x 11” Price Code C
Golden Melody Oil on Canvas 76 x 102 cms / 30” x 40”
Price Code F Golden Melody is a celebration of Kenneth’s application of the great blocks of shining colour and the sheer unbridled joy that this gives the artist. The trees, visible at the lakes edge in the distance, are portrayed with great balance, the trunks, foliage and sky compliment each other comfortably. Each element is given space to breathe in contrast to earlier works such as the dark and ominous barrier created by the depiction of the forest in Still Waters . The focus of this heavenly painting is the late summer waterlilies, clustered richly on the deep blue lake, their yellowing leaves gleaming like gold, more precious than their flowers had ever been. Kenneth’s preoccupation with negative space is at the forefront in this painting. The blue swathes of negative space leap out from the surface to create a suggested babble from the beneath the unknown lapis coloured depths as they twist and pool around the water lilies.
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Given the title, it is perhaps surprising that this painting appears busier than the others in the Lyrical Series , but it is full of childlike wonder and delight, splashes of vibrant colour punctuated with new blooms, that decidedly achieve ‘a soothing refrain’.
Price Code E
Waterlily Lullaby Oil on Canvas 61 x 91 cms / 24” x 36”
As all lullabies should be, it is quietly, comfortably happy. As with all of Kenneth’s paintings, there is much to be seen throughout Waterlily Lullaby . The curvaceous buds and blooms and lily pads in the foreground gradually give way to the watery depths of the lake, before the horizontals of distant lilies, and verticals of backdrop trees. This accent on the youthful foreground, with an indistinct background and no sky, brings focus on the ‘present’, rather than the ‘future’ - a childlike joy of being in and of the moment.
Price Code E
52 Waterlily Carole Oil on Canvas 61 x 91 cms / 24” x 36”
The only painting in the Lyrical Series that is truly a close-up of the foreground, a visual explosion of colour. The painting is devoid of sky, trees or any sense of distance or even landscape at all. Indeed, even the water setting is minimal, the interest being entirely the dense rosettes of lily pads, punctuated by an occasional flower. The musical theme here evokes the ‘carole’, a circle dance from Medieval times, where participants held hands and turned first one way, then another, moving inward and outward. These rounds of lilies were enhanced by circular eddies in the water, and reminded Webb of the circular eddies in his own life, and how he returns to the themes that touch his heart most - turning first one way, then another.
OilMeanderingonCanvas 93 x 72 cms / 36” x 28”
Price Code E At first glance, this appears as a simple landscape, but look closer to see a study of varying perspective and planes, emphasising the shifts in the dimensions of space and time. Thus Meandering goes beyond twisting channels, between blanket weed on an expansive pool, and instead reflects the human mind that slips between thoughts and ideas and memories, and shifts from past, future and present - as indeed Kenneth, and all of us, have done through this huge world change.
The Copper Beech Oil on Canvas 91 x 61 cms / 36” x 24” Price Code E Ivon Hitchen’s influence has been evident in many of Kenneth’s more abstract works over the decades and is again here, where the subject matter sits closely with others in this exhibition, but the treatment is very different. Webb sees this approach as ‘evoking the emotion inherent in the scene over the literal form’. For Webb, painting this was an exciting discovery of shape and pattern, where his use of colour prevails over tone to achieve a stronger, enduring impact.
Steeped in history, the Derrygimla Bog provided an ethereal setting to Kenneth’s unique landscapes. A prehistoric trackway, exposed when peat was cut from the bog in the past, marks the earliest in a long line of important historic sites belonging to this otherworldly landscape. The famous Marconi Station once occupied this site where the first regular transatlantic transmission took place in 1907 and it was also the site of Alcock and Brown’s landing following the famed first transatlantic flight in 1919. Kenneth has noted that it is perhaps the historical reverberations which remain in the bog that inspire his emotional response, resulting in the multitude of unique interpretations of this landscape. Kenneth has been drawn to the nuances of colour and the variety of flora in the bog since he first set eyes upon it. Inspired by the bog cuts, the reflection of constantly changing skies in pools of murky water and plants at the water’s edge, Kenneth’s “Bogscapes” combine these into unique visions of the Connemara landscape. The soft quality of diffused light and the dominance of water, in the sea, the bog, and the air - makes this a world where light diffracts in all directions. It is a land of rainbows and shards of colour. For an artist like Kenneth, who sees saturated colour where only the tiniest hint exists for others, it is an irresistible enticement.
