Craigie Aitchison 1926-2009 Still Life with Checked Cardigan 1952 Oil on board 12 x 10 inches (30.5 x 25.5 cm) PROVENANCE Presented by the Artist to Sally Aitchison, his Sister in Law; by descent; Private Collection. LITERATURE Cate Haste, Craigie Aitchison: A Life in Colour, Lund Humphries, Farnham, 2014, p.30, reproduced in colour full page p.29. This painting is from the beginning of Craigie Aitchison's career but all the elements that would make him so widely admired through his life as an artist are already in place - the gorgeous, soft, chalky colours that seem to shimmer next to each other; the evocative poise and serenity of the deceptively simple still life; the pared down minimalism of the composition to create a harmonious, resonant whole. Ever the stylish figure, over the table is draped Craigie's Argyll checked cardigan, a choice of garment that would become a trademark through his life. The painting was made in 1952, a remarkable year for Craigie. Having given up the law he moved from Edinburgh to London and enrolled at The Slade School of Art, where he was part of an extraordinary gathering of talent. He was befriended by Michael Andrews, who introduced him to Helen Lessore at the Beaux Arts Gallery and her group of young painters that included Frank Auerbach, Leon Kossoff and Francis Bacon. In 1959 Lessore gave Craigie his first solo exhibition, which was enormously successful. Critics noted 'a rare delicacy of feeling', a 'nice sense of colour and equally nice, perhaps rather subtler, ingenuity in the division of space' and a poetic sensibility in his disciplined work - judgments that match perfectly his Still Life with Checked Cardigan. |