Kathleen Browne (1905-2007) New Zealand. "The Kitchen", oil ...

Estimate

£500 - £700

Kathleen Browne (1905-2007) New Zealand. "The Kitchen", oil on canvas, signed, and inscribed verso, 20" x 16" (50.8 x 40.8cm). Provenance: Leicester Galleries, 1956 Notes: Oliver Brown (1885-1966), director of the Leicester Galleries, was unlike most other dealers; he was the first to organise one-man shows of Cezanne, Van Gogh and Gauguin. Though these were not instant commercial successes, his curatorial foresight did, in the longer term, pay handsomely. When Kathleen Browne brought him "The Kitchen", visitors to his gallery were surprised to see the picture given place of honour in the centre of the main wall. At the opening of the exhibition in 1956, Kenneth Clark, the pre-eminent art historian, writer and critic, added his own recognition of the painting's significance: "This small painting, which represents apparently the most ordinary of subjects, is indeed a work of artistic illumination. The kitchen is certainly not of today, but as such rooms used to be - a little untidy, the kitchen objects in disarray and yet in order - a contradiction difficult to define. We are aware not just of a collection of objects, but also of the invisible factor which relates them to each other, the faint vibrations of a now departed housewife's ordering hand. No one is there in bodily presence, but the sense of caring and loving spirit is all present. It is by such subtle vibrations that art has the power to touch the human heart. The silence, the apparent inaction in the picture, is misleading, for the artist has imparted a strange sense of the continuity of life, and the silence blends with emotion. It is also the secret of Chardin's Nature-mortes, that implied human presence reigns over his silent work. Like them, Kathleen's picture goes far beyond what is represented, since it encompasses the idea of the kitchen of all time - the means of sustaining life."