Oil paint on canvas
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/merlyn-oliver-evans-1073" aria-label="More by Merlyn Oliver Evans" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Merlyn Oliver Evans</a>
Souvenir Suez
Purchased 1953
abstraction
architecture
canal
countries and continents
crane
Egypt
from recognisable sources
history
industrial
landscape
man-made
man-made landmarks (non-UK)
military: World War II
North African Campaigns, 1940-3
objects
places
Suez Canal
tools and machinery
painting oil paint canvas
24 August 2007 – 22 March 2009
2009-03-22
24 August 2007
2007-08-24
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2007-08-24
Art from Nature
Collection based display
Souvenir of Suez
support: 737 × 1270 mm
frame: 970 × 1500 × 72 mm
Purchased 1953
<p><b>N06147</b> SOUVENIR OF SUEZ 1950–3
<br/> 
<br/>Inscr. ‘Evans 52.’ b.l.
<br/>Canvas, 29×50 (74×127).
<br/>Purchased from the Leicester Galleries (Knapping Fund) 1953.
<br/><i>Exh:</i> Leicester Galleries, March 1953 (14).
<br/><i>Repr:</i> Exh. cat., Whitechapel Art Gallery, October–November 1956, pl.15 (not exhibited).</p>
<p>Painted between 1950 and 1953, not on the site but from memories of Suez gained by the artist during his war service with the 8th Army in the Middle East during the 1939–45 war. A compositional study for the <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> belongs to the artist.</p>
<p>Two related paintings entitled ‘Wharfside Construction’, painted in 1953 and suggested by the dockside at Southwark, were exhibited at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, October–November 1956 (55, repr. pl.14, and 56). The hooked forms of cranes figure in earlier <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/composition" title="Glossary definition for 'Composition'"><span>compositions</span></a>, as in ‘Conquest of Time’, 1934 (8). In the notes supplied for the catalogue the artist wrote: ‘Earlier, when I was about fifteen and living in Glasgow and wandering about in the shipbuilding yards, I was continually absorbed by the shapes of boats and the stages through which these boats were carried to the perfect functional shape. Conscious of their fitness for purpose, I saw that they were beautiful in themselves and in that sense were like the shapes found in nature. But at the same time I realized that the shapes could take on an emotional quality which might convey elegance or heaviness, a menacing brutality or a sense of refinement or repose. Derricks and cranes, and dock-side machinery, had a fierce, heavy-sometimes predatory-feeling; whereas the forms of human beings, certain birds, yachts and gliders had a light, resilient, graceful character. I do not mean that I saw all these things as personages with quasi-human attributes. The emotional qualities were in the shapes themselves.’</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</p>
<p></p>
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Catalogue entry
2004-10-08T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
abstraction architecture canal countries and continents crane Egypt from recognisable sources history industrial landscape man-made man-made landmarks (non-UK) military: World War II North African Campaigns, 1940-3 objects places Suez Canal tools and machinery