Oil paint on canvas
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/ceri-richards-1836" aria-label="More by Ceri Richards" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Ceri Richards</a>
Cold Light Deep Shadow
Purchased 1950
abstraction
adults
architecture
domestic
door
features
figure
figure
fine arts and music
from recognisable sources
instrument, piano
interiors
leisure and pastimes
man-made
music
music and entertainment
music room
natural phenomena
objects
people
shadow
window
painting oil paint canvas
Cold Light, Deep Shadow
support: 914 × 1168 mm
frame: 1152 × 1406 × 46 mm
Purchased 1950
<p><b>N05949</b> COLD LIGHT, DEEP SHADOW 1950</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Inscr. ‘Ceri 50 Richards’ b.r.
<br/>Canvas, 36×46 (91·5×116·5).
<br/>Purchased from the Redfern Gallery (Grant-in-Aid) 1950.
<br/><i>Exh:</i> Redfern Gallery, May–June 1950 (1).</p>
<p>The artist wrote (30 November 1958) that the motif of musicians and musical instruments has appeared consistently in his work since 1930, and is significant perhaps only because of his upbringing in a musical family and of his own keen interest in music. ‘Cold Light, Deep Shadow’, which shows an interior with two figures seated round a piano, is a development of the ‘Light and Shadow’ <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> also exhibited at the Redfern Gallery in 1950 (6, repr.). 'The shadow shapes in this particular painting link it with 3 or 4 other paintings with titles like “Sunlight in a Room”, “Shadows in a Room”, which are in private collections. These were done in the same year [1950] and were shown at the Redfern Gallery Exhibition from which the Tate picture was bought.</p>
<p>‘Later this Light/Interior motif developed into several paintings which were more like <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/a/abstract-art" title="Glossary definition for 'Abstract art'"><span>abstract</span></a> nuances of colour and <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/f/form" title="Glossary definition for 'Form'"><span>form</span></a>.’</p>
<p>Among the paintings at the Redfern Exhibition were some whose titles had explicit musical connotations, e.g. ‘Red interior with Piano Music by Albeniz’, ‘Saudade for the rape of the Sabines’, and ‘St Cecilia’.</p>
<p><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, <i>The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture</i>, London 1964, II
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-10-08T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
abstraction adults architecture domestic door features figure figure fine arts and music from recognisable sources instrument, piano interiors leisure and pastimes man-made music music and entertainment music room natural phenomena objects people shadow window