Lot 87: Harold Harvey (British, 1874-1941) Tulip pickers

Harold Harvey (British, 1874-1941)
Tulip pickers signed and dated 'Harold Harvey/26' (lower left)oil on canvas51 x 51cm (20 1/16 x 20 1/16in).

Provenance: Anon. sale, Christie's, London, 5 March 1976, lot 79.Private collection.Anon. sale, Sotheby's, London, 23 May, 2013, lot 35.Private collection, UK. Literature: Kenneth McConkey et al, Harold Harvey, Painter of Cornwall, Clifton, 2001, p. 155, no. 367.During the 1920s, Harold Harvey painted a number of studies of women working in the fields, such as The Flower Gatherers (1925), Iris Gatherers (1925), Iris pickers (1926, sold in these rooms 2 March 2016, lot 92) and The Bracken Carriers (1927). The present lot is most closely related to The Donkey Meadow (1924), which featured on the cover of the monogram on Harold Harvey published in 2001 to coincide with the major exhibition of Harvey's work at Penlee House Museum and Gallery, Penzance. Caroline Fox notes that Harvey's 'best work expresses a true joy in the countryside and a real understanding of the movements and gestures of the men, women and children he so often depicted' 1, an observation that is brilliantly demonstrated in the present lot. By contrast to the close-up perspective of Iris pickers, where there is no horizon to distract from the field of flowers, here, as with The Donkey Meadow, Harvey draws out his composition, showing the coastal town of Penzance beyond, with the patchwork of fields beyond the town harmonising with the colours of the tulips that the women are crouching to collect.The present lot is listed in Peter Risdon's online catalogue of Harold Harvey's work, www.haroldharvey.info. 1 Caroline Fox, Stanhope Forbes and the Newlyn School, Newton Abbot, 1997, p. 75.