Tony Klitz
ARTIST: Anthony Robert Klitz (1917-2000) British
TITLE: ‘Changing Of The Guard, The Mall, London”
SIGNED: lower right
MEDIUM: oil on hessian canvas
SIZE: 117cm x 66cm framed
CONDITION: excellent
PRICE: £sold
DETAIL: One of the largest and most wonderful Klitz paintings we have handled. The work depicts Horseguards / The Mall in London with various onlookers with Buckingham Palace in the distance. The size is impressive at nearly 1.2m long and in its original very nice Klitz frame.
Anthony Klitz born September 3rd 1917, in Southport Merseyside and attended Bishop Wordsworth School, Salisbury before studying painting and drawing at Cheltenham Art College (1936-1939). He also received training as an architect. Klitz served in the War, ending up as a Major, and in 1950 moved to London where he painted alongside the Australian artist Hayward Veal where he began exhibiting his impressionist work. He passed away on September 19th 2000, in Dublin.
On his second showing, one critic (Norman Collins) stated:
“In comparison with other great capitals of the world London remains astonishingly unpainted. Mr. Klitz, an artist with a fine sense of architectural atmosphere and character, has done a great deal to redress the balance. His pictures show a fine but restrained sense of colour and he is engagingly sensitive to the London scene. Mr. Klitz is an artist – and this is a high tribute indeed – whose work will appeal equally to those who live in London and to those who have paid a visit to London, and want to have something by which to remember it. Whether it is Horse Guards Parade or the River, Mr. Klitz has captured that strange pearly light which is the secret of so much of London’s grace.” written by art critic Norman Collins at Klitz’s second London show.
Klitz was a prolific artist, in oil on canvas, with London street and “formal” military scenes such as uniformed guardsmen on duty featuring substantially in his work.
