to a copy of our catalogue number 17 - Harry Moore-Gwyn

harry moore-gwyn
british pictures
harry moore-gwyn
british pictures
Catalogue SEVENteen
PAINTINGS
. 
Charles Halkerston (c.1850–1899)
An Edinburgh studio
Signed with the artist’s monogram (u.r.): CH
Oil on panel, 11½ by 14 ins (29 by 35.5 cm)
Exhibited: Edinburgh, Royal Scottish Academy, 1883, no.157;
Kircaldy Fine Art Exhibition
Halkerston had his studio in the early 1880s at 5 West
Preston Street in the Meadows area of Edinburgh,
looking towards buildings that are now part of the
city’s university. Like so much of that city, the skyline
remains otherwise largely unchanged today. The
present work was probably exhibited at the Royal
Scottish Academy in 1883 and so is most likely to
show his studio at this address. A work of remarkably
modern and inventive composition, Halkerston’s
painting also acts as a fascinating record of the working
studio of a late nineteenth century British artist.
. 
Erna Plachte (1893–1986)
The art class
Signed and dated indistinctly l.r.:E/Plachte/19??
Oil on canvas, 19 by 22¾ ins (48 by 58 cm)
By an artist known for her acute sense of observation,
the present painting perfectly captures the industry of
an early twentieth century art school, probably where
Plachte herself trained. From Germany Plachte
travelled extensively to Russia in the early 1930s and
worked as an official artist to the League of Nations in
1933, executing fascinating on-the-spot portraits of
prominent figures in the organisation. She eventually
settled in England teaching at the Ruskin School of Art
in Oxford where an artist’s residency is named after her.
. 
Robert Gallon (1845–1925)
Coastal landscape from Southend Pier
Bears inscription (reverse of panel): Southend from the pier/9th Sep
1888/Nature Sketch by Robert Gallon (1845–1965)
Oil on panel, 7¼ by 12 ins (18.5 by 30 cm)
Gallon was one of the most accomplished and
commercial landscape painters of the later Victorian
period, exhibiting over thirty works at the Royal
Academy. As with so many painters of the period his
best work was often his most unselfconscious and
spontaneous, like this beautiful oil sketch executed on
the spot on a cloudy, windswept day at Southend. The
Southend Museum owns a similar oil sketch, probably
taken at around the same time and also showing the
artist’s fine facility with paint and keen eye for
England’s fast-changing sky.
. 
Samuel Bough, rws (1822–1878)
Portrait of David Cox Junior. sketching
Inscribed faintly in pencil (verso): D.Cox by Sam Bough
Oil on board, 7½ by 9 ins (19 by 22.5 cm)
Contemporary photographs confirm this oil sketch as
a portrait of David Cox Junior (1809-1885), Bough’s
near contemporary who exhibited alongside him at the
Royal Watercolour Society throughout the middle of
the nineteenth century. Bough was strongly influenced
by the work of Cox’s well-known father, David Cox
senior. Something of Cox’s almost proto-impressionist
technique is evident in this fresh and modern oil sketch
probably executed by the artist on-the-spot without the
idea of exhibition in mind.
. 
Arthur Studd (1863–1919)
Holiday makers on the beach, Dieppe
Oil on panel, 6¼ by 8½ ins (16 by 22 cm)
Provenance: purchased from the Parkin Gallery by Mr & Mrs
E.S.Bryant, June 1983
From a wealthy family, Studd trained under Legros at
the Slade before following many artists of the period by
finishing his studies at the Académie Julian in Paris. It
was not until the mid 1890s, when living at Cheyne
Walk in Chelsea that Studd formed his close friendship
with the great American artist James Abbott McNeill
Whistler. It was known that Studd’s friendship with
Whistler extended to not only that of dedicated
collector, but also painting companion. One such
place where the two were known to have painted
together was Dieppe, the subject of the present work.
Whistler’s close influence is evident in this fresh oil
sketch, the impressionistically conveyed crowds dotted
across the sand recalling earlier works by the great
master, such as Harmony in Blue and Pearl; the
Sands Dieppe of 1885.
. 
Alice Mary Burton, rba (1893–1968)
Nocturne: scene on the banks
of the Seine
Titled on the artist’s label (verso)
Oil on panel, 14 by 10 ins (36 by 25 cm)
Burton was an accomplished painter who specialised
in portraits and decorative still-lives. She was an active
exhibitor at the Royal Academy and at the Royal
Society of British Artists where she was also a member.
Like many members of that organisation from the early
part of the twentieth century, the influence of Whistler,
who had been the Society’s president, is clearly evident
in her work. In this attractive nocturnal view of a
stretch of the Seine Burton effectively conveys the
monotone that pervades a landscape at night, lit perhaps
only by moonlight and the artificial light of a nearby
factory briefly illuminating part of the water’s surface.
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Adrian Stokes, ra, rws (1854–1935)
Sheep grazing by the Lizard, Cornwall
Signed l.l.: Adrian Stokes
Oil on canvas, 16½ by 21½ ins (42 by 54.5 cm)
A formative part of the early St Ives community of
painters, Stokes’s years living in Cornwall were
amongst his happiest and included a time serving as
Chairman of the St Ives Society of Artists in the early
1890s. Coastal subjects were his most successful
compositions and at the newly opened Whitechapel
Art Gallery in 1902, it was one such subject that
Stokes chose to exhibit alongside his fellow St Ives
artists, the prominent art critic Charles Lewis Hind
observing: “… Mr A.Stokes painted his sheep, his
wet west winds, his grasses changing colour in every
gust …” (See Magdalen Evans, Utmost Fidelity, the
painting lives of Marianne and Adrian Stokes,
Sansom & Co, 2009, p.89).
