untitled (Poppies with Pods)

This watercolour painting was created in 1990. The inventory number on the back states 90-0040. The artwork is in excellent condition. 

This watercolour has been recently been framed with archival material, UV protective glass and an antique white and silver wooden moulding by Roma Moulding. The framed dimensions are 26 x 32 in.

In "Wildflowers of Canada - Impressions and Sketches of a Field Artist" Molly writes:

RED POPPIES

There is a place in London where we lived for a time called Cleaver Square. It has a pub at one end and the London City and Guilds' Art School at the other, and in between are two and three-storied Georgian row houses which used to be let to working people. In the 1950's, professional people discovered the Square, and avocado, pink, and orange replaced the dark green and black of the doors; inside, chic wallpaper, central heat, bathrooms, and paintings took over from aspidistras and fumed oak. 

The gardens changed more than anything else - I know, because we lived between the old and the new. On one side a dear old man and his wife kept their place in perfect order - in front a small garden with a picket fence, and in the back a maze of little paths leading nowhere in particular with a bed of ferns in the middle. But Stephen and Edith on our other side had a HOUSE BEAUTIFUL garden - a tiny immaculate lawn, white forsythia trailing along the brick wall, and a row of busy lizzies in a border backed by delphiniums and roses. In a corner grew some red poppies -Stephen had brought the seeds back from Greece. He gave us some and now they grow here in Fredericton and seed themselves every year. They, of all flowers, almost paint the watercolours for me. 

The Queen Mother gave Stephen and Edith a prize for the best garden in Kensington, but I wonder, would she have had she known that Stephen put his garden debris into the trunks of cars parked in the Square?

Molly Lamb Bobak