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David Bomberg 1890-1957
The Monastery of St George, Wadi Kelt 1926 Oil on canvas 46.5 x 40 cm (18 ¼ x 15 ¾ inches) Signed and dated b.r. PROVENANCE Lilian Bomberg; Anthony d’Offay by 1973; Private Collection. EXHIBITED David Bomberg in Palestine 1923-1927, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem. October 1983-January 1984. Painted during David Bomberg's first visit to Palestine, The Monastery of St George, Wadi Kelt dates from a crucial period in his artistic development. The dramatic landscape of the Judean desert offered Bomberg a subject through which he could reconcile the radical formal concerns of his early career with a renewed commitment to direct observation. The monastery, nestled within the steep cliffs of the Wadi Kelt, is constructed from a network of angular brushstrokes and interlocking planes. While rooted in the visible world, the composition retains something of the dynamic geometry that characterised Bomberg's pioneering Vorticist works before the First World War. The resulting tension between abstraction and representation became a defining feature of his mature art. A restrained palette of ochres and warm earth tones captures the arid landscape, while unexpected accents of vivid blue and green animate the surface. The painting exemplifies Bomberg's ability to unite structural rigour with a powerful sense of atmosphere, making it one of the most compelling works from his celebrated Palestine period. |
