Anne Redpath in Venice

By Patrick Bourne, 01.05.2017

Anne Redpath, Courtyard in Venice, 1964. Ⓒ The Artist's Estate. All Rights Reserved 2019/Bridgeman Images.

These two lively works come from Anne Redpath's 1962 visit to Venice. She had travelled to the city once before whilst living in France in the late 1920s, but on that trip she consciously avoided painting the city that had attracted so many artists, being wary of producing received responses. She preferred less visited scenery such as that of Corsica and the Canary Islands. However, on this occasion her son Alistair, also an artist, persuaded her to accompany him to the city for a fortnight in October. 

They stayed in the Hotel Grand Canale in Santa Croce and Redpath worked furiously from the outset. Courtyard in Venice reflects how inspired she was despite her previous reluctance - its execution has energy, panache and immediacy. By this stage of her life she preferred working indoors to out on a sunlit street where she was constantly interrupted by inquisitive children.

Anne Redpath was not in the least religious but loved the cool and quiet of baroque church interiors which were, paradoxically, riotously decorated and colourful. She would only produce drawings in churches, hence the colour notes on the sketch of San Nicolo dei Mendicoli - the church that featured in Nicholas Roeg's film 'Don't Look Now' ten years later. These annotations helped when she added colour to the drawing once she had returned to her hotel room. Oil paintings would not be started until she was home in Scotland.

Earlier in her career, Mediterranean painting trips would continue to inspire oil paintings two or three years later but by 1962 she had sped up the process. The results of her Venetian experiences were exhibited at a solo show at her London dealers Reid & Lefevre in April the following year, six months after the trip.  There were twenty-four oils, all of Venice, and they sold out in two days but it was to be her last exhibition- she died nine months later at the age of 69.

Patrick Bourne is a private advisor and fine art dealer specialising in British Art and an internationally-recognised authority on Scottish Art.