Dawn of a New Season

Maker

(artist)
1944-2013

Title

Date of Production

1978

Medium

mezzotint

Dimensions

Height: 65.4 cm
Width: 49.9 cm

Accession Number

G.2024.SP.19

Mode of Acquisition

HM Government Cultural Gifts Scheme, 2024

Credit

Accepted under the Cultural Gifts Scheme by HM Government from the archive of Studio Prints gifted by the Balakjian family and allocated to the Courtauld Gallery, 2024.

Copyright

Location

On display

Label Text

Like her husband, Dorothea Wight favoured mezzotint, prizing the dreamlike quality it lent her images. Here, she depicts a tranquil landscape framed by a bay window. However, upon closer inspection it appears that we are on the outside of a house, gazing at a landscape contained within. This unsettling ambiguity calls into question whether we are seeing a real or imagined landscape and threatens to dissolve the distinction between interior and exterior. The tension between the constraints of urban life, represented by the house, and the freedom of the countryside may reflect the Devon-born Wight’s uneasy relationship with life in London.

Provenance

Studio Prints, London; accepted under the Cultural Gifts Scheme by HM Government from the archive of Studio Prints gifted by the Balakjian family and allocated to The Courtauld, 2024.

Inscriptions

Recto, below plate mark, lower left, graphite: '21/100'; below plate mark, lower centre, graphite: 'The dawn of a new season'; below plate mark, lower right, graphite: 'Dorothea Wight'; verso, lower right, graphite: 'CGS W1a'

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