Provenance: The Fine Art Society

It has been suggested that this landscape looks towards Pewsey or Lambourne Downs. The clumps of beeches that crest the hill-tops are certainly characteristic of the Berkshire landscape, although the colour of the red roof tiles, made from local red-brown clay, has been heightened for pictorial reasons; McKnight Kauffer punctuated his poster designs for Shell with the same bright reds. This pictorial device, coupled with the strong influence of Paul Cézanne, gives the landscape a feeling more readily associated with the South of France than Berkshire.

McKnight Kauffer’s Wood Interior, painted a year earlier (Government Art Collection no. 16578), has many stylistic affinities with this work.

We are grateful to Michael Barker and Lis and Gabriel Cave for assistance.