Early Morning, Winter (The Stable Rooves at Charlecote)
Sir Edmund Fairfax-Lucy, 6th Baronet (1945 - 2020)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
2003
Materials
Measurements
510 x 600 mm
Place of origin
Charlecote Park
Order this imageCollection
Charlecote Park, Warwickshire
NT 534397
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, 'Early Morning, Winter (The Stable Rooves at Charlecote)' by Edmund Fairfax-Lucy (1945-2020). A view from the private wing at Charlecote Park showing a sandstone turret to the house with black weathervane in the foreground and the stable roofs beyond. The reverse of the frame is signed, titled and dated 2003.
Full description
The painter Edmund Fairfax-Lucy (1945-2020) lived at Charlecote Park, his ancestral home, from the 1970s until his death in 2020. Throughout his career, Charlecote provided a source of inspiration. Alongside the richly decorated interiors within the house, Fairfax-Lucy’s subjects included views towards the River Avon and to the woodyard. ‘Early Morning, Winter’ shows the view from his studio in the private wing, taking in the house’s distinctive stone parapet and turret with ogee roof, with the stables and woodyard beyond. Fairfax-Lucy recorded on the frame verso that this was a view he had ‘first seen January 1946’. Whilst ostensibly depicting his physical surroundings, Fairfax-Lucy was equally concerned with the ephemeral, studying light and the changing seasons. In an address he made as Master to the Art Workers’ Guild, Fairfax-Lucy observed that deep winter ‘is my favourite time of year, by reason of the subtlety of colour which draws your attention to the slightest change of tone both in nature and buildings’ (i). His obituary described how ‘Whether painting still lifes, interiors or landscapes, he sought to reveal a certain idea, experienced over time and disclosed by light.’ (ii). Intimately connected to place, this painting – like much of Fairfax-Lucy’s artistic work – was undertaken at Charlecote, where other creative outputs included his contribution to garden design. (i) ‘Message from the Master’, The Art Workers’ Guild. Proceedings and Notes, Number 26, February 2012. (ii) Paul Hills, ‘Edmund Fairfax-Lucy obituary’, Guardian, 12 May 2020.
Provenance
A painting by Edmund Fairfax-Lucy (1945-2020), 2003. Exhibited and sold at the Royal Academy, 2004, no. 484 as ‘Early Morning, Winter’. Consigned to auction at Dreweatts 1759, 6 June 2024, lot 142 and purchased by the National Trust for Charlecote Park.
Makers and roles
Sir Edmund Fairfax-Lucy, 6th Baronet (1945 - 2020) , artist