RAYMOND FRANCIS McINTYRE (1879-1933). Street in Saint Valery...

Hammer

£8,500

RAYMOND FRANCIS McINTYRE (1879-1933). Street in Saint Valery-sur-Somme, signed with monogram, inscribed as title on a label attached to the backing, oil on board 12 x 10 in
Provenance: Private Collection, Hay on Wye.
For two comparable works by the artist cf. A Street in Valery-Sur Somme offered for auction at The International Art Centre, Auckland on 22 nd July 2015 and also on the 2nd December 2015; and a 1919 View of a street in Chelsea offered at Dunbar Sloane, New Zealand on 21 July 2010

The artist was born in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1879 and studied at the Canterbury School of Art. He studied there under Robert Herdman Smith, and Alfred Walsh. From 1906-1908 he shared a studio with fellow artist Leonard Booth. Between 1899-1908 his distinctive loosely brushed paintings blended influences from Petrus van de Velden with post Impressionism.
Seeking further training and experience McIntyre travelled to London in 1909, settling into a rented studio in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. He was excited by the art of Cezanne, Van Gogh, Utrillo and Matisse and their influences can be seen in his landscape works of the following years. Like the French painters he sought a spontaneity and breadth in the handling of paint. He was taught by William Nicholson, George Lambert and Walter Sickert amongst others. Over the next decade he exhibited frequently at The Goupil Gallery. His street scenes were a subject matter that McIntyre shared with the Camden Town Group, though his actual technique differed widely from those artists. In October 1918 he held a large exhibition at the Eldar Gallery, London; and in 1921 as a member of the Monarro Group, he exhibited at the Goupil Gallery alongside Paul Signac, M.L. Pissarro and Le Maitre. From 1920 onwards McIntyre introduced more river and park scenes into his subject-matter. Thereafter along with Frances Hodgkins and his early friend and fellow student Sydney Thompson he became a New Zealand artist who stayed on in the United Kingdom rather than returning to his home country.
Raymond McIntyre was a close friend of Edward McKnight Kauffer (1890-1954) who studied in Paris at the Academy Moderne (1913-1914, and his French street scenes are usually dated to around that time on account of that association; though the example at Minster may date from a few years later. A number of street scenes by McIntyre were exhibited in the 1984 Raymond McIntyre Survey Exhibition'. Auckland City Art Gallery, New Zealand.