John Piper
Langley, Shropshire
About the SessionSpanning 4 centuries of global art history, The International Sale, presents 127 exceptional lots by artists from 27 countries across five continents. The auction highlights masterworks ranging from 17th century European paintings to post-2000 editions by contemporary artist's such as Mr Brainwash (lot 51), Jim Dine (lots 83-86), Isaac Julien (lot 108), Jeff Koons (45), and Lucas Samaras (lot 107 and 110). The sale is anchored by important pieces from Georg Baselitz, Erik Laubscher, Shirin Neshat, and a newly repatriated 1935 portrait by Irma Stern.
The auction's diversity is driven by rare museum-quality highlights, led by Irma Stern's Two Women (lot 31), which returns to South Africa after decades in a Berlin private collection. It is joined by Erik Laubscher's rare recto-verso painting Young Family / Construction (lot 48), an Iranian-American artist Shirin Neshat photographic portrait linked to her award-winning Turbulent installation (lot 66), and a uniquely hand-coloured linocut by German master Georg Baselitz titled Das Pferd, Im Wald und auf der Heide Series (The Horse, in the Forest and on the Heath Series) (lot 72).
LOT 104
John Piper
Langley, Shropshire
About this Item
signed
Provenance
Everard Read.
Ferguson Brothers.
Private Collection.
Notes
John Egerton Christmas Piper was an English painter, printmaker, designer, and writer, and one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century. He studied at the Richmond School of Art and then at the Royal College of Art, London. Piper was an art critic for The Listener and The Spectator, a member of The London Group and the Seven and Five Society, and was considered one of the leading abstract artists in England in the 1930s.
Throughout his career he worked in different styles, including abstraction, surrealism and neo-Romanticism, but towards the end of the 1930s he returned to naturalism with a focus on architecture and the landscape. As an official war artist, Piper portrayed bomb-damaged buildings during WWII. Later in his career, Piper turned to printmaking and designing stage sets. He also designed over sixty stained-glass windows in partnership with Patrick Reyntiens for the Chapel at Eton College. Piper was also commissioned to design tapestries for a number of English cathedrals.
Piper was made an Honorary Member of the Printmakers Council, served as a trustee of the Tate, and was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts. In addition, he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. He was awarded a knighthood in 1972 for his contribution to British art and in 1984 he was awarded the Order of the Companions of Honour.
Major retrospective exhibitions showcasing Piper’s works have been held at Tate Britain, the Imperial War Museum, London, the River and Rowing Museum, Oxfordshire, the Museum of Reading, Berkshire and Dorchester Abbey, Oxfordshire and several exhibitions focusing on different elements of his artistic career have been shown throughout Britain.
John Piper’s works can be found in the Tate and many prestigious public collections throughout Britain, the United States of America, and Canada.
More from The International Sale
