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WILLIAM JOHN LEECH RHA ROI (1881 - 1968)
The House Opposite
Oil on canvas, 60 x 51cm (23½ x 20”)
Signed
Exhibited: Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, 1964, Catalogue No. 3
“William John Leech - An Irish Painter Abroad”, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin Oct - Dec 1996,
Catalogue No. 109.
Literature: “An Irish Artist - William J. Leech” by Alan Denson, 1968 Catalogue. No. 56
“William John Leech - An Irish Painter Abroad” by Denise Ferran, National Gallery of Ireland 1996
Full page illustration page 286.
Denise Ferran writes in the catalogue for the 1996 exhibition:
The House Opposite
was painted from Leech’s studio at Candy Cottage; the same pattern of the panes in the window
recurs in the still lifes “
Cast Shadows”
(cat.108) and “
Still life with Anise Lanterns
” (cat.110).’
‘Candy Cottage, West Clandon was an ideal house for Leech and his wife to retire to in their seventies, since they
were already acquainted with the area and had the friendship of the Wallace family. It was an idyllic Tudor-style
cottage with diamond-pained mullioned windows with climbing roses over the trelliswork, and the birdbath, from
Steele’s studios was given pride of place in the garden.’
‘Even in his late seventies, the intensity of light and vibrancy of colour attained in his canvases as in “
The Studio
Garden”, “Etude Clandon Station”
and
“Steps to the Studio
”, testify to his undiminished ability as an artist. He paints with
the assurance and knowledge acquired from over fifty years of painting. His move from London to the Surrey coun-
tryside, his marriage finally to May and the freedom and security which this had brought to him in his later years
seemed to suit his retiring personality and his paintings.
In bad weather, Leech painted still lifes and portraits as well as views out of his studio window. One of the views he
painted from his studio was “
The House Opposite
”. Here terracotta reds glow against the green of the hedges and the
diamond-leaded panes of Leech’s front window form a cross-hatching through which the house is glimpsed.’
€ 10,000 - 15,000