Item Details:

FOREST CATHEDRAL

NORMAN LLOYD

IMPRESSIONISM

Oil Painting on Canvas, early 20^th Century

Size: 24.0 x 20 in; 60.96 x 50.8 cm

Signed: Recto, lower left

Imaginative sylvan scene where trees reach out in fellowship to form the Gothic arch of the painting's title, Forest Cathredral.  Australian landscape painter Norman Lloyd was born in 1895 near Newcastle, New South Wales, where he attended primary school. He left school in 1911 and started to work and study painting with Julian Ashton and James R. Jackson in Sydney. Lloyd established himself professionally, when he was elected member of the exclusive Royal Institute of Oil Painters (ROI) in 1936 and of the London Sketch Club, over which he presided during 1941 to 1942. He also kept his connection with Australia by becoming a Fellow of the Royal Art Society of New South Wales, and in 1949 Henry Hanke’s portrait of Norman Lloyd was chosen to be hung in the Archibald Prize of the Art Gallery of New South Wales. From 1933 until 1970, Lloyd exhibited regularly with the ROI, and showed at the Royal Academy of London. The titles testify of Lloyd’s love for mediterranean Europe - Italy, Spain, France, Turkey and Morocco, inspiring joyful land, sea and mountainscapes, in a style that evoked impressionism. Lloyd was a prolific painter who was able to paint fast, preferring textural oil and pastels. From 1947 onwards, Lloyd spent the summers with Zénaide Chaumette - whom he had met in Paris after the war - in the heart of France in Chassignoles. This liaison strengthened his connection with France and probably led to his exhibiting at several Salons of the Société des Artistes Français from 1947 until 1962, and also at the Salon d’Hiver [fr] in Paris. Lloyd’s work is now represented in the Art Gallery of Western Australia, the Queensland Art Gallery, the University of Sydney Art Collection and numerous private collections in Australia, Europe and US.