Humphrey Jennings

*Humphrey Jennings (1907-1950) The North West Passage Signed and dated 1938 verso Oil on canvas 30.5 x 35.5cm; 12 x 14in A small area of paint loss and marks upper right and a faint push upper left Estimate: £200-300 Hammer Price: £320 Lot: 516 Sale: Oil Paintings, Watercolours & Miniatures (PW081210-2)

Humphrey Jennings (1907-1950) Sketch for Portrait of Edward Lear signed with initials, inscribed and dated 'H.J. 1948 Sketch forportrait of/Edward Lear' (on the canvas overlap) and with studiostamp (on the canvas overlap) oil on canvas 14 x 12 in. (35.5 x 30.5 cm.) Exhibited London, Mayor Gallery, Exhibition of Paintings and Works onPaper - Humphrey Jennings, November-December 1993. Lot Notes Jennings' studies for Edward Lear are remarkable in the way theyshow how vision, and creation, develop from figurativeness to akind of "lyrical abstraction", from the contours of a figure to therevelation of its interior forces. They, again, demonstrateJennings's process of de-realization of the real towards a kind ofessence of the object under study. We are very grateful to Michel Remy for his assistance incataloguing the present lot as well as lots 640 and 644. Michel Remy is the leading authority on British Surrealism. He isthe author of Surrealism in Britain, published by Lund andHumphries, and Professor of English Literature and Art History atthe University of Nice.

Special NoticeNo VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis. Lot Description Humphrey Jennings (1907-1950) Sailing Ship and Church Wall Design with studio stamp (on the reverse) image-object (collage on card), unframed 10½ x 15 in. (26.7 x 38.1 cm.) Executed circa 1937. Provenance View Lot Condition Report The Artist's Estate.

Humphrey Jennings (1907-1950)
Horse\'s Head
Add. Notes: Horse's Head oil on canvas 30 x 24 in. (76.2 x 61 cm.) Painted circa 1937-1940. Provenance
Notes: 'In about 1936, the horse started to fascinate Jennings, conciding with his desire to retrieve the machine from a purely materialist conception. In Horse's Head, the blending of the mechanical and the animal through the very angular, almost vorticistic features of the head ... ' (M.Remy, Surrealism in Britain, Hants, 1999, p. 189)
Provenance: with Mayor Gallery, London.
Literature: M. Remy, Surrealism in Britain, Hants, 1999, p. 191, pl. 92, illustrated. K. Jackson, Humphrey Jennings, London, 2004, centre pages, illustrated.

Humphrey Jennings (1907-1950) Smoke No.1 with studio stamp (on the stretcher) and inscribed 'Smoke 1' (onthe canvas fold) oil on canvas 16 x 20 in. (40.7 x 50.8 cm.) Executed circa 1949. Lot Notes Smoke is based on the same kind of dynamic composition as Housein the Woods (1936, now at the Tate Gallery). Clear-cut formsrecede in favour of a deeper, fluid force which detaches hard-edgereality from itself and opens the way to the imagination and thesecret life of things, the quest for which is Jennings's drivingforce after the experience of the war. M.R.