Robert Bevan 1865-1925
The White House 1921
Lithograph 7 3/4 x 9 inches (19.7 x 22.9 cm); sheet 10 1/2 x 13 inches (26.5 x 33.4 cm)
Edition 43 of 50
PROVENANCE:
By descent to the Artist's Daughter; Private Collection.
EXHIBITED:
Robert Bevan: From Pont Aven to Camden Town, The Fine Art Society, London 2012 (no.9).
LITERATURE:
Graham Dry, Robert Bevan 1865-1925: Catalogue Raisonne of the Lithographs and other Prints, London 1968 no.30.
In her monograph on the artist Frances Stenlake has described Bevan’s lithograph of The Plantation as ‘one of the most complex of Bevan’s designs in its combination of natural observation and stylisation. While sturdy trunks with chunky foliage resist the wind, other slender, sinuous trees support finer, indented branches, forming a traceried silhouette against the sky’ (Frances Stenlake, Robert Bevan: from Gauguin to Camden Town, London 2008, p.157).
Bevan based his print on an oil that he had made in 1919. This shows the trees in reverse, suggesting that the artist used some form of transfer method for the making of the lithograph. Compared to the oil, the print is far more complex and satisfying. The reduction to a purely tonal rendering of the subject and the far greater variations in light and shade produces an image of great sophistication.