Dorothea Eastwood, The Forest, 1947

The label on the back names the painter as Dorothea Eastwood. She sent this canvas to the London Group’s 1947 exhibition, held at the galleries of the Royal Society of British Artists in Suffolk Street. A writer named Dorothea Eastwood published books on rivers, flowers and gardens in the 1950s, but we have not been able to confirm she is the same person.

Curving bands of dark green, grey and umber close in on a pale centre, like a clearing seen through trees. The title on the label appears to read ‘The Forest’. The paint is thin in places, so the weave of the canvas shows through, and pale drawn lines trace the edges of the shapes.

Oil on canvas. Initialled lower right ‘D E’. On the reverse, the printed London Group 1947 sending-in label, ‘to be delivered on Tuesday, May 13, 1947’, completed by hand with the title, the artist’s name and a price of fifteen guineas. The Group was founded in 1913 to show modern British painting and sculpture. Its 1947 show mixed members’ work with an open submission, so the label records that the picture was sent in, not that it was hung. In a distressed silvered frame with a buff card slip. Surface dirt and a few small paint losses.