Sappho (1988)

Eric Cass (1922-2018) had wanted to purchase a painting by Gillian Ayres and, preferring her smaller works, was waiting until one of her tondos became available. He succeeded in buying Sappho (1988) at auction at Bonhams, but it was without a frame. Having seen black frames on some of her other canvases, he took this to John Jones and was pleased with the result. Gillian Ayres's colourful, gestural paintings are intuitive and, depending on the scale, marks are made in relation to her reach. As Marina Vaizey wrote in the catalogue to Ayres's exhibition at the Seventh Indian Triennale, 'The act of painting for Ayres is literally hands on, intuitive, the paintbrush often abandoned for other direct methods.'

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