When Banting painted Musical Instruments in 1954, surrealism had fallen very much out of fashion. Largely due to its decline, Banting was flat broke and in order to survive took a job working six nights a week in a Garfield Weston bread factory in Chiswick which left him with little time or energy to paint. Against that background, it is all the more remarkable that he produced this painting which displays all the exuberance of his earlier work.

Perhaps because of Banting’s dislike of physical frames, he frequently chose to provide a frame within the canvas. A favourite device was a curtain wall, often inset with arches in the style of de Chirico. Here, he has set the stage with a simple pair of curtains.

Musical instruments – particularly guitars and accordions - were a recurring subject in Banting’s work. When the Hamet Gallery held an exhibition of his work in 1971, no less than eighteen works were based on the guitar. In Musical Instruments, two guitars are placed on a table that is tilted forward towards the viewer that gives two different perspectives and references the Cubist works that Banting had seen on his first trip to Paris in 1923. The diamond shape used to depict one of the guitars was used in many of his paintings featuring musical instruments.

Banting uses a clear, bright palette in which pastel and primary colours are interchanged. He had developed this palette while staying in La Ciotat in the south of France in 1927. While here, he wrote to his friend, Arthur Lett-Haines, ‘The double light has made me clear and heighten my colours’.

In 1955, thanks to grant of £1,000 from the Artists’ Benevolent Fund organised by his friend Julian Trevelyan, Banting was able to leave the bread factory and to return to full-time painting.

Joanna Ward, November 2025

Author of John Banting and His Circle, 2025