“In the early part of her career, Clough wrote detailed descriptions of things that caught her eye or imagination, as well as instructions for paintings she had visualized. Many of these ‘word sketches’ correlate closely to subsequent works” (Tate Britain, 2007).
We can also see this tendency for words in her color notes on scraps of paper. Her archive at the Tate contains ideas, perceptions, images, photographs, and experiments shown in words on scraps, photographs cropped by the artist, and postcards she reworks. Modern, 1940s-90s.
Artist: Prunella Clough, 1919-1999
Title: Notebook containing notes on scenes and paintings
Date: 1951–70
© The estate of Ann Robin-Banks
Photo: © Tate, London, 2026
Reference: TGA 200511/2/1/7
Image released under Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED