Hugh Cronyn (lots 186-193)

Introduction
Young, impressionable and fresh from Toronto where he had studied with the Group of Seven painter Frank Johnston, Cronyn departed Canada with an irrepressible can-do New World outlook. His unpublished memoirs recount his pre-war years: his time at the Arts Students League in New York in 1929; the early 1930s in Paris tutored by Jean Despujols and André Lhote; bicycling across the Alps; and on his arrival in England his immersion into bohemian life in West London.

From the mid-thirties he rented various studios by the Thames in Hammersmith and met many of the leading artists and writers of the day. One such was Ivon Hitchens, whose second solo exhibition at the Lefevre Gallery he helped hang. But most influential in his circle of friends was the critic, humourist and politician A P Herbert ('APH') and his wife Gwen, herself a painter and stage-designer of note. At their home at 12 Hammersmith Terrace, Cronyn met the likes of Edward Wadsworth, Mark Gertler, Leon Underwood and John Piper. Ceri Richards lived nearby, as did poets Robert Graves and Laura Riding in St Peter’s Square. He went on painting trips to Dorset with Julian Trevelyan, his neighbour at Durham Wharf, and to the French-Spanish border with Ray Coxon and Edna Ginese at the time of the Spanish Civil War.

After the outbreak of the Second World War, Cronyn was commissioned into the Royal Navy. Put in charge of the Naval bomb disposal squad in Bristol dockyards, he was the first Canadian to be awarded the George Medal (GM). In 1942 he married Jean Harris and settled in Suffolk where from 1949-69 he was tutor of painting at Colchester School of Art teaching alongside John Nash, Edward Bawden, Carel Weight and Peter Coker. From 1963 the Cronyns began to spend their summers in Quercy in the Lot, first renting a 15^th century gatehouse and studio, then a small house, Les Vergers, before buying a dilapidated farmhouse in 1970 in Caufour which they renovated.

From 1974 the Cronyns spent the winter months in 3 St Peter’s Wharf, next door to Hammersmith Terrace, in one of the artists’ studios overlooking the Thames constructed by Julian Trevelyan. Cronyn's late paintings of the river, which capture the spectrum of colours as the seasons changed, document the river’s moods from winter mists to intense summer sun, and hang in many private collections.

HUGH CRONYN (BRITISH 1905-1996)
ROAD OVER THE CAUSSE, QUERCY
signed HUGH CRONYN lower right; dated 1978 on a Highgate Fine Art label on the reverse
oil on canvas
51 x 76cm; 20 1/4 x 30in
63 x 89cm; 24 3/4 x 35in (framed)

Quercy - a former province in south west France - lies between lush valleys in the Lot. Causses are flat limestone plateaus that are a feature of the area. The present view follows the track to the towers of the Chateau de Charry, Montcuq which can be seen in the distance (see also lot 193).