item details
NameThe death of the year
ProductionCharles Sims; artist; 1910-1912
Classificationoil paintings
Materialsoil paint
Materials Summaryoil on hardboard
DimensionsImage: 590mm (width), 390mm (height)
Registration Number1912-0021-17
Credit linePurchased 1912 by Public Subscription
Overview
A dying woman fades into streams of white in Charles Sims’ haunting symbolist painting The death of the year. But a baby emerges from the darkness – a new year beginning as the old one ends.
Sims was a respected portrait and landscape painter, whose style became increasingly mystical as his mental health declined after the traumas of World War I. He made The death of the year before the war, yet it anticipates the strangeness and emotional intensity of his later works.
Like Goblin market, the painting was brought here as part of the Baillie exhibition of British art in 1912, and was purchased through charitable donations from the public.