. 
Archibald Murray (exh.1912–1938)
Corra Hill
Signed and dated, l.l.: A.Murray/1915
Oil on panel, 11½ by 15¼ ins (29 by 39 cm)
Murray was a much exhibited Scottish artist who lived
and worked in Galloway. He was a friend and associate
of Jessie M.King and her husband E.A.Taylor, his
work as a landscape painter showing him to be modern
in his approach to subject matter. The present work
depicts what would have been one of Murray’s most
celebrated local sites, Corra Hill, a group of four or five
monumental stones that probably marked the position
of an ancient Cairn.
. 
. 
Sir Gerald Kelly, pra (1879–1972)
Les Halles Centrales, Paris
Sir Gerald Kelly, pra (1879–1972)
La Fontaine de Carpeaux, Paris
Signed l.r.: Kelly
Oil on panel, 8½ by 10½ ins (22 by 27 cm)
With signature and date (1904) on reverse of panel and further
inscribed with title
Oil on panel, 10¼ by 8 ins (26 by 20.5 cm)
The following two oil sketches appear to be painted on
similar pieces of cherry-wood panel and date from
Kelly’s time as a student in Paris, c.1901–04. There,
under the tutelage of the Canadian painter John Wilson
Morrice, Kelly worked outside producing a series of
remarkably fresh sketches of parts of the city. In the
case both of this view of Les Halles Centrales and the
following (La Fontaine de Carpeaux) Kelly returned to
his subject on at least one other occasion capturing the
changing moments and different times of day of his
favourite Parisian landmarks. The result are a series of
impressions of a great city (in this case of the cavernous
interior of Paris’s impressive central market) executed
with a remarkable freedom and immediacy, strongly
contrasting with the tighter technique of his equally
brilliant work as a portrait painter.
Depicting maidens representing the four parts of the
earth, La Fontaine de Carpeaux is one of the masterpieces of the great Parisian sculptor Jean-Baptiste
Carpeaux and stands in the centre of Les Jardins du
Luxembourg. Kelly painted at least one further view of
the fountain at another time of day. Interestingly Kelly
also owned a near identical view of the subject by his
teacher John Wilson Morrice painted in c.1902 which
he donated to the National Gallery of Canada in the
mid 1930s (inv.16786).
. 
. 
Harry Bush, roi (1883–1957)
After the Ball
Harry Phelan Gibb (1870–1948)
Still life with interior of the artist’s
house
With the artist’s studio stamp (reverse of canvas)
Oil on canvas, 19¾ by 13½ ins (50 by 34.5 cm)
Provenance: Christie’s, London, Harry Bush and Noel Laura Nisbet
Studio sale, September 1984, lot 8
Alongside his illustrator wife, Noel Laura Nisbet,
Bush set up home in the leafy suburb of Merton in
South West London. Here from the early twentieth
century his work served as a unique record of English
suburbia, recording its back gardens, trees, expansive
skies and even the effects of its bomb damage in the
Second World War. In time this earned him the nickname
‘The Painter of the Suburbs’. Something of that same
attention to everyday detail is evident in this fine
interior study of a corner of the Bush family’s home.
Pictures are stacked against untidied bookshelves,
whilst a costume, perhaps from a fancy dress party,
has been hurriedly discarded on a wicker chair.
Signed l.l.: Phelan Gibb
Oil on board, 16½ by 22 ins (42 by 56 cm)
Provenance: a descendant of the artist
In this fascinating still life we glimpse the interior of
Phelan Gibb’s home, showing his sophisticated tastes
as a collector and (through the mirror’s reflection)
some of the monumental Gauguin-inspired nudes for
which he is probably best known. One of the first
British artists to respond to the work of the PostImpressionists, Gibb was hugely admired by Roger
Fry and the gallery owner Lucy Wertheim who wrote
of his work:
“The English artist still living whose work
probably is of the most permanent value is
Phelan Gibb. One day Phelan Gibb will
doubtless come into his own, and his finest
paintings take their place alongside examples
of Manet, Cezanne, Picasso, Kolle and
Christopher Wood ...”
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. 
Harry Phelan Gibb (1870–1948)
A steeplechase in Northumberland
Inscribed with title on old backing paper
Oil on board, 13¼ by 18 ins (34 by 46 cm)
Provenance: a descendant of the artist
Gibb was born in Alnwick in Northumberland and the
present picture was probably based (although maybe
as an embellishment) on one of the many steeplechases
he was likely to have witnessed there as a child. Such
events were central events of rural life, often organised
by the local hunts. Gibb’s graphic depiction of the
event, within a decorative border, lends a sense of
glamour to the subject making it comparable to the
elegant inter-war posters and landscapes of races such
as those he may have later experienced at Longchamps
near Paris.
. 
Alethea Garstin (1894–1978)
Merry-go-round
Oil on panel, 5 by 6 ins (13 by 15 cm)
Provenance: the artist’s estate
This charming sketch is dashed off on an identically
sized tiny wood panel to a small sketch of a cock
hen exhibited at the retrospective of Garstin’s work,
Norman and Alethea Garstin, Two Impressionists –
Father and Daughter, Penwith Gallery, St Ives, 1978,
no.71. Patrick Heron in his introduction to the show
(p.6) singles out that sketch for particular praise,
comparing it to Vuillard “… a tiny arrangement of
brush-stabs … on a natural, bare wood panel …
so economical, so brilliantly designed …”.
. 
. 
