Diary extracts for November 1938 to March 1939

10th Nov 1938:

Mavis started her series of W.E.A. lectures on painting at Verwood.

2nd Dec 1938:

Went into Southampton to make drawings for a new long panel. It will be a sort of composite affair.

1 January

. . . I have finished the painting, all but a few touches, of lots of Southampton all bunged together on to a long-shaped canvas, about 18x50

4th Jan 1939:

The Southampton composite picture taken to Redfern.

They were expecting Sydney Schiff in the afternoon, so I got a few more paintings from Picture Hire Ltd [the framers]

... Richard Smart was at the Redfern later, he said he wanted the picture and they wouldn’t let him have it!”

The painting was sent to the International Exhibition of Paintings at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, USA, where is was sold. It is probably still in a private collection in the States today.

24th Feb 1939:

Cezanne almost makes me weep, what a man he was, the perfection of his paintings makes me gasp. I can’t understand the lack of appreciation by painters who ought to know better.

8th Mar 1939:

Lunch with Mr Conran the new curator of the new Southampton Art Gallery. Went in to see it in its unfinished state.

23rd Mar 1939:

Painting all day, and feel things are in an awful mess, in fact, just like the European situation . . .