Signed and dated l.r.: Minton 1939

Pen, ink and wash, 30 by 47 cm (12 by 18 ½ ins)     

Provenance: the John Constable Collection

Exhibited: John Minton – A Centenary, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, July 1 – October 1 2017, cat.14, Fig. 7 page 15, illustrated in colour

Literature: Frances Spalding, The Real and the Romantic, English Art Between the Two World Wars, Thames & Hudson, 2022, p.356-57 (illustrated in colour)

Frances Spalding writes of the present work:

“The Desolate Stage, an ink and wash drawing in which a scatter of ingredients create a tense, theatrical scene under a darkening sky, evoking uncertainty and fear. The precise narrative is unclear, although the decision to subvert the norm and portray the isolated reclining male nude... almost certainly relates to Minton’s exploration of his hidden homosexuality. But personal content, dreams or fantasies do not occlude the way this drawing also catches the mood of the day fostered by the imminence of war.” Frances Spalding, The Real and the Romantic, British Art Between the Wars, Thames & Hudson, 2022, p.356

This major early Minton drawing is one of the first that explores the themes of Neo-Romanticism that he adopted from the example the French artist Christian Berard and the Paris-based Russian painters Eugene Berman and Pavel Tchelitchew. Berman in particular, his work incorporating imaginative sometimes surreal scenes into theatrically architectural settings, had the strongest influence on Minton. In 1939 he visited the Provençal town of Les Baux where Berman had painted, this scene providing evidence of Minton’s own individual take on this very particular strain of Neo-Romanticism.