Prunella Clough (1919 - 1999)

Oil on canvas
100.3 x 81.3 cm
Signed lower right

Provenance
Michael Croft, 2nd Lord Croft (purchased from Grosvenor Gallery 1964), London
Private Collection

Exhibited
Grosvenor Gallery, London, Prunella Clough: Recent Paintings, 1964, no. 39
Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol, Prunella Clough, December 1968, no. 10 illustrated
Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield, Prunella Clough, 1972 no. 26


Prunella Clough is considered one of Britain's pre-eminent painters of the post war era. An artist of great authenticity, her reputation continues to grow with renewed appreciation of her work shown by a younger generation of painters and curators.

Canal, painted in 1964 invites one to view a picture that lies in the fugitive area between figuration and abstraction. Muted in tone, the painting has flashes of iridescent colour, thickly applied using a palette knife. We can see the canal, the walkways and what might be a building reflected in the water. At the bottom edge of the painting, a white cloud appears only to disappear off the canvas. As Clough herself said – her paintings are rarely if ever direct.

Canal is one of several paintings Clough made of the Union Canal over a long period of time from the 50s through to the 70s.