The Hills Beyond

An expressive and wonderfully textured modernist landscape depicting a dense woodland and rolling hills, executed in oil onto canvas and dated 1971.

A small red-roofed structure sits quietly at the centre of the composition, almost enveloped by the surrounding trees. Beyond, the landscape rises into broad undulating hills, with a distant blue peak emerging beneath an expansive, pale sky.

The work has a distinctly modernist, expressionistic character, favouring simplified forms, heightened colour and energetic mark-making over naturalistic detail. The landscape is constructed in loose horizontal bands – foreground, woodland, hills and sky – while the upright forms of the trees create a lively vertical rhythm through the centre of the painting.

The palette is particularly vibrant, dominated by olive, forest and lime greens, punctuated by flashes of golden yellow, ochre, apricot and burnt orange across the trees. Deep blue-green and near-black passages give weight to the woodland, while the distant mountain is picked out in striking cobalt and ultramarine blue. Soft blue, cream and pale yellow sweep across the sky, balancing the richer earth tones below. The small building, rendered in warm red and brown, provides a subtle focal point amid the vegetation.

Paint has been applied with bold, vigorous and highly visible brushstrokes, with areas of thick impasto giving the surface a wonderfully tactile quality. Short, upright strokes articulate the trees, while broader, sweeping marks describe the contours of the hills and sky. In the foreground, long horizontal strokes of ochre and cream draw the eye into the scene. Throughout, glimpses of the underlying canvas remain visible between strokes, adding to the painting’s spontaneous, expressive character.

This oil on canvas is presented in a complementary natural wood frame. The painting is in excellent vintage condition, and the frame has some scuffs.

Size: 43.5 x 64 cm (including frame)