Martin Bradley 1931-2023
Untitled (Double Happiness), 1965 circa
oil on wood
diameter, 182.9 cm (72 in)
signed
Installed at the Golden Duck, Chelsea, which was run by ‘Shura’ Shihwarg, a Russian sinophile who fought with the British to defend Hong Kong. 'Shura moved to London in 1951,...
Installed at the Golden Duck, Chelsea, which was run by ‘Shura’ Shihwarg, a Russian sinophile who fought with the British to defend Hong Kong.
"Shura moved to London in 1951, where he met and fell in love with the novelist Joan Wyndham. The couple became a fixture of the bohemian Chelsea set of the 1950s. They married in 1963 and their house in Wellington Square off the King’s Road became an unofficial salon for artists, writers and various talented roguish types."
https://www.ft.com/content/3c8f41a8-ac3b-11e8-89a1-e5de165fa619
The character at the top of the table is Double Happiness, a ligature, "囍" composed of two copies of the Chinese character 喜 (xǐ), literally meaning joy, compressed to assume the square shape of a standard Chinese character, and is pronounced as a polysyllabic Chinese character, being read as 双喜 (shuāngxǐ).
"Shura moved to London in 1951, where he met and fell in love with the novelist Joan Wyndham. The couple became a fixture of the bohemian Chelsea set of the 1950s. They married in 1963 and their house in Wellington Square off the King’s Road became an unofficial salon for artists, writers and various talented roguish types."
https://www.ft.com/content/3c8f41a8-ac3b-11e8-89a1-e5de165fa619
The character at the top of the table is Double Happiness, a ligature, "囍" composed of two copies of the Chinese character 喜 (xǐ), literally meaning joy, compressed to assume the square shape of a standard Chinese character, and is pronounced as a polysyllabic Chinese character, being read as 双喜 (shuāngxǐ).
Provenance
Estate of Alexander ‘Shura’ Shihwarg (1923-2018)
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