1940
watercolor
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
Chemist Shop, Circus Road, St. John's Wood is a 1940 watercolor by Marx, a Social Realism work, held at Victoria and Albert Museum.
The painting depicts a chemist shop on Circus Road in St. John's Wood. The shop's exterior is rendered in muted colors, with a sign above the door bearing the name "T Kennedy Black Chemist & Druggist". A small bicycle is parked outside the shop. The artist's use of watercolor creates a soft, dreamy quality to the scene. The overall effect is one of quiet, everyday life. To learn more about the artist's techniques, explore the use of chiaroscuro.
Chemist Shop, Circus Road, St. John's Wood is a watercolour created in 1940 as part of the Recording Britain project, which employed artists to document scenes of national identity across Britain during the Second World War. The work was commissioned by the Committee for the Employment of Artists in Wartime, funded by the Pilgrim Trust, and overseen by Sir Kenneth Clark, director of the National Gallery. It reflects the initiative's goal of preserving images of places and industries perceived as vulnerable to wartime damage or modernization. The painting is part of a collection of over 1,500…
Read the full account in the museum source.
Karl Marx was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist.
See the richer artist page
