Robert Louis BANKS

(Cheltenham 1911 - London(?) 2000)

A Courtyard in Cordoba, Spain

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Watercolour over a pencil underdrawing.
Signed BANKS at the lower left. 
236 x 155 mm. (8 7/8 x 6 1/8 in.)
The present sheet may depict a house on the Calle San Fernando (also known as the Calle de la Feria) in the centre of the Spanish city of Cordoba in Andalusia, which Robert Banks is known to have visited in 1964.



Among comparable watercolours of Cordoba of the same period by Banks are two much larger works recently on the art market; one entitled Al Paros, Cordoba, signed and dated 1964, which appeared at auction in 2014, and A Patio in Cordoba, also dated 1964, which was recently with a gallery in Paris.

 
An architect and artist, Robert Banks studied at the Architectural Association between 1928 and 1933. Following military service in the Second World War, during which he was awarded the Military Cross, Banks worked as a town planner until the 1950s, when he began to devote himself to painting. A fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, he exhibited his work at the Trafford Gallery and the Alwin Gallery in London. He travelled extensively around Italy, painting views in Rome, Venice, Lecce, Naples, Urbino and elsewhere, and also visited Greece and Japan.

Provenance

Anonymous sale, Salisbury, Woolley and Wallis, 17 October 2007, lot 317 The Canon Gallery, Oundle
Daniel Katz, London.
 

Robert Louis BANKS

A Courtyard in Cordoba, Spain