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Presentation: Framed
Signed
oil on board 39 1/2 x 29 1/4ins (100 x 74 cm)
Provenance: Private collection, Norfolk
In orginal wooden batten frame with linen slip

This was painted around 1960 in the basement kitchen of a large house on the canalside near Regent's Park, London. The model was a Nigerian student nurse. The painting is one of a series of conversation pieces that the artist undertook in the 1960's, which included subjects such as boys on bicycles, queues at bakers, gossiping women in the street etc.

We are grateful to Hal Bishop for assistance and the Golsoncott Foundation (who hold Reckitt's copyright).

Exhibited: Rachel Reckitt, 'Where Everything that meets the eye ... A retrospective', 2001.
Biography Sold

Presentation: Framed
Signed
Oil on board 98 3/8 x 29 1/8 in. (100 x 74 cm).
Provenance: Private collection, Norfolk

The scene is one of Rachel Reckitt's 'conversation' pieces the woman putting up laundry is talking to a baker whose premises are next door. The place is St Emilion in the Bordeaux in the Spring summer of 1955 or 1956, the painting would have been done in the studio at Golsoncott from photographs, or quick sketches often in biro, during the autumn or winter of the same year. Conversation pieces often involve boys on bicycles, queues at bakers, gossiping women in the street, peasant farmers in the fields etc.

We are grateful to Hal Bishop for assistance and the Golsoncott Foundation (who hold Reckitt's copyright).

Exhibited: Rachel Reckitt, 'Where Everything that meets the eye ... A retrospective', 2001.

Thumbnail panels:

Rachel Reckitt 1908 - 1995

Artist in mild steel, wood, stone, paint and wood engraving, born in St Albans, Hertfordshire. She studied at the Grosvenor School of Modern Art in late 1930s under lain Macnab, and in 1970-5 at the Roadwater Smithy, Somerset, with Harry and Jim Horrobin. After training Reckitt worked from home in west Somerset at Rodhuish, Minehead. Carried out commissions for pub signs; wood-engraved book illustrations and single prints; and did sculpture in five Somerset churches and for private commission. She was an honorary member of the Somerset Guild of Craftsmen and SWE and a member of British Artist Blacksmiths' Association. Other group shows included Wertheim Gallery and LG. Had solo exhibitions at Duncan Campbell Contemporary Art and Bridgwater Arts Centre. A retrospective publication, Rachel Reckitt: where everything that meets the eye... appeared in zoos, Hal Bishop's survey of her work, supported by Somerset County Museums Service and the Golsoncott Foundation, accompanying shows in Taunton, Glastonbury and Exeter. Public collections in Salford and Bridgwater hold examples, as do Withycombe, Old Cleeve and Leighland.