Augusta Stylianou Gallery

Paintings

John Christopher Wood (7 April 1901 – 21 August 1930), often called Kit Wood, was an English painter born in Knowsley, near Liverpool.

Biography

A 1926 portrait by Christopher Wood of Constant Lambert

Wood studied architecture at Liverpool University, where he met Augustus John, who encouraged him to be a painter. He trained to be a painter in Paris, where he met Picasso and Diaghilev, and he travelled around Europe and north Africa between 1922 and 1924. He met Ben Nicholson in 1926; Nicholson's dedication to his work had a great influence and Wood subsequently exhibited with him. Like Nicholson, he admired Alfred Wallis. He painted coastal scenes, and his finest works are considered to be those painted in Breton. Addicted to opium, he fell under a train in 1930, either by accident or design.

Wood was bisexual.[1] In the early summer of 1921, Wood met Antonio de Gandarillas, a Chilean diplomat. Gandarillas, a married homosexual fourteen years older than Wood, lived a glamorous life partly financed by gambling. Their relationship lasted through Wood's life, surviving his affairs with Jeanne Bourgoint and, probably, Jean Cocteau as well as Wood's plans (frustrated by her parents' opposition) to marry Meraud Guinness in 1927, and a final liaison with a Russian émigrée, Frosca Munster, whom he met in 1928.[2]

Bibliography

* Alfred Wallis, Christopher Wood, Ben Nicholson. Scottish Arts Council, 1987. ISBN 0-85031-849-1
* Button, Virginia. Christopher Wood. London: Tate, 2003. ISBN 1-85437-466-4
* Cariou, Andre. Christopher Wood: A Painter Between Two Cornwalls. London: Tate, 1996. ISBN 1-85437-224-6
* Faulks, Sebastian. The Fatal Englishman: Three Short Lives: Christopher Wood, Richard Hillary, Jeremy Wolfenden. London: Hutchinson, 1996.
* Ingleby, Richard. Christopher Wood: An English Painter. London: Allison & Busby, 1995. ISBN 0-85031-849-1 (hard) ISBN 0-7490-0263-8 (paper)
* Mason, William. Christopher Wood: The Minories, Colchester. London: Arts Council, 1979. ISBN 0-7287-0192-8
* Newton, Eric. Christopher Wood, 1901–1930. London: Redfern Gallery, 1938.
* Newton, Eric. Christopher Wood: His Life and Work. London: Zwemmer, 1057.

Notes

1. ^ Hoare, Philip (1998), Noel Coward: A Biography, University of Chicago Press, p. 73, ISBN 0226345122
2. ^ Margaret Garlake, ‘Wood, (John) Christopher [Kit] (1901–1930)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004

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