Thomas Saunders Nash (1891–1968)
The Descent from the Cross
Malcolm Drummond (1880–1945)
A lady darning in an interior
Signed l.l.: Tom Nash
Oil on paper, 13½ by 9¾ ins (34 by 25 cm)
Signed and dated l.r.: Drummond/1922
Oil on canvas laid to panel, 12 by 16 ins (30 by 41 cm)
Provenance: sold by Mrs Malcolm Drummond, Christie’s, 2nd
March 1979, part lot 41
Nash was an contemporary of Nevinson, Wadsworth
and Stanley Spencer at the Slade, where he was known
as an eccentric. Spencer in particular emerges as a
clear influence on Nash’s work, which is often
characterised by busy composition that deliberately
flattens the perspective. This work is a fine example
of such painting, which as is typical with Nash’s work
tackled a subject close to the heart of his deeply held
religious convictions.
Women at work proved to be a favourite subject of
many of the Camden Town artists, particularly
Drummond and his friend Charles Ginner, the latter
of whom executed a painting of a dressmaking factory
and another of a blouse factory. Drummond’s scene
appears to be set in a more domestic interior, although
like much of the best Camden Town painting, captures
his sitter seemingly unaware.
. 
. 
Iain MacNab, re, proi (1890–1967)
The Bridge
Ethelbert White, rws (1891–1972)
In the park at Golders Hill
Signed l.r.: Iain MacNab
Oil on canvas, 19 by 30 ins (48 by 76 cm)
Signed l.l.: Ethelbert White
Oil on panel, 20 by 15¾ ins (51 by 40 cm)
Provenance: with Anthony D’Offay in 1981; formerly part of the
Readers Digest Collection
As founder and principal of the Grosvenor School of
Modern Art, MacNab holds a central position in the
history of British printmaking. Equally proficient as
a painter, he served for many years as president of the
Royal Society of Painters in Oil. Something of the
exceptional quality of abstract strength of form and
innovative composition seen in his printmaking is
evident in this fine oil painting probably dating from
the late 1920s or early 1930s.
In Golders Hill Park (c.1917) must rank as one of the
artist’s early masterpieces. At the date of its completion
White was at the heart of London’s artistic avant-garde.
He was friends with Gertler and Nevinson and had
collaborated with the latter in 1913 on the now lost
Tum-Diddly-Um-Tum-Tum-Pom-Pom, a monumental
futurist view of Hampstead Heath. In 1915 he first
exhibited with the London Group later becoming a
member and it was here that he became acquainted
with the Camden Town painters, eventually leading
him to be included in Robert Bevan and Charles
Ginner’s important 1921 Paris exhibition Un Groupe
de Peintres Anglais Modernes. Whilst the present work
may show White’s acquaintance with the work of this
group (particularly of Ginner and William Ratcliffe),
the style is ultimately very much the artist’s own. The
vibrant colouring, boldly innovative composition and
graphic interpretation of the park’s scenery are
evidence of White’s very English but completely
original contribution to British landscape painting.
. 
. 
Douglas Percy Bliss (1900–1984)
Summer day at Livermore’s Farm
Evelyn Dunbar, rws, neac
(1906–1960)
The apple cart
Signed and dated l.r.: D.P.Bliss/1947
Oil on panel, 24¼ by 29½ ins (62 by 75 cm)
Whilst at the Royal College of Art, Bliss fell under the
spell of Paul Nash and alongside his close friends Edward
Bawden and Eric Ravilious taught himself the art of wood
engraving. His work in this medium is amongst the finest
of the 1920s and his early watercolours are remarkably
similar in style to those by Ravilious in particular. In
1946 Bliss became principal of the Glasgow School of
Art and rose to become one of the institution’s great
administrators. He continued to paint, although mainly
in oils, still retaining the structure and composition of
his early work, but with a fresh palette that perfectly
conveys the warmth of the English summer. Amongst
these landscapes are Gunhills, Windley (1946–52)
depicting the artist’s home in Derbyshire and now in
the Tate Gallery (inv.T03203) and the present work,
which attractively captures the picturesque quality
of a run-down Devonshire farm.
With signature on reverse of stretcher
Oil on canvas, 19¾ by 18½ ins (50 by 47 cm)
Provenance: Roger Folley (the artist’s husband)
The only salaried woman artist in World War Two,
Dunbar was singled out by Sir William Rothenstein
during her time as a student at the Royal College of
Art as a painter of “real genius”. Her work reflects the
poetry of the English countryside, through its farms
and carefully tended gardens, a subject seen in her
illustrations for the 1937 book Gardener’s Choice,
on which she worked alongside the painter Charles
Mahoney. It is not surprising that as a War artist she
was chosen to record the life of men and women on
the land, including many of Land Girls at work.
These works, showing another side of Wartime life,
are amongst the finest works created for the War
Artists Commission during the 1940s.
. 
George H.B.Wright (fl.1936–1948)
A Scottish baronial castle by the coast
Signed l.r.: G.H.B.Wright
Oil on board, 20 by 23½ ins (51 by 60 cm)
Although extremely short-lived, Wright’s career as a
painter resulted in a series of extraordinarily visionary
landscapes that are amongst the most unusual by a
Scottish painter from the later 1930s. Of these, nine
were exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy nearly
every year between 1936 and 1948. The building in the
painting is closely based on Claypotts Castle, an
unusual L-plan tower house near Dundee only a couple
of miles from Wright’s home in Monifieth, although its
surrounding landscape is a Romantic interpretation of
the nearby countryside. An identically sized landscape
by Wright, Hilltop Church was formerly in the Drambuie
Collection of Scottish art (sold Lyon & Turnbull,
January 2006, lot 139 for £15,000 (hammer)).
