Gouache on paper
Tate Collection
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<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/harold-jones-1372" aria-label="More by Harold Jones" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Harold Jones</a>
Black Door
Purchased 1940
animals: birds
architecture
clothing and personal items
de la Mare, Walter, ‘Farewell’
domestic
door
features
furnishings
literature (not Shakespeare)
literature and fiction
objects
rug
seasons
shoe
starling
tree
warming pan
winter
paper unique gouache
The Black Door
support: 489 × 337 mm
Purchased 1940
<p><b>N05211</b> THE BLACK DOOR <i>c.</i> 1935
<br/> 
<br/>Inscr. ‘Harold Jones’ b.l.
<br/>Gouache, 19 1/4×13 1/4 (49×34).
<br/>Purchased from the artist (Knapping Fund) 1940.</p>
<p>The artist wrote (6 January 1943) that this was painted about 1935 and was taken from a <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/d/drawing" title="Glossary definition for 'Drawing'"><span>drawing</span></a> made at Spendon, Derbyshire. A drawing of this picture was used for the back cover of <i>This Year, Next Year</i> by the artist and Walter de la Mare, a book for children published by Faber and Faber in 1937, which included a poem by de la Mare related to the picture and entitled ‘Farewell’:</p>
<p>Ah me! That pen should be where mine is - That F.I.N.I.S. spells FINIS! It means - oh sad! - our book is over, And all its pictures, excepting one You'll find, dear Reader, on the cover - Of starlings feeding in the sun.</p>
<p>There, open stands a shining door; To let us out - but in no more. There glides a stream. A linden tree Dreams of the Spring. The distant woods Hear the gentle wind sigh, ‘This is she!’ - And into leaf unfurl their buds. Listen! that far, faint clarion! ... Farewell! All blessings! I am gone.</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, I
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-10-07T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
animals: birds architecture clothing and personal items de la Mare, Walter, ‘Farewell’ domestic door features furnishings literature and fiction literature (not Shakespeare) objects rug seasons shoe starling tree warming pan winter