Signed l.l.: C.Rogers

Oil on canvas, 62 by 75.5 cm (24 ½ by 29 ¾ ins)

Provenance: collection of the artist's family

Exhibited: Leicester Galleries, c.early 1950s

The countryside around Somerton in Suffolk features prominently in Rogers’s Post-War work. The artist and his wife Elsie Few stayed there regularly, eventually buying a house in Somerton in 1956. Such paintings focus on the patterns of the sometimes expansive and empty landscape and on the rich, golden colour of the harvest which had a strong bearing on the palette of paintings such the present two works which have come diretly from the artist’s estate. Several comparable works are now in public collections including Cornfields at Somerton, 1961 (Tate (acc.TO3848) and Harvest Cornfield (Government Art Collection (acc.7371). The period coincided with Rogers’s ever growing reputation as a major force in British art – both as artist and teacher. He served as president of the London Group from 1952 to 1955 and taught at the Slade School of Art from 1950 to 1963. In 1963 he was appointed professor of fine art at Reading University.