Clayhidon

Oil on canvas by Charles Ginner (1913). Ginner depicts the village of Clayhidon, located in mid the Devon area of the Blackdown Hills. The painting includes a group of rural stone cottages and farm house which are partly obscured by a wall tapering away from the foreground. The background is awash with small hedge lined fields of pasture in the rising hills and arable on areas which are visibly flatter. In the right foreground is an agricultural labourer.

Charles Ginner was born in Cannes, France in 1878. He was best known as a painter of landscape and urban themes. Although an occasional visitor to Applehayes, Charles Ginner was less attracted to Devon as the subject of his art. He became a member of the Camden Town Group and served as an official war artist during the First World War. Typical of his style are the small touches of thick paint applied to the entire surface, the scene uses bold and vibrant colours in a block pattern.

The painting was purchased with assistance from the V&A Museum Purchase Grant Fund and the Friends of Exeter Museums and Art Gallery, 1983.