Oliver Messel, A surrealist set design for Under the Sycamore Tree, c.1952

Oliver Messel,

A surrealist set design for Under the Sycamore Tree, charcoal, watercolour and gouache, signed in pencil lower right, 25 x 38cm, c. 1952.

***Under the Sycamore Tree, a satire on the human condition, was performed at the Aldwych Theatre, London in 1952. Directed by Peter Glenville, it starred Alec Guinness and Diana Churchill. Glenville recalled that Messel only agreed to work on the production if, instead of a hotel, the action could take place in an underground ant colony.