Footnotes

• PROVENANCE:
  Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, where acquired by the family of the present owner, 3 January 1953
  
  EXHIBITED:
  London, Leicester Galleries, 1952
  London, Redfern Gallery, 1953, no.49
  Bristol, Bristol City Art Gallery, 1987-1990
  Bristol, Royal West of England Academy, A Cornish Perspective, June 2009
  
  LITERATURE:
  The Studio, October 1954 (ill.b&w)
  
  Landing Stage, Falmouth, 1951 shares the same preoccupations which are evident in Ben Nicholson's St Ives Rooftops (Salubrious) Oct 19 -51 (see lot 75); the integration of representational imagery with abstracted passages links the two works nicely. In the present lot the artist's fascination with depicting quaysides, jetties and harbours is clear to see and these maritime staples regularly appear throughout his work in the 1950s. The moss covered supporting beams of the jetty rise up from the bottom of the composition flanking the glistening white surface of the landing stage, with rooftops positioned in the background to create an arresting well balanced picture.
  
  Throughout the left hand side of the composition the viewer is confronted with a sophisticated and abstracted interplay of juxtaposed planes and lines which recall the early bravura works of Sir Terry Frost's Walk Along the Quay series begun the previous year. Feiler was twenty four years younger than Nicholson, only 33 years of age when he completed this painting in 1951 and at the beginning of his artistic career. This work and others from the period mark a turning point in his artistic output. The year was a significant one for Feiler, whilst still living in Bristol but having visited Cornwall since 1949, he was beginning to assimilate the ideas and practices of a number of artists he came into contact with and quite rapidly left his more traditional and representational work behind (see lots 80 and 81).

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Category: Fine Art / Modern British and Irish Art

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