Alan Reynolds

Keeper of the Dark Copse II

1951–2

Not on display

Artist: Alan Reynolds 1926–2014
Medium: Oil paint on board
Dimensions: Support: 792 × 1067 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Presented by R.D.S. May 1953
Reference: N06149

Display caption

In his descriptive landscapes of the early 1950s Reynolds aimed to reveal the essential vitality of the natural world. In this painting, the plants and trees are transformed into anthropomorphic presences. Standing among these dark and looming forms is the solitary figure of the keeper.

Reynolds’s careful balancing of the muted, earthy colours and his measured arrangement of forms create an eerie stillness that adds to mystery of this secret world.

Gallery label, September 2004

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Catalogue entry

N06149 KEEPER OF THE DARK COPSE II 1951–2

Inscr. on back ‘Keeper of the Dark Copse II’ and ‘Reynolds 51–52’ t.l.
Oil on hardboard, 30×42 (76×107).
Presented by R. D. S. May 1953.
Coll: Purchased by R. D. S. May from the Redfern Gallery 2 January 1953.
Exh: Redfern Gallery, February–March 1953 (21, repr.).

This, and another painting of the same theme, ‘Keeper of the Dark Copse I’, also shown at the Redfern Gallery Exhibition, 1953 (5), were completed in November 1952 (letter from the artist, 1 September 1956). The inscription on N06149 would seem to imply that the painting was begun in 1951.

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