Name: E. Leslie Gunston ARIBA, Venice Rooftops – 1959 watercolour painting
Brand: Somerset & Wood
SKU: KC-862
Price: 442.95 EUR
Availability: OutOfStock

E. Leslie Gunston ARIBA, Venice Rooftops – 1959 watercolour painting

An original 1959 watercolour painting – E. Leslie Gunston ARIBA, Venice Rooftops.

This uplifting, luminous view across the rooftops of Venice is the work of the architect E. Leslie Gunston ARIBA (1895–1988). The choice of subject and aerial vantage point, capturing the uniquely dense medieval architecture on the Venetian archipelago, especially suits Gunston's precise draughtsmanship—his architect's hand and eye.

Painted in 1959, this watercolour dates from a period of adjustment from war to peace, when artists were grappling with ideas of postwar reconstruction, raw expression, new forms of figuration and a renewed emphasis on realism in art. Whilst Gunston's urban subject is not the industrial landscape often explored by British postwar artists, his treatment of the view nevertheless shows an engagement with the tension between photographic realism and the artifice of the picture plane.

In watercolour with graphite. On cream wove paper with TH SAU[nders] watermark (Thomas Harry Saunders, now Saunders Waterford).

There is a historical framing label on the verso giving the title and artist's name and address.

E. Leslie Gunston ARIBA (1895–1988)

E. Leslie Gunston ARIBA (1895–1988), most famously, was the beloved cousin of the First World War poet Wilfred Owen (1893–1918). The boys' mothers were sisters, and the Owens frequently holidayed at the Gunston's residence at Kidmore End in Berkshire, where Leslie's father John had built a substantial home, Alpenrose. John Gunston was a successful butcher, with a number of shops in the Wimbledon area, and he had been able to retire early, to pursue his love of photography.

Cousins Wilfred and Leslie had a lot in common, sharing an interest in Roman remains, visiting Reading's Museum and secondhand bookshops—and above all, sharing a burgeoning love of poetry. The boys had poetry writing competitions between themselves, and when Wilfred enlisted to serve on the front, he regularly wrote to Leslie, including snippets of poems and news of life on the front line. When Wilfred was hospitalised at Craiglockhart in Edinburgh with shellshock, he wrote to Leslie about his transformative meeting with Siegfried Sassoon. At this time Leslie had a volume of poetry published, 'The Nymph, and Other poems', 1917, and Wilfred expressed his eagerness to show it to Sassoon.

Wilfred Owen was killed in action in Northern France on 4 November 1918, exactly one week before the signing of the Armistice which ended the war. Poignantly, after the war, Leslie Gunston designed the Forbury War Memorial in Reading, which was unveiled in 1932. No doubt the memory of his cousin was paramount for him when working on this commission. Gunston himself avoided active service due to ill health, and with it the horrors of battle; it has been suggested that he in some way represented Wilfred Owen's alter ego, a life had Owen not himself been subject to the transformative realities of war.