Studio RT Ltd

Description

We are very pleased to offer this charming watercolour of the English countryside by the artist Clive Madgwick, who has signed it to the lower right hand corner. It is entitled on a label to the backing board Winter Time, but as to whether this was by the artist we do not know. The painting depicts a rural scene on a bright sunny day, after a recent fall of snow, which is still visible on the fields. The stream in the foreground is still partly frozen and a man, well wrapped up and wearing a woolly hat, is feeding a couple of white ducks and a pair of moorhens or coots.

Clive Madgwick was born into a medical family in Surrey in 1934 and first started painting when at Epsom College. However, he followed family tradition and read dentistry at Guy's Hospital before joining the RAF as a dentist.

After leaving the RAF in 1965, he moved to Little Waldingfield in Suffolk, joining a practice in Sudbury. In 1968, after a bad bout of glandular fever, he rediscovered his enjoyment of painting. He started by sketching local houses in pen and ink, then watercolours and then acrylics. These went down well with local people and demand for his work grew and continued throughout the 1970s and 80s.

Living in rural Suffolk his subjects were mainly agricultural, field sports and countryside scenes. In the late 70s and 80s, he behan to exhibit locally in Suffolk and became of Member of the Society of Equestrian Artists, United Society of Artists and a Member of the Royal Society of British Artists. He won the Royal Landscape prize in 1985.

He obtained commissions from Boots, Calor Gas, Abbey National Building Society and Manns-Claas for his work. In 1989 Her Majesty the Queen saw a print of his of Buckingham Palace and enquired whether the original was available. As it had been sold, Clive painted another copy and presented it to Her Majesty in a private ceremony and it hangs in Windsor Castle to this day, having survived the fire, joinged by another couple of Madgwick originals.

Clive started travelling around Europe on painting trips, including France and Italy, where he painted scenes in Venice. In 1992 he became a full time professional artist. He was very prolific and, interestingly, kept a photographic archive of many, if not all, of his paintings. He saidly died in 2005 at the early age of just 70.

Examples of his work in oils and watercolours may be found on google images, as well as the usual auction results sites.

The watercolour is mounted with washlines and is framed in a soft bronze coloured frame with ornate corners. It will be suppled wired with new brass hanger, new brass picture wire and will be ready to hang.

Image size: 14 7/8" x 12 3/4" - 37.85cm x 32.4cm

Frame size: 23 3/8" x 20 3/8" - 59.4cm x 51.75cm

Medium: Watercolours

Provenance: Formerly with the Francis Iles Gallery in Rochester, Kent.

Condition: Excellent. The watercolour is in perfect condition and the mount and frame are in very good condition.