Grove Lane

Made By Denys Robert Short (born 1926)

Date: 1952

Dimensions:

584.2 x 533.4 mm

Medium: Oil on canvas

Object number: GA0083

DescriptionDepicted here are some houses on Grove Lane, numbers 47 to 49. Such properties are fine examples of early nineteenth-century architecture located in the borough of Southwark. Paintings such as this represent a period in Short's artistic career (c.1950s and often include London subjects) before he produced a particularly mature series of Welsh mining towns during the 1960s and 1970s. It is for those highly atmospheric and gloomy works that he is best known and collected although, as seen here and in ‘View’ (GA1008) , empty streets and feelings of loneliness are recurring themes throughout. Another device that reappears in Short's work is the photographic, snapshot-like, cut-off composition.

(Benjamin Angwin – November 2014)

Culture: Story of Southwark