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. 
. 
Grace Ward, swa (1907–1975)
At work on Churchill Valentine tanks
John Craxton, ra (1922–2009)
Still life with flowers in a vase
Signed, inscribed and dated (verso): Grace Ward/
6 Scarsdale Studios W8/Churchill Valentine Tanks in
REME Workshop 1943
Oil on board, 11¾ by 15½ ins (30 by 39.5 cm)
Oil on board, 12 by 9 ins (31 by 23 cm)
Provenance: a gift from Anthony Craxton to Nest Cleverdon early
1940s; Douglas Cleverdon
Ward probably worked as a welder with the Royal
Electrical and Mechanical Engineers and it is their
specialised work on the construction of tanks that is
the main focus of her work as a War artist. Examples
of her work are in the Imperial War Museum in London
and the REME Museum of Technology who have two
oils that relate to the present work, showing work on
Churchill Valentine tanks at the workshop in Mill Hill.
Like this work they date from 1943 – right in the
middle of the War – when work on armament was at
its busiest and most crucial. A further painting by
Ward, REME Blacksmiths and Welders was exhibited
at the Royal Academy in 1944 (no.422).
The year 1941, the likely date of the present work, was
to prove key in Craxton’s development as an artist.
Rejected for military service he began to paint prolifically,
his output adopting a dark, mystical quality influenced
by the pictures of Samuel Palmer, whose work had
made an immense impact on him in the same year.
The present work conveys something of the same dark
intensity (although not specifically Palmer-like) the
dotted forms of the flowers looking forward to the trees
and landscapes seen in his work in the following few
years. In 1941 he was also introduced to his patron
Peter Watson, through whom he met the artist Lucian
Freud; Freud and Craxton subsequently shared a flat
together. This work belonged to Douglas Cleverdon, a
highly influential radio producer and book seller who
was a significant cultural figure in Britain during the
middle of the last century. I am grateful to Ian Collins
for his assistance in researching this painting.
. 
. 
Ethelbert White, rws (1891–1972)
A tractor by a ploughed field
Francis Horstmann, arca
(1906–1968)
The Forest
Oil on panel, 9½ by 13½ ins (24 by 34 cm)
Exhibited: Sally Hunter Fine Art, Ethelbert White and his
contemporaries, May–June 1988, cat no.2
The farms and hills of the English countryside were
always close to White’s heart and his work frequently
provided an important record of cultivated land in its
early years of mechanisation. The painterly style of
this small landscape perfectly conveys the presence
of the thick wet mud and earth, ever present during
the hard work of ploughing.
Gouache on panel, 36 by 24 ins (90 by 60 cm)
The Royal College of Art in the 1920s and 1930s was
responsible for nurturing the talents of some of the
greatest and most distinctively English figures in mid
twentieth century British art and design. Francis
Horstmann was an outstanding example of an artist
from this tradition. A scholar at the Royal College of
Art, Horstmann worked extensively in the field of
design and decorating, writing numerous books on
graphics and interior decoration and excelling as a
muralist and a master calligrapher. In 1948 he was
appointed head of design at the Glasgow School of Art,
a key position in a school that had accounted for the
some of the most radical and original contributions to
the field in the twentieth century. This is an extremely
rare example of a surviving finished mural panel by
the artist, probably intended as part of a scheme in an
Art Deco interior. The subdued colours and boldly
decorative composition is typical of some of the best
design of the English Art Deco style.
. 
James Boswell (1906–1971)
The Herring Shop
Signed and dated l.l.: Boswell/55
Oil on board
15¾ by 19½ ins (40 by 50 cm)
Provenance: acquired directly from the artist’s estate
This delightful oil painting depicts a scene in the East
End of London and was probably painted whilst
Boswell was illustrating Wolf Mankowitz’s book
A kid for two farthings. James Boswell was described
by William Feaver in 1978 as “one of the finest English
graphic artists of this century”. A committed Marxist
he graduated from the Royal College of Art in the early
1930s becoming a founding member of the Artist’s
International Association, as well as working as a
brilliant satirist in the manner of George Grosz and an
early voice against the spectre of fascism. After the
War during which he executed some of his most
extraordinary work depicting life with the desert army,
he served as art editor of Liliput and editor of the
Sainsbury’s House magazine. In the late 1950s and
1960s he became a distinctive and talented abstract
painter. I am grateful to Ruth Boswell and Sal Shuel
for their assistance in researching this painting.
. 
Reginald Brill (1902–1974)
The fruit and vegetable stall
Signed l.r.: Reginald Brill
Oil on board, 25 by 32 ins (63.5 by 81.3 cm)
Provenance: the Phoenix Gallery, Lavenham
Literature: Judith Bumpus, Reginald Brill, Scolar Press, 1999, p.28
Brill was one of the great British realist painters to
emerge from the Slade a decade after Stanley Spencer.
As a winner of the Prix de Rome in 1927, the influence
of the Renaissance is always evident in the monumental
quality of his figurative work, although this almost
always celebrated everyday subject matter such as
cattle markets, courts of law or window cleaners at
work. He found inspiration everywhere in local life,
once writing in his diary: “There is no lack of subject
matter. Almost everyday something shines out to be
recorded” (the artist’s journal, 3 November 1962
(quoted Bumpus p.27)). The present work has
previously been identified as the market place at
Lavenham (see literature), the Suffolk town where
Brill settled following his retirement as a hugely
successful principal of Kingston School of Art. It also
bears notable similarities to a pen and ink drawing
Kingston Market (op cit. plate 94).
