Road Gargnano to San Gaudenzio, D.H. Lawrence

On the road from Gargnano to San Gaudenzio, Lago di Garda, D.H. Lawrence. Watercolour, 23.5 x 30 cm, circa April 1913. David Herbert Richards Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist and literary critic, best known for his novels Sons and Lovers, The Rainbow, Women in Love and Lady Chatterley's Lover. In these Lawrence explored the possibilities for life and relationships of people living in an industrial environment. His use of intimate activity, though shocking in England at the time, came from his highly personal philosophy. Lawrence's interest in human touch behaviour and physical intimacy is rooted in a desire to restore an emphasis on the body, and rebalance it with what he perceived to be Western civilisation's overemphasis on the mind. Lawrence had a lifelong interest in painting, which became one of his main forms of expression in his last years. His paintings were exhibited at the Warren Gallery, Maddox Street, London beginning 14 June 1929. The Daily Express claimed "Fight with an Amazon represents a hideous, bearded man holding a fair-haired woman in his lascivious grip while wolves with dripping jaws look on expectantly; this is frankly indecent", but several artists and art experts praised the paintings. Gwen John, reviewing the exhibition in Everyman, spoke of Lawrence's "stupendous gift of self-expression" and singled out The Finding of Moses, Red Willow Trees and Boccaccio Story as "pictures of real beauty and great vitality". Others singled out Contadini for special praise. On 5 July the exhibition was raided by the police who closed the exhibit and seized 13 of the twenty-five paintings on view (including Boccaccio Story and Contadini). Lawrence was able to recover his paintings only by undertaking never to exhibit them in England again. The largest collection of the paintings is now at La Fonda de Taos hotel in Taos, New Mexico. Several, including Boccaccio Story and Resurrection, are at the Humanities Research Centre of the University of Texas at Austin. Eight months after the exhibition Lawrence died at the Villa Robermond in Vence, France from complications of tuberculosis, at age 44.