Christopher Wood

Christopher Wood (1901 - 1930)

A self-taught artist, Christopher Wood studied architecture at Liverpool University. There he met Augustus John, who encouraged him to take up painting seriously. On moving to Paris in 1921, Wood enrolled at the Académie Julian and made the acquaintance of the leading painters of the day, among them Picasso. Between 1922 and 1924, he travelled widely in Europe and North Africa, while attempting to develop a distinctive style of his own, though the works he produced at this period exhibit clear resemblances to those of his fellow Parisian painters - especially Picasso, Pascin and Kisling. In 1926, Wood returned to London where he met Ben and Winifred Nicholson, under whose influence he began to paint more experimentally, developing a direct, simple, faux-naive style that was to became wholly his own. Wood held his first solo exhibition in London in 1927, and painted almost exclusively in Cornwall and Brittany until his death three years later, when, suffering withdrawal symptoms from opium, he fell under a train at Salisbury railway station.

Text Source: Benezit Dictionary of Artists