. 
. 
Gilbert Spencer, ra (1892–1979)
Barns in an English farmyard
Russell Howarth (b.1927)
Dry stone wall, Saddleworth
Signed and dated l.r.: Gilbert Spencer/1925
Oil on canvas, 20 by 23½ ins (51 by 60 cm)
Signed l.r.: Howarth
Oil on board, 17¾ by 14½ ins (45 by 37 cm)
In his chapter on Gilbert Spencer in volume 2 of his
great work Modern English Painters, John
Rothenstein wrote “… the novelty of his (Gilbert
Spencer’s) work, with its engaging blend of simplicity
and skill, won him a place among the leaders of his
generation.” (John Rothenstein, Modern English
Painters, vol.2, p.147). Spencer’s most productive
period can be dated to the mid to late 1920s, when
he executed many of his finest rural landscapes,
often depicting scenes in and around the Oxfordshire
countryside. Here he developed his own style of
balanced and beautifully composed painting, which
only in recent years has come to be more highly
regarded as one that quite distinct from that of his
brother Stanley.
Howarth’s beautiful landscapes, like Kyffin Williams’s
of Wales or Peter Brook’s of Yorkshire, perfectly capture
the sparse and windswept rural landscape of the
Pennines, mostly of the dramatic countryside near
the borough of Saddleworth.
WORKS ON PAPER
. 
. 
Sir William Blake Richmond, ra
(1842–1921)
Study of a man’s hand
Frederic, Lord Leighton, pra, rws
(1830–1896)
Study for ‘Jezebel and Ahab’
Black wash heightened with white on light brown paper
16 by 25½ ins (41 by 65 cm)
Provenance: from a collection of the artist’s works with
Julian Hartnoll
Black and white chalk on blue paper, 6 by 5 ins (15 by 13 cm)
Provenance: Henry S.Retlinger; Sir John Witt
The present drawing is a full compositional study
for Leighton’s painting of 1863, which is now in the
artist’s home town at Scarborough Art Gallery.
The finished painting, which was one of Leighton’s
best known works, was worked up through a series
of drawings, this fine study amongst them. One
drawing, now in the Tate Gallery (inv.to8208), for
the head of Elijah (the central figure to the right of this
drawing) reveals that the artist took the unusual step
of using a female sitter (his friend the actress Fanny
Kemble) for the prophet’s face. This would then
have been set using a male model’s figure in the
final painting.
. 
. 
Albert Ludovici Jr. rba (1852–1932)
Bustling crowds by a Continental
harbour
Paul-César Helleu (1859–1927)
Seated woman from behind with a
private view invitation
Signed l.l.: Ludovici
Watercolour and gouache, 9 by 11 ins (23 by 28 cm)
Signed c.l.: Helleu and inscribed (within invitation) The favour of
your company is desired to see the Exhibition of Dry points by Paul
Helleu ... Gallery ... Paris
Red chalk, 12 by 8½ ins (31 by 22 cm)
Provenance: the art historian and writer Philip Rawson (1924–1995)
Although perhaps best known for his elegant genre
scenes, Ludovici was also a fine painter of everyday
late nineteenth century urban life, spending much time
painting the streets of cities like London, Paris and
Venice. The more modern and impressionistic style
of this attractive crowd scene shows the influence of
Whistler, who became a close friend of both Albert
Ludovici and his father following his election as
President of the Royal Society of British artists
where both painters were members.
Now widely regarded as the single most important
French artist of the Belle-Époque style and one of the
greatest practitioners of drypoint in the medium’s
history, Helleu was also a hugely fashionable artist in
both British and American society. As such his clients
from across the channel were hugely important to him.
To publicise his own exhibitions he would regularly
design his own invitation cards, often (as in the case
of the present work) incorporating the card itself into
one of his typically elegant portraits. The text of the
invitation is in English, suggesting that the card was
directed to his English-speaking collectors attending
one of his Paris shows and perhaps explaining the
somewhat broken style of the language.
. 
. 
Walter Greaves (1846–1930)
The Broad Bridge
Walter Greaves (1846–1930)
Portrait of a seated lady
Signed and dated l.l.: W.Greaves/69
Pen and black ink, 6½ by 11 ins (16.5 by 28 cm)
Provenance: the collection of B.Souta; with Michael Parkin Fine Art
Signed: W.Greaves
Coloured chalks, 10½ by 8 ins (27 by 20 cm)
Provenance: with William Darby, Bond Street
The present drawing is loosely based on a drawing and
lithograph by Whistler from 1878 The Broad Bridge,
which shows the same section of Old Battersea Bridge
although from a slightly different angle. Greaves’s
dating of his own work is notoriously absent minded
and it is likely that the present drawing dates from the
late 1870s. As Whistler’s closest companion and
studio assistant (at this date) it seems plausible that
Greaves would have made a drawing of the subject
at around the same time.
. 
. 
Walter Richard Sickert, ara
(1860–1942)
Princess Pauline
Edward Neatby, rms, arca
(1888–1949)
Martin’s confectioners, West Wycombe
Signed and inscribed l.c.: Princess Pauline/Bedford Music
Hall/Sickert
Pencil, 9¾ by 7 ins (25 by 18 cm)
Signed l.r.: Edward Neatby
Watercolour, 10½ by 14¼ ins (26.5 by 36 cm)
This faint but haunting head study depicts Princess
Pauline a well-known comedienne and singer of
popular songs who was one of the mainstays of the
Old Bedford Music Hall. Sickert did some of his most
celebrated paintings of the rich life of theatres and
music halls at the Old and New Bedford in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth century. There is
another pencil portrait of Princes Pauline by Sickert
in the Government Art Collection (inv.12220).
