John Minton (1917 - 1957):
The Outskirts, 1941
Unmounted (ref: 2595)
Signed and dated lower left
Pen and ink, 19 x 24 in. (48 × 61 cm.)
See all works by John Minton ink pen and ink war
Provenance: Patrick Millard; Simon Sainsbury.
Exhibited: A Paradise Lost, Barbican Art Gallery, London, 1987 (no. 182).
Literature: David Mellor , A Paradise Lost, exh. cat., Barbican Art Gallery, London, 1987, p. 140.
This
image is closely related to two paintings in the collection of the
Imperial War Museum, Blitzed City with Self-Portrait (IWM ART 16739) and
wapping (IWM ART 17174). Each of the three pictures include a youthful,
melancholic self-portrait set against a backdrop of bomb-damaged
buildings.This series of paintings, all dating to 1941, were an
expression of Minton’s own anxiety about his imminent conscription; his
claim to be a conscientious objector was rejected, and he joined the
Pioneer Corps in December 1941.
The German bombing campaign had
devastated those areas along theThames that Minton liked to frequent
–Wapping, Limehouse and Poplar .War had created a type of landscape that
had previously existed only in his imagination.