* JOHN CUNNINGHAM RGI D Litt (SCOTTISH 1926 - 1998),
CANAL, VENICE
oil on canvas, signed
76cm x 63.5cm (approx 30 x 25 inches)
Framed
Artist label verso: Inscribed with title, artist's name and dated 1967
Note: The artist's long obituary in The Glasgow Herald in 1998 began "Dr John Cunningham's death at the age of 72 robs Glasgow of one of its most endearing, well-known and colourful art-world stalwarts". Born in Lanarkshire in 1926, Cunningham attended Glasgow School of Art (GSA) in 1953. From 1967 to 1985, he was a Senior Lecturer at GSA, thus having close contact with several generations of young painters for two decades. John lived in a magnificent and spacious studio flat in the centre of Glasgow which was designed by Sir John Burnett expressly for the use of an artist, and which had previously been owned by other artists including John McGhie and David Gauld. The vision of his paintings was an expression of the man. John Cunningham was a large, charismatic character who loved life abundantly and whose paintings reflected his joy and passion for colour, displaying bold, confident brush-strokes along with subtle sensitivity. His landscapes and seascapes were all painted outdoors with only a few minor touches to be added in the studio. This gives his work a wonderful freshness and vitality with the immediacy of the moment captured. By going to the places, soaking up the vision and perspectives of the people who lived in those places, and painting the vision with a professional attention to its subtleties and variations, he produced a unique body of work. His landscapes are typified by a sense of connection to the earth itself, an honesty about the places depicted – nothing is sentimentalized or diminished – and a lavish generosity of engagement with colour, tone, shade and light. In 1980 he was elected to the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts (RGI) and in 1990 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Strathclyde. He received numerous prestigious awards during his long career. He exhibited throughout the UK also in New York and Hong Kong, and his work is in very many public, corporate and private collections. So far as we can ascertain, "Canal Venice" is the only Venice scene by Cunningham to have been offered at auction. Other paintings from the Venice series are in private or corporate collections and one example is held in the collection of The Royal College of Physicians & Surgeons of Glasgow.