. 
. 
Sir George Clausen, ra, rws
(1852–1944)
Sand dunes by woodland
Maurice Greiffenhagen, ra
(1862–1931)
Portrait of a lady in a coral necklace
Signed with initials l.r.: GC
Coloured chalks, 8½ by 14 ins (22 by 36 cm)
Provenance: from the collection of Mrs Hugh Clausen, the artist’s
daughter-in-law; with the New Grafton Gallery, London
Signed l.l.: Maurice Greiffenhagen
Watercolour and gouache over pencil, 18 by 12 ins (46 by 30 cm)
Greiffenhagen was professor at Glasgow School of Art
during its most influential period. A contemporary of
Clausen began working in pastel in the late 1880s and Charles Rennie Mackintosh, he developed a highly
he rose to become the finest practitioner in the medium original style as a painter which combined elements
of his era. From studies in nature, like the present work, of Art Nouveau with late Pre-Raphaelite painting. He
to his more finished portrait studies, they became the
was one of the first Royal Academicians to work as a
source of inspiration for a whole generation of late
poster designer and, as the present work demonstrates,
Victorian and Edwardian painters. The effects of his
was also an exceptional draughtsman.
painting in pastel were greatly enhanced by his use
of special brown drawing papers which had become
available from artist’s suppliers in the 1890s. Through
these he was able to exploit the dramatic contrast
between the dark background of the paper and the
bright colour of this most attractive of mediums. The
simple radiance of this composition show’s Clausen’s
mastery as one of the great observers of nature and in
particular of the effects of sunlight, beautifully
conveyed through the bright white of the distant
clouds and the warm yellow illuminating the sand
bank in the foreground.
. 
. 
Sir William Orpen, ra, rha
(1878–1931)
At the art exhibition
Sir William Orpen, ra, rha
(1878–1931)
Standing female nude
With a similar study verso
Pencil, 12 by 8¾ ins (30 by 22 cm)
Provenance: the estate of Maurice Bradshaw (secretary of the
Goupil Gallery)
Signed l.r.: Orpen
Black chalk, 22¾ by 12 ins (58 by 30 cm)
This charming double-sided drawing can be dated
to c.1902–04 and reflects Orpen’s interest in the
observational quality he saw Dutch genre painting. It
appears to relate in particular to the work The Valuers
from 1902 which shows an overblown group of art
experts assessing the value of a painting in a wellappointed commercial gallery.
One of the finest draughtsmen of his era, Orpen
executed numerous life drawings and studies from his
time as a star student at the Slade School of Art in the
late 1890s until his death. Evidence from the known
surviving drawings suggests that he often resorted to
the same sitters and models. The model in the present
drawing can be seen in a number of comparable large
scale Orpen life drawings, suggesting she was perhaps
a favourite sitter of the artist. One example is on the
right hand side of a drawing in the Leeds City
Museum and Art Gallery (inv.no.209071). A drawing
of a female nude also probably of the same model is
in the British Museum (Alfred Jowett Bequest,
inv.no.1937.0325.2). That drawing also displays
a very similar repaired tear across the middle
of the sheet.
. 
David Bomberg (1890–1957)
Study of a woman in a long cloak
Signed u.r.: Bomberg
Pencil, 12 by 8½ ins (30 by 21.5 cm)
Provenance: the estate of Pauline, Lady Rumbold (1927-2008)
This is a rare surviving example of one of Bomberg’s
earliest drawings from his time as a student at the
Slade. It probably belongs to a group of studies that
the artist would have made for his Bedroom Picture
(1911–12), one of Bomberg’s first known works on
canvas which shows a similarly clothed woman
leaning out of a bedroom window. Its technique is
typical of Slade student drawings from this date and
shows Bomberg’s already exceptional and brilliant
facility as a draughtsman. Although the same
distinctive pose of a leaning, clothed woman from
behind also appears in his drawing Family Bereavement
(1913) (Tate Gallery, inv.5867) its contrasting style
of execution shows how Bomberg was beginning to
depart from this Slade style even a year or two after
this work was drawn. This drawing was formerly in
the collection of Pauline Rumbold, an actress and poet
who was a keen collector of the work of twentieth
century British artists, many of whom she was also
friends with, including John Craxton and Lucian
Freud, the latter of whom she sat for in the mid 1940s.
. 
‘Gunner’ F.J.Mears (c.1890–1929)
Soldiers advancing with gasmasks
on the Western Front
Signed upside down and dated l.r.: gnr F.J.Mears/BEF/1916
Watercolour with silver paint over pencil, 4½ by 7 ins (11.5 by 18cm)
The rediscovery in recent years of the Wartime work
of “Gunner” Mears has brought to light some of the
most extraordinary and original works executed by
a soldier on the Western Front. Nearly always
nocturnal, his watercolours chronicle the horrors of
life as a soldier on the front line and often depict the
area around the Messines Road. His dated work, like
the present drawing, actually executed at the front is
particularly rare especially owing to the fact he painted
further views of the Western Front from memory in
the years following the War. An exhibition of Mears’s
watercolours at 20 Old Bond Street just after the
War caused a minor sensation and sold to a number
of important collectors including Lady Astor and
the Duchess of Norfolk. There are also several
similar drawings in the collection of the Imperial
War Museum, London.
. 
. 
