Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghika (1906-1994) * Countryside/... Lot 18

Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghika (1906-1994) * Countryside/ Les derniers rayons du soleil inscrit avec dédicace ‘For Peter en souvenir of Edipsos with all my love Nico./ Barbaras Birthday Feb.22.1960.' (au verso) ink et gouache sur papier 46 x 66cm (18 1/8 x 26in). Peint en 1958. inscribed with dedication (on the reverse) ink and gouache on paper £8400-13000 Provenance The artist's collection. A gift from the artist to Lady Nöel Evelyn ‘Peter' Norton, London. Thence by descent to the present owner. Exposé New York, Alexander Iolas Gallery (as per label on the reverse). Littérature Ghika, Paintings, Drawings, Sculpture, C. Zervos, S. Spender, P. Leigh Fermor ed., Lund Humphries editions, London 1964, no. 12 (listed and illustrated). Drawing from indigenous sources, ranging from icon painting to folk art and Karaghiozi shadow-puppet theatre, Ghika formulated a distinctive artistic premise related to post-cubist explorations. Moreover, the tender convolutions and fragile gestures so evident here allude to the mystical world of oriental calligraphy and its constant flow of brush and pen. In 1958, the year he painted Countryside, the artist visited the USA at the invitation of the State Department and returned to Greece by way of the Far East. As noted by art critic S. Spender, the drawings of India and Japan Ghika did in 1958 are of particular importance because they established a connection between far-eastern art and Ghika's sensibility which was partly Oriental.”1 1 S. Spender, “Ghika” in Ghika, Paintings, Drawings, Sculpture, Boston Book and Art Shop, Boston 1965, p. 23. Three works from the established Collection of Lady Nöel Evelyn 'Peter' Norton Lots 18/20 Lady Norton (1891-1972), universally referred to by her nickname Peter, established one of the first modern art galleries in London/the London Gallery, in Cork Street which she launched in 1936 with Roland Penrose. Although she sold her interest in the gallery in 1938 to accompany her diplomat husband Sir Clifford Norton on his overseas assignments, Peter retained an abiding passion for art. In 1946, the Nortons were posted to Athens where Peter met Nico Ghika and struck up a close friendship that lasted until her death in 1972. Peter was an influential champion of Ghika's work/as she was of many artists including John Craxton, who found his way to Greece through her/but their friendship went deeper than professional admiration. Ghika was a frequent visitor to the Nortons' home in Carlyle Square in London and during the 1960s, he helped her build a house in the south of Spain, near Almeria/designing a terrace for her, and adding a mosaic mural. Their illuminating correspondence which spans the whole length of their friendship from 1947-1972 is housed in the archives of the Tate Gallery. The three paintings in the sale all date from the 1950s, an especially fruitful decade for Ghika. Nature morte avec samovar, lot 20 of this collection, was for many years hung in the house of Peter Norton's cousin the diplomat turned publisher Barley Alison. First at Weidenfeld and Nicolson, and then at Secker and Warburg, Barley was the literary editor of distinguished authors such as Saul Bellow, Vladimir Nabokov, Umberto Eco, Margaret Drabble, and Jorge Luis Borges and a formidable party giver. She too, became friends with Nico Ghika.