A painting gifted by artist William Crozier (1930-2011) to contemporary opera company Music Theatre Wales comes up at Sotheby’s Irish sale in London on September 13. The artist created Letters of a Love Betrayed in 2009 in response to the world premier of Eleanor Alberga’s opera of the same name. This was in turn based on a short story by Isabel Allende. Crozier, an opera lover, gifted the canvas so that Music Theatre Wales could benefit from its sale at auction.
He told the artistic director of Music Theatre Wales, Michael McCarthy: “This is the first picture I have ever painted which does not have its origin in something I have seen. The image is borrowed from a similar scorching landscape I knew when I lived in the mountains of Andalusia. I was led, too, by the scenario of the opera and the imaginary landscapes of Allende and other Latin American novelists and poets – Marquez and Neruda chief among them”. The work is estimated at £15,000-20,000.
(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for August 27, 2016)