Marjorie Gertler (née Hodgkinson, later Kostenz) (British 19...

Hammer

£1,400

Marjorie Gertler (née Hodgkinson, later Kostenz) (British 1902-1979) Saintes Maries de la Mer, † woolwork embroidery and fabric appliqué, 58 x 121 cm, framed and glazed 63 x 127 cm Provenance From the collection of Luke Gertler, Mark Gertler's son. Gifted to his partner, Francis Guilfoyle, thence by descent. Literature Twentieth Century Embroidery in Great Britain 1940-1963, Constance Howard, 1983, Frome, p.143, illustrated in black and white p.142. Exhibited London, Gunnersbury Park Museum, December 1981-January 1982, no.1. Footnote The design depicts the festival held on 25 May showing the traditional procession through the village down to the sea of the statues of Saints Marie-Jacobé and Marie-Salomé, the two patron saints of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, and Saint Sarah, also known as Sara-la-Kâli, the patron saint of the Romany people. Alongside the pilgrims are the Gardiane Nation, who are responsible for maintaining traditions in the Camargue. The riders, called the Gardians, ride superb white horses as depicted here, a breed that dates back to Antiquity. Marjorie studied at the Slade in the 1920s. She met Mark Gertler and they married secretly on a trip to Paris in 1930. In 1932 they had their son, Luke. The marriage was often difficult, punctuated by the frequent ill health of both. Marjorie left him in the late 1930s and suffering from depression Gertler committed suicide in 1939. She moved to Paris where she met and married the Austrian refugee, Franz Kostenz. They spent the war years in Provence as Franz was unable to enter England. Here she grew to understand and admire its people and love the life and landscape whose villages, landscape and local traditions provided the inspiration for her drawings, paintings and embroideries. In the 1950s Marjorie studied embroidery at Goldsmiths' College with Constance Howard. Here she found a medium in which she was able to express her ideas more successfully than in any other way and began to exhibit at a number of galleries. “Though Marjorie was a shy, reserved person, her work was bold in design, rich in colour, and entirely original." (Gunnersbury Park Museum exhibition catalogue, 1982).