Professor John Ball 

London, Anthony Hepworth Fine Art, A Selection of Works from The Hargreaves and Ball Trust: Keith Vaughan, Prunella Clough & Elisabeth Fritsch, 31st August - 4th September 2010, un-numbered catalogue.

Original canvas. The canvas undulates very slightly in all four corners, but is otherwise sound. There is a thin, light scratch towards the centre of the lower horizontal edge. There are some fine lines of craquelure to the canvas overlap and the extreme edges, and there is some very slight rubbing to one or two of the extreme edges, only partially visible in the current frame. Subject to the above the work is in very good overall condition. Inspection under ultraviolet light reveals no obvious signs of restoration or retouching. The work is framed within a simple silver painted wood frame. Please telephone the department on +44 (0) 207 293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

We are grateful to Gerard Hastings, author of Prunella Clough: Unconsidered Wastelands, 2015, for his kind assistance with the cataloguing of the present work.

Clough derived much of her imagery from ‘urbscapes’, by which she meant discarded elements of overlooked landscapes. These she recorded, refined and recreated into strange and curious configurations. She denied she ꦗwas an abstract painter and claimed that all her work was based on aspects of observation of memory.

Most painters work in a direct manner, transferring pigment from the brush straight to the canvas. It is surprising just how much of Clough’s painting was made in an indirect manner. Being also 
a printmaker meant that she was familiar with working in a step-by-step manner before taking 
a final 􏰟pull􏰊􏰍. T􏰎his procedure filtered through to her painting, which was a drawn􏰃out aff􏰈air, full of expectation and anticipation. She would coat pieces of card with pigment and press them to the surface of her canvas, laboriously building up a patchwork of small, mono-printed marks. An ‘over-all’ texture would slowly materialize. This might be partially obliterated or reworked with further velatures and glazes or additions of collage elements. She created stencils from chicken mesh, perforated sheet metal and hole-punched hardboard. These were held against the canvas as she dabbed and sprayed pigment through them. Pieces of string or scratched Formica might be rolled with paint and pressed to the canvas. Sand and silicon carbide dust (carborundum) mꦇight be incorporated to thicken the consistency of the paint. Before she painted her forms or mo✱tifs, she would tape trial pieces of coloured card to the canvas or hold them in place with bulldog clips at the edges.

The removal of pigment sometimes created marks more interesting than the application of it 
and so Clough scratched, scraped and rubbed her canvases down. She would dab and blot the surface with solvents to li􏰇ft off accretions of paint, then rag roll and smudge it until the image began to ‘obey’ her. The memory of previous marks might remain and breathe through the lingering consistency. Clough once admitted that old copies of the Telegraph came in useful while working with decalcomania, or liquid blotting techniques. Apparently it didn’t absorb the pigment as rapidly as The Times or the Guardian and so she had time to create more useful textures. When her brush-tracks and paint marks are examined at close quarters it becomes clear that Clough allowed diluted paint to dribble down the surf🅘ace of some of her c🌞anvases. She turned them
 round so that the pigment trickles changed direction to form grid-like patterns or meshes of marks created by gravity.

Gerard Hastings.