Artist     George Sweet
Title      The Combine Harvester
Date      1960s
object    Painting
Media    oil
Size       20.7 x 26cm
Ref          344

Purchased from the RWA Appeal exhibition of Members' work in 1963

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The Combine Harvester
The Combine Harvester is painted on a white wood panel, 20.7 x 26cm that appears to have been cut down from a 24 x 33cm panel. It is primed on both sides with white lead. These panels were sold unprimed to fit into the lid of a ‘pochade’ or thumb box, these boxes ranged in size from 17 x 18 cm up to 24 x 33cm. Such a box enabled the painter to stand up to work, box in hand, 2 panels in the lid , colours already set out on a sliding palette , and make quick colour notes or small studies for fleeting effects.

George Sweet has taken The Combine Harvester much further than a study. It is a fully realized painting, that would have involved several sessions. It is constructed firmly from edge to edge, a flattening of the design allows each form to reach its full solidity and weight. Great attention is paid to the contours defining the edges of the larger shapes. The final touches of paint that pull the picture together are brushed in with considerable vigour, the marks of a largish hogs-hair brush clearly visible in the fat paint . Everything reads without any fussy detail. The colour positively glows in its richness, evoking so well the end of a hot summers day.

It was painted near Somerton in Suffolk, sometime in the 1960s, on one of his many visits to the home of his long time friend, the painter Claude Rodgers.

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