Peter Lanyon (British, 1918-1964)


Field Landing oil on wood and board with Perspex and metal93 x 153.5 x 54 cm. (36 1/2 x 60 1/2 x 21 3/4 in.)Conceived in 1964
|ProvenanceWith Gimpel Fils, LondonPrivate Collection, U.K.With Austin Desmond Fine Art, London, 2004, where acquired by the present ownerPrivate Collection, U.K.ExhibitedPossibly Newlyn, Newlyn Art Gallery, Newlyn Society of Artists: Summer 2, 1964, cat.no.152London, Gimpel Fils, Peter Lanyon 1918-1964: Reliefs, Constructions and Related Paintings, 20 May-21 June 1975, cat.no.31 Manchester, Whitworth Art Gallery, Peter Lanyon: Paintings, Drawings and Constructions 1937-64, organised by The Arts Council, 25 January-4 March 1978, cat.no.84; this exhibition travelled to Glasgow, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, 3-30 April, Cambridge, Kettle's Yard, 5-28 May, St Ives, Penwith Society of Arts, 3 July-2 August and Bristol, Royal West of England Academy of Arts, 17 August-15 September 1978London, Gimpel Fils, Place I, 23 June-16 July 1983, cat.no.18London, Gimpel Fils, Peter Lanyon: Works 1946-1964, 1-19 November 1983, cat.no.12London, Gimpel Fils, Sculptures, Reliefs & Drawings, 8 June-9 September 1989, cat.no.29London, Bernard Jacobsen, Peter Lanyon: Landscapes 1946-1964, 2-27 April 1991, cat.no.31 (col.ill.)London, Camden Arts Centre, Peter Lanyon: Air, Land & Sea, organised by The Arts Council, 6 November-20 1992; this exhibition travelled to Coventry, Mead Gallery, 11 January-13 February 1993, Sheffield, Mappin Art Gallery, 20 February-18 April and Newlyn, Orion Art Gallery 1 May-12 June, cat.no.40, (col.ill.)London, Gimpel Fils, Peter Lanyon: The Final Years 1962-64, 11 February - 28 March 1998, cat.no.2St Ives, Tate Gallery, Peter Lanyon, 9 October 2010-23 January 2011, (col.ill.)London, Courtauld Gallery, Soaring Flight: Peter Lanyon's Gliding Paintings, 15 October 2015-17 January 2016, pp.146-9, cat.no.21 (col.ill.)LiteratureAdrian Lewis, Peter Lanyon: Later Work 1959-1964, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, 1978, p.4 (exh.cat.)Andrew Lanyon, Peter Lanyon 1918-1964, Penzance, 1990, p.251 (col.ill.)Chris Stephens, Peter Lanyon: At The Edge of Landscape, 21 Publishing, London, 2000, pp.166-99, pl.98 (col.ill.)Margaret Garlake, Peter Lanyon, Tate Gallery, London, 1998, pp.65-6, fig 57. (col.ill.)Margaret Garlake, Peter Lanyon, Tate Publishing, London, 2001, p.65, pl.57 (ill.)Andrew Causey, Peter Lanyon: Modernism and the Land, Reaktion Books, London, 2006, p.198, pl.106 (col.ill.)Chris Stephens, Peter Lanyon, Tate Publishing, London, 2010, pp.28,94 and reproduced p.99 (col.ill.)Laura Freeman, The Promise of Blue, Times Literary Supplement, 2015, p.4 (ill.)Toby Treves, Peter Lanyon: Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings and Three-Dimensional Works, Modern Art Press, 2018, pp.628-9, (col.ill.)Flying had always held a deep fascination for Peter Lanyon who had joined the Royal Air Force in March 1940 in the hope of becoming a pilot. However, owing to persistent migraines he was forced to take up a flight mechanic role with opportunities limited to occasional journeys in transport aircraft. Nonetheless, the experience had a deep impact and by the 1950s gliding emerged as a potentially fascinating way of combining a childhood ambition with artistic development. By 1959 he had enrolled at the Cornish Gliding (and Flying) Club, which was based at the Perranporth Airfield on the northern coast of Cornwall not far from Lanyon's home and studio in Carbis Bay, near St Ives. It was in Carbis Bay and particularly under the great influence of Naum Gabo that Lanyon had created his first construction in 1939 and he would progress with this medium through following decades. Field Landing was one of the artist's last constructions with its title a reference to the potentially hazardous process of making an unscheduled landing in a strange field rather than in the pilot's home airfield. Whereas his paintings of this period draw on the memory of flight and the new visual surroundings brought about by that experience, the present work explores the physical process of flying itself along with its complexities. As has been suggested by Margaret Garlake, the red may be representative of danger with the work evoking much emotion given the artist's untimely death following a bad landing in August 1964. The following guide to Field Landing is taken from Toby Treves' newly published catalogue raisonné of the Artist's oil paintings and three-dimensional works: Field Landing is a free-standing construction, designed to be walked round. It is the largest of the artist's late constructions, and among his most complicated in terms of structure. The large upright panel, which is painted red on its front side, is plywood. The truncated triangle at the left, which evokes the wingtip or tail-plane or fin of an aircraft, is approximately repeated in the rest of the panel, though on a larger scale, having been rotated through ninety degrees clockwise. As such, it recalls Lanyon's comment that 'triangles have an innate turning tendency' (letter to John Dalton, 17 May 1962; Lanyon Family Archive) and may be seen as an index of a turning glider. The bottom of this panel is tacked to the edge of a flat, square piece of wood, which is both part of the construction and its base. The upper face of the wood is painted black, white and grass green, with clearly defined areas for each colour. The white runs through the black, dividing it in two. The green is confined to one corner, hemmed in by the black. The painted base might be considered as a landscape seen from above. Three objects sit on the surface of this base, all of them rising from the two black areas: a brown metal dome with a white circle painted free-hand round its top and surmounted by a wooden knob; part of the handle of a kitchen implement, painted red and white; a curved piece of wood, perhaps part of a chair, painted red, with a green-blue strut running from it to the large red panel. If the base is understood as the earth's surface from above, then these objects are like the landmarks a pilot uses for orientation. The awkward, angular structure of struts and panels above these objects intensifies the space round them. Although this side of the construction feels enclosed, it is not treated as a discrete section. In fact, there is a one-inch gap between the triangular piece of board, painted blue on this side, and the red panel, which allows a view through from one side to the other. Similarly, the green-blue rod that runs through both sides of the triangular board gives a sense of continuity, or at least connection, between them. On its other side, the triangular board is painted with blocks of black and white, which divide diagonally along the vertical axis, like the sharply tilted horizon a pilot sees in a turn. The neatness of this division is ruffled by various black lines, some circular, others angular, that run across it. There is also an angular piece of Perspex on this side. It is not clear if this serves a structural purpose, but it does add another spatial and visual level that might refer to the pilot's perspective from within the cockpit looking through the canopy.The back of the panel is painted blue and green. The blue, which is the underlying colour, is clear and solid on the far right. As the eye moves across the panel the blue gradually gives way to blue green, to green blue, to grass green. This seamless transition from blue to green recalls a pilot's view of the landing as the forward field of vision is steadily drained of sky and replaced with land.