Faerie Realm Oil on Canvas 51 x 102 cms 20” x 40” Price Code E
The West
In his eternal endeavour to reveal a landscape’s spirit, Kenneth is drawn again and again to the peat bogs of Connemara, on the west coast of Ireland. Despite being physically removed from Connemara for the past two years, this landscape is never far from the forefront of Kenneth’s memory.
Kenneth has described how this environment has a remarkable effect on him and causes him to simplify form and to create patterns of texture with colour. Since the 1980s, he has studied the bog in all seasons and reflects the changing atmosphere in the colours and textures of his depictions; during the winter, the grass in the bog turns violet, purple and reddy-orange. The green of the summer months disappears completely and the colours become striking browns, reds and oranges, applied to the canvas in thick swathes of paint.
Over the past decades, Kenneth has seen how the land has changed as old peat cuts have become flooded with rising water; and he captures the apocalyptic undertones of the bog reclaiming its territory in his recent work – nature is fighting back. Vivid colours and geometric, angular shapes preoccupy Kenneth’s contemporary painting inspired by the Connemara landscape revealing an evolution of style and sentiment. Coast of Ireland
Bogland near Roundstone Oil on Canvas 38 x 76 cms / 15” x 30” Price Code E
59 Summer Haze Oil on Canvas 41 x 102 cms / 16” x 40” Price Code E
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61 Evening,OilDerryligmlaonCanvas 51 x 152 cms / 20” x 60” Price Code F
62 Road to Errelough Oil and Acryllic 76 x 101 cms / 30” x 40” Price Code F
Atlantic View Oil and Acryllic 41 x 50 cms / 16” x 20” Price Code C
September Evening Oil on Canvas 30 x 41 cms / 12” x 16” Price Code C Till the Storm Passes Oil on Canvas 25.5 x 30 cms / 10” x 12” Price Code B
65 Monarch Oil on Canvas 61 x 91 cms / 24” x 36” Price Code E
67 End of the Day Oil on Canvas 66 x 154 cms / 26” x 60” Price Code F
The Black Bog Oil on Canvas 91 x 61 cms / 36” x 24” Price Code E
Elemental Oil on Canvas 91 x 61 cms / 36” x 24” Price Code E
OilDanseand Acryllic 101 x 76 cms / 40” x 30” Price Code F
73 Evermore Oil on Canvas 76 x 152.5 cms / 30” x 60” Price Code F
92OilGenesisonCanvasx122cms / 36” x 48” Price Code F
76 Covenant Oil on Canvas 92 x 122 cms / 36” x 48” Price Code F
Danu is the Celtic goddess of Nature, particularly the sky and water, both of which here dominate the land. Thus this painting is a fitting partner to Webb’s Biblical and Dystopian Series of a few years ago, where Nature fights back against Man’s ruinous dominion over the land. At one point as he created this work, Webb felt he could see Danu’s face in the sky, before the strength of her passion blurred it.
Danu’s Realm Oil on Canvas 91 x 61 cms / 36” x 24”
Price Code E Inspired by his beloved Connemara wetlands that he missed so badly throughout the ‘lockdown years’. Here the sky broils a multitude of emotions above the silhouetted land that in places succumbs to the water.
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79 Revelation Oil on Canvas 92 x 122 cms / 36” x 48” Price Code F
Kenneth Webb
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