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Lot 49

Ernest Procter
(British, 1886-1935)
Aeroplane Chairs 54.6 x 67.9 cm. (21 1/2 x 26 3/4 in.)

28 May 2014, 14:00 BST
London, New Bond Street

Sold for £62,500 inc. premium

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Ernest Procter (British, 1886-1935)

Aeroplane Chairs
signed 'ERNEST/PROCTER' (lower right); further signed and inscribed 'Aeroplane Chairs/Ernest Procter/Newlyn PZ' (verso)
oil on canvas
54.6 x 67.9 cm. (21 1/2 x 26 3/4 in.)

Footnotes

Provenance
Acquired by the family of the present owners in the 1940s
Thence by descent
Private Collection, Ireland

Ernest Procter was one of the prodigious talents from the Newlyn tradition of painters. He first came to the region to study at the Forbes' School of Painting in 1907. After leaving Newlyn temporarily, following his marriage to Dod Procter in 1912, the couple returned after the Great War when he co-established the Procter-Harvey School of Painting. It is from this period that Aeroplane Chairs most probably dates.

The delights of the fair were a recurrent subject matter amongst the Newlyn artists. Not just because of the cheerful colours and colourful characters, but also as a move to represent the perceived vanishing aspects of 'folk art'. As well as Procter his fellow artist's Laura Knight, Lamorna Birch, Alfred Munnings and Harold Harvey all grappled with the thrilling yet challenging subject.

In 1946 the art critic J. Wood Palmer praised Procter for his 'flawless sense of design' and for the 'rhythm and strange detached purity and grace of his work'. It is this emphasis on pictorial design which renders the fairground pictures so successful. Two further examples of which are All the Fun of the Fair (1926/27, Worthing Museum and Art Gallery) and The Merry-Go-Round (1924), sold in these rooms for £70,000 (21 November 2000).

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