Footnotes

• Provenance
  With Crane Kalman Gallery, London, May 1968, where acquired by
  Mr. & Mrs. W. Gibson
  Private Collection U.K.
  
  Literature
  Eric Newton, Christopher Wood 1901-1930, The Redfern Gallery, London, 1938, p.69, cat.no.205
  
  Christopher Wood briefly studied architecture at Liverpool University before being invited to visit Paris in 1920 by the French collector Alphonse Kahn. There, he enrolled in drawing at the Academie Julian and blended seamlessly into Parisian society. He mingled with the likes of Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau and Chilean diplomat Antonio de Gandarillas and unfortunately discovered the taste for opium that would be his downfall.
  
  This new set of avant-garde friends encouraged Wood to embrace a primitive approach in his painting. Over time, however, he became more concerned by the contradiction between his excessive Parisian lifestyle and the desire for a naive aesthetic in his painting. The present work is a triumph of the colourful, charming simplicity he craved and was painted in 1927 - a pivotal time for the artist. This was one year after he met Ben and Winifred Nicholson and one year prior to meeting Alfred Wallis. All three individuals displayed a modesty in life and art that he admired and they were to be defining influences on his far too short career.
  
  In The Seine Wood shows the Citroen car plant on the Quai de Javel, viewed across the Seine from La Rive Droit. The manufacturing site developed and sprawled until it was ultimately demolished in the 1970s. There is now a 35 acre public park in its place, Parc Andre Citroen.
  
  We are grateful to Robert Upstone for his assistance in cataloguing the present lot which is to be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Christopher Wood's paintings.