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69

Camille Souter HRHA (b.1929)

Currency:EUR Category:Everything Else / Other Start Price:NA Estimated At:8,000.00 - 10,000.00 EUR
Camille Souter HRHA (b.1929)
Camille Souter HRHA (b.1929) LONDON AGAIN signed and dated [1958] lower right; titled and signed on reverse oil on paper 46 by 61cm., 18 by 24in. Provenance: Dawson Gallery, Dublin Camille Souter first came to London in 1948 to train as a nurse. While studying there she took the opportunity to visit as many exhibitions and concerts as possible. It was, she recalls "the most wonderful education I ever had".1 When she arrived she still went by the name of Betty Pamela Holmes. By 1951 she had married the Old Vic actor Gordon Souter. Her first husband is said to have nicknamed her "Camille" as an illusion to the tubercular heroine of Alexander Dumas' La Dame aux Camelias. After completing her nursing studies, she almost immediately began to paint full-time. In London, Betty Pamela Holmes, the nurse, became Camille Souter, the bohemian artist. During the mid-fifties she left the city, dividing her time between Italy and Ireland. On her way to Italy in 1958, she found herself in "London Again" for a brief three days. This work is almost certainly based on that experience. From a technical perspective the painting is typical of her style at the time. The artist has achieved a range of subtle textures by pressing a sheet of paper or rags against the surface. It is almost an "all-over" painting, in the sense that no one area of the work seems immediately more important than another. As a result the exact representational content remains illusive. The yellow-orange colour at the centre of the work may describe street-lights. The atmosphere is almost reminiscent of T.S. Elliot's Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and "The yellow fog that rubs its back against the window-panes / The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window panes". The analogy with a window may not be inappropriate either. A year earlier the artist had produced some views from windows in Dublin. Nevertheless, it is impossible to offer a definitive interpretation. 1 Quote from an interview with the artist, March 1998 Garrett Cormican January 2002€8000-€10000 (IR £6200-£7800 approx.)
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