Sold
Fyffe Christie
(1918 - 1979)
Portrait of the Artist’s Wife Eleanor (Copy)
Sold
Fyffe Christie (1918 - 1979)
Size:
Height – 34.2cm
Width – 84cm
Provenance: in the artist’s possession until 1979; thence with
his wife Eleanor Christie-Chatterley until 2012.
Literature: Buckman, David, Nature and Humanity, The Work
of Fyffe Christie, 1918:1979, Sansom & Co, 2004
This design was made into a a stained glass panel by Christie as a test
piece for Whitefriars. Fyffe Christie had learned about stained glass probably
from Sadie Mc Lellan the celebrated stained glass artist, married to
Walter Pritchard . He did not get on with Whitefriars and stayed only a
short time.
Christie studied at Glasgow School of Art, 1946-50, mural painting
under Walter Pritchard. He gained the Newberry Medal in 1950 and a
post-diploma year’s study. After a period teaching and a six-month
travelling scholarship – to which period this watercolour dates – Christie resumed teaching
and completed many murals, including Glasgow University and the Iona
Community House. With his wife Eleanor, a sculptor, he moved to London
in 1957 and again taught, while completing murals and much other work.
We are grateful to Eleanor Christie-Chatterley for assistance.
Painter, draughtsman, muralist and teacher, born in Bushey, Hertfordshire, son of a commercial artist and illustrator, George Christie. From the age of 12 Christie lived in Glasgow, from 1934 working in a solicitor’s office, then became an apprentice lithographic draughtsman and during World War II served in the Scottish Rifles, resulting work finding its way into the Imperial War Museum. Christie studied at Glasgow School of Art, 1946-50, mural painting under Walter Pritchard. He gained the Newberry Medal in 1950 and a post-diploma year’s study. After a period teaching and a six-month travelling scholarship taken on the continent Christie resumed teaching and completed many murals, including Glasgow University and the Iona Community House. With his wife Eleanor, a sculptor, he moved to London in 1957 and again taught, while completing murals and much other work. Christie and his wife held a show at Woodlands Gallery in 1979, shortly before he died. This showed him to be a painter with a rich palette, notable for his female nude studies, as well as a consummate draughtsman. His widow did much to promote Christie’s work after his death. There were exhibitions at Cyril Gerber Fine Art, Glasgow, and Fairhurst Gallery in 1988, preceded by a show of his drawings at Glasgow School of Art. He was included in Children & Childhood at the City Art Centre, Edinburgh, in 1989; there was a large show of his schoolchildren drawings at the Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood, 1991; and further small exhibitions at Blackheath Concert Halls and in Norwich. In 2004, there was an exhibition at Wimpole Hall, Cambridgeshire, accompanied by a monograph, Nature and Humanity, The Work of Fyffe Christie 1918-1979, published by Sansom & Company Ltd.
