Carole Burns On Celia Paul and Gwen John
Carole Burns explores painter Celia Paul's new book, Letters to Gwen John, which sets out a series of imagined correspondence with Gwen John, the artist who inspired her.
Carole Burns explores painter Celia Paul's new book, Letters to Gwen John, which sets out a series of imagined correspondence with Gwen John, the artist who inspired her.
The contemporary painter Celia Paul keeps a reproduction of Gwen John’s painting “The Convalescent” in her studio in Bloomsbury.
“The whole composition is a symphony in grey,” Celia writes. “She must have mixed the colours on her palette first – Payne’s Grey, Prussian Blue, Naples Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Brown Ochre, Rose Madder, Flake White – then all the other colours would be dipped in this combination so that every form is united in grey: the dark blue of the girls’ dress, the thrush-egg blue of the cushion behind her back and the tablecloth, the rose pink of the cup and saucer echoing the delicate pink of her fingernails and lips, the teapot like a shiny chestnut. …the structure of the composition holds everything in place; this delicate painting will endure.”…
Read the full article at Wales Arts Review.