Peter Potworowski

Catalogue entry

Peter Potworowski 1898-1962

T04125 Forest (Cornwall) 1954

Oil on canvas 641 x 764 (25 1/4 x 30 1/8)
Inscribed ‘P. P.' b.r., ‘The Forest 40' on back of left canvas turnover and ‘P. POTWOROWSKI' on left stretcher bar
Purchased from the artist's family (Grant-in-Aid) 1985
Prov: The artist's family
Exh: ? The Continental British School of Painting, AIA Gallery, March-April 1959 (32 as ‘The Forest'); Peter Potworowski, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, Jan.-Feb. 1984 (35); St Ives 1939-64, Tate Gallery, Feb.-April 1985 (120, repr.)

The following entry is based on information supplied by Anna Clarke Potworowska in a letter dated 21 November 1987.

Peter Potworowski moved to Britain in 1943 and began teaching at Bath Academy of Art in Corsham in 1949. From 1946 to c.1958 he spent several vacations at a cottage near Sancreed in Cornwall. This painting represents the cottage garden which was in a deep wooded valley, surrounded by ash and sycamore trees. The painting was begun outside in the garden and then worked on over several months in the artist's studio inside the cottage. The shapes in the painting are similar to Potworowski's sculptures of interlocking slate and wood which he made in the garden at the time. The red and white areas represent washing on the line which once stretched down the length of the garden.

The cottage itself, which was rented from a local farmer at Treganhoe Farm, was demolished c.1958 when the Drift Reservoir was built.

Published in:
The Tate Gallery 1984-86: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions Including Supplement to Catalogue of Acquisitions 1982-84, Tate Gallery, London 1988, pp.251-2

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