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Mark Gertler (1892-1939) still life with poppies,

Mark Gertler (1891-1939) still life with poppies, 1931

oil on board, signed mark gertler and dated 1931 at lower right, 26 x 17Ľ in., 66 x 44 cm.

***Provenance: Private Collection, London. A fine example of the artist's later work, Still Life with Poppies was created a year after Gertler married Marjorie Hodgkinson and a year before the birth of his son Luke. The garish, even fauvist, colouration of the work is perhaps the product of a sense of joy that Gertler had found in the fulfilment of his family life, a happiness that had eluded him for much of his career. As a famous pacifist during the First World War, a stance that had alienated him from his wartime patron Edward Marsh (who was Secretary to Winston Churchill) but which had also produced The Merry-Go-Round of 1916 (perhaps one of the greatest examples of British Modernist paintings); poppies are an extremely evocative subject for Gertler to employ, especially in such bright, colourful hues. Partly an explosion of happiness, Still Life with Poppies is also a dark and poignant reminder of the irony inherent in such a pretty and decorative flower which had since become the symbol of death for a world surrounded by war. His fear of the impending Second World War was a major factor in the artist's suicide in 1939. .