Landscape Row of Trees

The date of the present work is consistent for Gertler’s work from the late 1930s, and the Garsington title previously given to it is erroneous as Gertler did not visit Garsington after his friends Ottoline and Philip Morrell sold it in 1928. It is far more likely that it is a landscape of Holt End, near Newbury, where Gertler spent time staying with his friend and patron Thomas Balston in August 1937 and completed a number of landscapes. It is consistent with a description in Gertler’s diary indicating that it was painted in three stages between 7th and 11th August 1937 from the studio window on separate pieces of Colley’s smooth paper, stuck down on beaver board. It was painted with a palette knife in layers of ‘thick mostly fresh impasto’ and he described the outlook as ‘somewhat Courbetesque’.

The Polish pianist, Maria Donska (1912–1996), arrived in England as a Jewish refugee in 1934 and settled in Hampstead with her lifelong friend Leonora Speyer, known as ‘Baba’. Maria had a close friendship with Gertler towards the end of his life; no correspondence has been traced between them but according to Epstein’s biographer, Stephen Gardiner, they had a passionate affair. Maria was certainly part of Gertler’s close circle, known to his friends Dr. Andrew and Dorothy Morland. According to some accounts, she found his body after Gertler’s suicide in his garden studio in Hampstead in June 1939. Maria does not appear in Gertler’s diary or address book, but Leonora is listed as Mrs. F.C.O. Speyer in 1937.

We are very grateful to Sarah MacDougall for preparing this catalogue entry.