Duncan Grant

The Hayrick

1940

Not on display

Artist: Duncan Grant 1885–1978
Medium: Oil paint on canvas
Dimensions: Support: 610 x 660 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Purchased 1943
Reference: N05428

Display caption

In his youth Duncan Grant had been a leading avant-garde painter and designer, a key member of the Bloomsbury group and co-founder of the Omega workshops. He produced an enormous body of work in a variety of styles and subjects. This was painted in the rick-yard at Charleston, home of Grant and Vanessa Bell in Sussex. The hayrick is depicted as a tall, elegant but fragile structure, which harmonises with its natural environment. In the 1930s a number of societies were founded to oppose the destruction of the English countryside. During the war rural England became central to national identity, and threatened by aerial bombardment it became even more precious.

Gallery label, September 2004

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Catalogue entry

N05428 THE HAYRICK 1940

Inscr. ‘D Grant 40.’ b.r.
Canvas, 24×26 (61×66).
Purchased from the Lefevre Gallery (Knapping Fund) 1943.
Exh: Robert Colquhoun and Notable British Artists, Lefevre Gallery, June 1943 (9).
Repr: Mortimer, 1944, pl.29 (in colour).

Painted in the rick-yard at Charleston (letter from the artist, 9 October 1962).!

Published in:
Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, I