Tulips, Daffodils and Fruit Plate c.1963
Oil on canvas, 90 x 61cm

Cyril Mann's flower pieces from the 1960s and 70s, are among the most 'abstract', beautiful and passionate of all his paintings.

Flowers - barely recognisable as daffodils, tulips or asters - are reduced to mere streaks of colour. Almost invariably, strong direct sunlight and cast shadow effects are prioritised in the painting.

"There's no point in doing every petal," Cyril said.

Astonishingly, for someone who had stared into the sun for hours at a time in his youth, Cyril's eyesight and colour sense became so accute in old age, that he painted while looking through a piece of frosted glass. It was as if he'd given himself cataracts. "I just don't want to see too much," he explained.