ΦMichael Ayrton (1921-1975)

ΦMichael Ayrton (1921-1975)
The Grandsons
Signed and dated michael ayrton 47 (lower left)
Oil on board
43.3 x 33.7cm

Provenance:
The Hanover Gallery, London, where purchased by Dr T. C. N. Gibbens;
And by descent

This painting is one of a series of works inspired by the fishermen and their families on Ischia, and represents an important link between Michael Ayrton's Neo-Romantic works of the early 1940s and the more sculptural style he developed after the War, when he travelled extensively in Italy and came under the influence of Masaccio and Piero della Francesca. The muted palette, texture and handling of the paint have a deliberately fresco-like quality, and the enigmatic situation is typical of Ayrton's desire to emulate, in his own words 'the monumental images, timeless, impersonal and yet human … filled with secret communication and unspecified drama' of the early Renaissance masters.

We are grateful to Dr Justine Hopkins for her assistance cataloguing the present work.