KEN HOWARD OBE RA
London 1932 - 2022 Cornwall
Ref: CL 3842
Zermatt with Matterhorn
Signed lower right: Ken Howard; titled and dated
6th/7th October 2010 on a label attached to the reverse
Oil on board: 20 x 24 in / 50.8 x 61 cm
Frame size: 27 ½ x 31 ½ in / 69.8 x 80 cm
Provenance:
Richard Green, London, directly from the artist, January 2011;
Private collection, acquired from the above in 2013
Literature:
Jürg Gabathuler, Ken Howard, Ian Warrell, Ken Howard’s Switzerland: In the Footsteps of Turner, Royal Academy of Arts, London 2013, illus. in colour p.133
In his book, Ken Howard’s Switzerland: In the Footsteps of Turner, the artist relates that the idea of painting in Switzerland occurred one evening in October 2009 over dinner with his Swiss friend Jürg Gabathuler and his wife Monica. Jürg asked why, ‘considering my affinity with Turner, I had never painted in Switzerland. We agreed there and then that if Jürg took care of the logistics I would travel to Switzerland…to give the visit a structure we decided to follow, loosely, the journeys taken by JMW Turner on his tours of Switzerland in 1841. This seemed appropriate because at that time I was Professor of Perspective at the Royal Academy, a post held by Turner himself from 1807 to 1837…A few weeks later I was at the Academy discussing the publication of my autobiography, Light and Dark, when I happened to mention my forthcoming trip in the footsteps of Turner. The Royal Academy’s publishers immediately thought it a wonderful subject for a book.’[1]
On Ken’s second trip to Switzerland in October 2010, he stayed for two or three days in Zermatt and saw the Matterhorn for the first time covered in ice and snow.[2] Ken felt he painted the Matterhorn more than any other landmark in Switzerland, finding it to be the most awesome and visually exciting of all the mountains. It was also the most tantalising of subjects because the view constantly changed due to the light, the time of day and the scudding clouds. This didn’t put Ken off, however, in fact he thoroughly enjoyed the challenge, writing, ‘the Matterhorn was an ideal subject because its changing state concentrated the mind and compelled me to work quickly to get the effects I wanted.’[3]
[1] Ken Howard ‘Foreword’, cited in Jürg Gabathuler, Ken Howard, Ian Warrell, Ken Howard’s Switzerland: In the Footsteps of Turner, Royal Academy of Arts, London 2013, p.7.
[2] See ‘In the shadow of the Matterhorn’, ibid., pp.129-135.
[3] Ken Howard, ibid., p.129.
