Notes

John Craxton was an English painter who spent most of his adult life living and working on the Greek islands, particularly Crete. As a student, he attended the Académie Julian and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, but with the outbreak of World War II, and unable to enlist for health reasons, he returned to London and completed his studies at Westminster School of Art, the Central School of Arts and Crafts, and Goldsmiths College.

He is regarded as one of the leading Neo-Romantics, along with Graham Sutherland, Paul Nash and John Piper, but Craxton himself rejected the epithet. From the late 1940s, Craxton's favourite subject was “the sun-baked south, with its sparkling seas, olive trees, goats and human inhabitants; and his characteristic mood was a lyric contentment very different from the bleak misanthropy of many of his contemporaries”.¹ He produced book illustrations and set designs in the 1950s and 60s, with characteristic Romantic pastoral themes, for opera and ballet companies. He continued to live between Greece and London until his death at the age of 87 in 2009.

 1. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/art-obituaries/6599933/John-Craxton.html

Provenance

A wedding gift to the current owner from Dr Leslie Sohn.