All texts copyright Richard Shillitoe
a visitation ll
1945
Oil on board.
24 x 24in. (61 x 61cm.)
Signed, inscribed and dated verso.
Provenance
Sotheby’s, studio sale, 24 April 1985, lot 541, as 1949.
Exhibited
London, Mayor Gallery, 1947, (paintings), no. 7, ill. b/w.
Penzance, Newlyn Gallery, 1961, no. 19.
Comparing this work with Visitation I shows that they are the part and counterpart that arise from
the use of the decalcomania technique. Apart from being in reverse, the main difference is that the
present work has been given a setting of featureless walls. This gives it a human scale, and a rather
claustrophobic in feeling, rather than the cosmic scale of Visitation I that is responsible for much of
its power.
A watercolour study for this work exists. It was sold by W. H. Lane, Penzance, 24 June 2010, lot 76, as
Surrealist Landscape.
