William Townsend

Hop Alleys

1951–2

© The estate of William Townsend

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Not on display

Artist: William Townsend 1909–1973
Medium: Oil paint on canvas
Dimensions: Support: 762 x 508 mm
frame: 932 x 677 x 77 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Purchased 1953
Reference: N06148

Catalogue entry

N06148 HOP ALLEYS 1951–2

Inscr. ‘Townsend’ b.r.
Canvas, 30×20 (75×51).
Purchased from the artist through the London Group (Knapping Fund) 1953.
Exh: Names to Remember, Roland, Browse and Delbanco, July 1952 (no catalogue); London Group, November 1952 (169), as ‘Hop Garden’.
Repr: Sir John Rothenstein, British Art since 1900, 1962, pl.54; John Rothenstein, The Tate Gallery, 1962, p.259.

The picture was begun in June 1951 and was painted in the studio from a drawing (dated 20 May 1951) made in one of the hop gardens near the artist's home at Rolvenden, Kent. It was completed between November 1951 and February 1952, after the artist had spent the summer in Canada (letters from the artist, 1 April 1953 and 10 and 13 July 1956). The pen and ink drawing from which this was painted now belongs to St Pancras Borough Council, and was previously exhibited at the A.I.A. Gallery's Measurement and Proportion exhibition in May 1955 (32). Another painting, ‘The Hop Garden’, 1950, 24 3/4×29 3/4 in., is in the Arts Council Collection, and was exhibited at the Arts Council, A Selection from the Arts Council Collection, 1955 (11).

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