Sir Frank Brangwyn, ra, rws
(1867–1956)
Studies of oarsmen for the ‘Skinners’
Hall Murals’
Sir Stanley Spencer, ra (1891–1959)
Study for ‘Christ carrying the Cross’
Signed with monogram u.r.: FB
Red and white chalk, 10 by 16 ins (25.5 by 41 cm)
The present page of figure studies was probably
executed for one of Brangwyn’s most ambitious early
mural schemes at the Skinners’ Hall (1902–1910),
depicting the history of the company from the
thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries. I am grateful
to Libby Horner for her assistance in researching
the present work.
Signed and inscribed (verso): To Mrs Dorothy Eckersley from Stanley
Spencer with best wishes, Oct 30th 1948… This is the composition
I did immediately before the final composition…which Richard
Carline possesses
Squared for transfer
Sepia wash over pencil, 51 by 35cm (20¼ by 13¾in).
Provenance: a gift from the artist to Dorothy Eckersley,
October 1948
This is a study for Spencer’s 1920 masterpiece Christ
carrying the Cross now in the Tate Gallery (no.4117).
The events were inspired by the artist’s childhood
memories of Cookham, showing the religious event
as observed from the windows of houses in Spencer’s
home town. A closely comparable sketch was in the
collection of Richard Carline (also now in the Tate)
and another in the Stanley Spencer Gallery, Cookham.
Another sepia wash drawing and a variation on the
same composition was in the collection of W.A.Evill
(Evill/Frost Sale, Sotheby’s London, June 2011, lot 151,
sold for £21,250).
. 
Norman Wilkinson, roi, pri
(1878–1971)
Naval vessels on the Isle of Arran
Signed l.l.: Norman Wilkinson
Watercolour, 9½ by 13½ ins (24 by 34 cm)
Wilkinson was one the greatest British marine painters
of the twentieth century who had a central role as a
painter in both World Wars. Initially serving as a
regular naval officer in World War One, Wilkinson
conceived of the original idea of “Dazzle” camouflage
to help protect Naval vessels by making them invisible
from attack and later worked on camouflage again
(although this time for the Royal Air Force) in the
Second World War. Alongside this he produced an
outstanding body of dramatic depictions of Naval
battles, including views of the Dardanelles from the
First World War and Dunkirk from the Second. Many
of these paintings are now in the collections of both the
Imperial War Museum and the National Maritime
Museum in London. The present view shows part of
the British fleet at anchor near Lamlash on the Isle
of Arran. The largest settlement on this iconic Scottish
island, Lamlash provided harbour for the Royal Navy
during both World Wars.
. 
Job Nixon, re, arws (1891–1938)
Farm workers at Anticoli Corrado
Signed l.l.: Job Nixon
Watercolour over pencil, 21 by 29 ins (53 by 74 cm)
Provenance: Wyndham Vint, Bradford
The picturesque hilltop village of Anticoli Corrado,
some forty kilometres from Rome, has provided a
natural retreat for artists throughout history. A group
of painters that particularly claimed the village as
their own were the winners of the prestigious Prix de
Rome, awarded each year from the early 1920s, and
for which Nixon was first ever recipient in the
discipline of engraving in 1923. Whilst many of his
contemporaries took their impulse from the village’s
architecture, or its ideal setting for Piero della
Francesca-influenced Allegorical scenes, Nixon found
his inspiration in real people, as in the present work –
farm workers involved in the hard manual toil of the
land. Despite echoes in the work of artists such as
Millet and Clausen, Nixon’s execution is very much
his own, also revealing him to be an exceptional
draughtsman. Later Nixon settled as part of the
community in Newlyn, gaining a reputation as a true
Bohemian and being drawn to another human subject,
that of the Romany gypsies. Although best known as
an engraver he had considerable success as a painter
and watercolourist, exhibiting widely at the Royal
Watercolour Society and at the Royal Academy where
he exhibited thirty six works.
. 
Michael Rothenstein, ra
(1908–1993)
Wartime refugees
Signed and dated l.r.: Michael Rothenstein/41
Watercolour, 12 by 13 ins (30 by 33 cm)
. 
John Aldridge, ra (1905–1983)
View from a window, Charles II Street
Signed with initials, inscribed and dated: JA/Charles II St/16.8.44
Watercolour, 9½ by 13½ in (24 by 34 cm)
During the Second World War Aldridge worked for
a period in London for the British Intelligence Corps
interpreting aerial photographs. Americans and the
Canadians were headquarters near the area shown.
In 1941, the date of the present work, Rothenstein
moved to the Essex village of Great Bardfield becoming
part of the highly important community of artists
that included John Aldridge, Edward Bawden, Eric
Ravilious and Kenneth Rowntree. Although some
of his work from this era shows the influence of this
group (particularly the watercolours he executed for
Kenneth Clark’s Recording Britain project) on the
whole Rothenstein developed a style that was (in tune
with his mood at the time) darker and less overtly
lyrical. Many of his rural and Wartime subjects
contain a figurative element, focusing on workers on
the land, or (as in this striking watercolour) refugees
from war-torn Europe. A comparable version of the
same watercolour was exhibited in the retrospective
Michael Rothenstein: the Early Years, Redfern Gallery,
1986, no.11.
. 
. 
Charles Cundall, ra, rws
(1890–1971)
Admiral Stevenson’s flagship at
Tobermory
Richard Eurich, ra (1903–1992)
The Three Graces
Inscribed l.l.: Tobermory/Adr Stevenson’s Flagship
Gouache and thinned oil, 13 by 16 ins (33 by 41 cm)
Provenance: the artist’s daughter
The present work is related to a larger painting that
Cundall executed for the War Artists Advisory
Committee in 1942 and which is now in the Imperial
War Museum (inv.6052). During the Second World
War Cundall served as an official war artist to both
the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. As part of his
work he was sent to Tobermory on the remote western
Scottish island of Mull where Admiral Sir Gilbert
Stevenson had set up the training base HMS Western
Isles. Well-known as a hard taskmaster, Stevenson
established Tobermory as the Royal Navy’s antisubmarine training school, its methods having a
lasting influence for naval operations well into the
later twentieth century.
