Journey Toward the North - Ceri Richards

Journey Toward the North

Ceri Richards last work

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Journey Toward the North Journey Toward the North was Ceri Richards’ very last work.

The series comprised seven lithographs made to accompany poems

by Roberto Sanesi, Italian writer and Richards’ close friend.

The last image he made for the suite, Vaucluse, was drawn onto a plate brought by the lithographer Stanley Jones to Richards’ Edith Grove house on the day before he died in November, 1971.

Printed posthumously with the artist’s permission, each print was inscribed ‘Ceri Richards’ by his wife, Frances, in a standard edition of 100.

On offer in this catalogue: 1

The seven lithographs available individually (we have one complete boxed set).

2

Preparatory drawings for the suite from Ceri Richards’ last sketchbook.

3

Preparatory paintings for the suite.

To order phone 01572 821424 or buy online at goldmarkart.com

The Lithographs This book, then, so delicate in its colours, is Richards’ testament. Yet no trace of gloom or mourning either shows or lurks here, for where poetry passes – and here it is the double poetry of a painter and a poet – death seems to withdraw, not to loom.

I keep wondering: did Ceri sense in himself that these were the last lines he would ever draw? And for answer I keep going back to look at these lithographs, and I find the butterfly and the violet each becoming the metamorphosis of the other, or rather, each the primordial apparition of the other in the regained paradise of his art…

Ceri must have had an active and not merely passive presentiment of dying, so powerful is the ache for life that emanates from each line. There is no tiredness in his hand or faltering of his touch, but a firmness all the more shattering for being so light and understated, as when Sanesi on a visit to his studio in Chelsea saw him during a break from work: “Passing / through his hair a hand that has moved leaves / and roots of sex…”

Giancarlo Vigorelli 1 Vaucluse, £450 2 Journey Toward the North, £450 3 From a Conversation between Hermes and Menipeus on a Field of Snow, £450 4 Improvisation No 9, Upon the Dawn, £450 ed 100, 1971/72 paper size 44.5 x 31.5 cm Printed by Curwen Prints, London for Gino Cerastico.

Prices include frame, vat and uk delivery

1

2

3

4

5 The Story Lost in the Snow, £450 6 Elegy for Vernon Watkins, £450 7 Information Report, XVI, £450 Boxed set with poems, £2000 (excluding frames)

ed 100, 1971/72 paper size 44.5 x 31.5 cm Printed by Curwen Prints, London for Gino Cerastico.

To order phone 01572 821424 or buy online at goldmarkart.com

5

6

7

The Drawings These pages are taken from Ceri Richards’ last sketchbook which contained working drawings for the suite Journey Toward the North. It was dedicated inside the front cover ‘For Gino and Lu [Cerastico] with love from Frances’.

8 £1250 9 £950 10 £950 11 £950

The sketches are made in pencil or pen & ink.

Page size is 22.4 x 17.2 cm

Prices include frame, vat and uk delivery

8

9

10

11

‘What I always admired about Ceri Richards, right from his Royal College of Art student days, was the way he could draw. More than any other British painter of his time he understood three-dimensional form and knew how to express it on a flat surface. His drawing is so assured, so full of energy and virility, that it gives his work a quality that goes way beyond charm. In fact, ‘charm’ isn’t the word for it at all: Ceri’s work has authority because of his drawing.

I think it is this ability to draw which gives to his painting the same boldness and assurance, which both Picasso and Matisse show in their painting, because they are both superb draughtsmen…I never knew anyone who had so few faults, so few blemishes, so little that anyone could dislike.’

Henry Moore

12 £950 13 £1250 14 £950 15 £950

The sketches are made in pencil or pen & ink.

Page size is 22.4 x 17.2 cm

To order phone 01572 821424 or buy online at goldmarkart.com

12

13

14

15

The Paintings

16 Vaucluse, ÂŁ2,500 Pencil and watercolour Paper size is 44 x 43 cm

Prices include frame, vat and uk delivery

17 Journey Toward the North, ÂŁ5,750 Pencil and watercolour Signed Paper size is 44 x 43 cm

To order phone 01572 821424 or buy online at goldmarkart.com

18 Improvisation No 9, Upon the Dawn, ÂŁ2,500 Pencil and watercolour Paper size is 44 x 43 cm

Prices include frame, vat and uk delivery

19 The Story Lost in the Snow, ÂŁ5,750 Pencil and watercolour Paper size is 44 x 43 cm

To order phone 01572 821424 or buy online at goldmarkart.com

20 Elegy for Vernon Watkins, ÂŁ3,500 Pencil and watercolour Paper size is 44 x 43 cm

Prices include frame, vat and uk delivery

21 Information Report, XVI, ÂŁ6,500 Pencil and watercolour Paper size is 44 x 43 cm

To order phone 01572 821424 or buy online at goldmarkart.com

Ceri Richards

Journey Toward the North

I am extremely depressed at the news of Ceri’s death . . . A landmark has gone...It is a pity that one of our best should be first to fall...

Roger Hilton Ceri’s imagination never flagged. Indeed, in the last few years his work reached the apex of his achievements and he seemed at last to have found the concentrated symbol and lyrical imagery for which he had so long been searching.

Victor Pasmore Ceri had the ability to create quick and extraordinary associations. A word from him or a gesture could reawaken in me a series of sudden echoes: musical notes, signs, colours, so as almost to bring together in one moment the complexity of all his creative work.

Roberto Sanesi . . . the most frank and revealing confessions of the secrets of our age...

Carl Jung

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UPPINGHAM, RUTLAND, LE15 9SQ 01572 821424 goldmarkart.com Monday to Saturday 9.30-5.30, Sunday 11.00-4.00 and Bank Holidays

June 2018