Peter PURVES SMITH

Australian 1912–49

Peter Purves Smith made two of these paintings, The pond, Paris, c. 1938, and Vase with flowers, c. 1940, in London at the beginning of World War II. The third painting, Double head, 1947, celebrates his marriage of 1946. In spring in 1940 Purves Smith proposed via cable to Melbourne-based Maisie Newbold, then joined up with the British army. The pond and Vase with flowers were probably done while he was trying to work out what best to do: whether to go to Australia or fight in Europe, whether it was reasonable to propose to Maisie or not when he might die, might not see her (as it turned out) for years or whether Maisie would find someone else.

The capsized yachts and toy steamship in The pond may refer to enemy submarines stalking Atlantic shipping, including the ship on which Maisie Newbold and her mother were sailing for Australia. In the 1930s Purves Smith spent two periods painting in Paris. His mother, on annual visits from Australia , would stay at the Hotel Crillon, a building resembling the classically designed architecture in the background of The pond.1 More likely, the scene is the Prince of Wales Pond on Blackheath, London, and the buildings are Purves Smith’s adaptation of a Georgian terrace called The Paragon. Around the pond is a circular frieze of London life, all animation as if even the elegantly sinuous dogs are taking part in the upbeat rhythm. In the foreground a purple-suited woman leans like a metro- nome. This is one of a group of delightful faux-naif (affectedly simple) paintings of this period. The National Gallery of Victoria holds another in this style—Greenwich Observatory, which is a view of close-by Greenwich Park—as well as a study drawing for The pond.

1 See M. Eagle, Peter Purves Smith: A Painter in Peace and at Wartime, Sydney, 2000, p. 110.

Jennifer Phipps

Vase with flowers shows a loose bunch of European summer wildflowers—Flanders poppies, buttercups and morning glory stems. As Purves Smith layered meaning into his art, it would not escape the knowledgeable viewer that the Flanders poppies were the symbol of remembrance for the dead of World War I, in which the artist’s father had served. The other flowers are naturalised and may be picked from around river banks. They are arranged in an earthenware jug outlined in a glow of light—the art writer Mary Eagle has pointed out how Peter Purves Smith delighted in breaking the rules of painting and art-making. Here the light falls not only from the left, but also from the back. Purves Smith, well acquainted with surrealism, has the flowers and vine creep sinuously and slightly uncomfortably up the canvas.

Jennifer Phipps

Double head is partly based on paintings by Picasso that Purves Smith saw in the exhibition Fantastic Art, Dadaism and Surrealism, in New York in 1936, and others in London and Paris. The two lovers melt into one in thin, strap-like layers that defy spatial rules and play at flattening cubist picture-building forms. The woman’s breast leans on the crook of the embracing arm of the man, while her hair hovers elatedly and protectively over his head.

Jennifer Phipps