Dated l.l.: 1927
Red chalk, 15¾ by 9½ ins (40 by 24 cm)
Although Eurich is now known overwhelmingly as a
painter in oil, he worked almost exclusively on paper
from his time as a student until his first exhibition at
the Goupil Gallery in 1929. Works like the present
drawing, executed during his last year as a student at
the Slade, reveal him to be an exceptional and stylish
draughtsman. One of Eurich’s first major champions
was Eric Gill who acted as a sponsor the former’s
first exhibition and whose influence is also apparent
in this drawing.
. 
John Hammond Harwood
(1904–1980)
Early blossom over suburban gardens
Signed and dated: J.Harwood/1944
Watercolour, 14½ by 20¼ (37 by 51.5 cm)
Painted at the end of the War, Harwood’s watercolour
probably depicts gardens on the edge Gloucester where
the artist was living at the time (having been appointed
Principal of Gloucester School of Art in 1939). In
common with great representational art of the period
Harwood takes a mundane scene transforming it into
an inspiring and unusual landscape. At the picture’s
centre a black cat dashes over a corrugated iron roof,
whilst the edge of a Suburban garage, a characteristic
feature of inter-war British life, emerges to the right
hand side of the picture.
. 
John Hammond Harwood
(1904–1980)
The Haycart
Signed and dated l.r.: J.H.Harwood/1936
Watercolour, 14 by 17½ ins (36 by 44.5 cm)
Harwood is a much underrated member of the great
generation of artists who studied under William
Rothenstein at the Royal College of Art in the mid
1920s. This group, whose work is most widely
known through the great watercolours of Bawden
and Ravilious, established a distinctly modern but
representational interpretation of the British landscape
that places it at a turning point in this country’s
tradition. Harwood was a successful teacher for most
of his working life, a factor that may have effected his
own profile as an artist. Yet his remarkable ability and
confidence as a painter in watercolour can be in no
doubt in this dynamic depiction of an everyday scene
on a working British farm.
Final Txt_HMG007 23/05/2012 18:49 Page 60
. 
. 
William Lyons-Wilson (1892–1981)
Landscape with rising moon at
Collipriest, Devon
Graham Sutherland, om (1903–1980)
Picton
Signed l.r.: Lyons Wilson
Watercolour, 14½ by 19 ins (37 by 48 cm)
Lyons-Wilson was a Devon-based artist and teacher
who exhibited widely, including at the New English
Art Club and Royal Academy. His fine graphic
watercolour landscapes painted between the 1920s
and the 1940s show some similarity to the work of
Ethelbert White.
Squared for transfer and numbered
Watercolour over pencil, 8¾ by 6½ ins (22 by 16.5 cm)
Provenance: acquired directly from the artist by his friend
the writer Giorgio Soavi
This watercolour forms part of a group of studies
based on withered oak trees that Sutherland found by
the estuary at Picton on his return there in the early
1970s. It became the subject of a number of major
pictures and prints, including an etching of the subject
and the lithograph, La Foresta II (1971–72). An
etching of the present subject from 1973 bears
particularly close comparison with the present work.
Sutherland later wrote of this subject: “the trees are
eroded by the tide and wind … I suppose you would call
them dwarf oaks. They have the most extraordinary
beautiful, varied and rich shapes which detach them
from their proper connotation as trees. One does not
think of them so much as trees, more as figures; they
have the same urgency that certain movements of figures
can have in action (The Listener, XCVIII, 1977, p.231).
. 
James Boswell (1906–1971)
Hylton’s Fish Bar
Signed l.r.: Boswell
Watercolour and gouache over pen and ink
16 by 24 ins (40.5 by 61 cm)
The present work is Boswell’s interpretation of the
vibrant street life of Camden Town, a part of London
that the artist loved and knew well. From the early
1940s Boswell would pass through this part of London
on the 24 bus route and he painted many views of the
area, often incorporating parts of Kentish Town and
Mornington Crescent into the same cityscape. This
picture was probably painted in the early 1950s just
after the artist had started working for the Sainsbury’s
house magazine. Boswell regularly included fish bars
in his street scenes and would often name his shops
and bars after friends and contemporaries. It is
therefore possible that Hylton was the name of an
associate of the artist from the early 1950s. I am
grateful to Ruth Boswell and Sal Shuel for their
assistance in researching this painting.
. 
John Banting (1902–1972)
Bal Musette
Signed and titled (verso)
Gouache, 11 by 13 ins (28 by 33 cm)
Banting’s close association with Surrealism came
about partly through his time in Paris, where he mixed
closely with many of the leading figures in the movement
including Marcel Duchamp. Musical themes are a
central part of many of his most interesting mid
twentieth century pieces. The present work is dateable
to c.1945. A closely related oil painting from that year
(“Bal Musette”) sold at the Peter Nahum sale at
Christie’s South Kensington in 2006, for £21,600.
. 
. 
John Armstrong, ara (1893–1973)
Dancing jester
John Armstrong, ara (1893–1973)
Dancing jester
Signed with initials l.r.: JA
Watercolour, 14 by 9½ ins (36 by 24 cm)
Provenance: the artist’s estate, by direct descent
Signed with initials l.r.: JA
Watercolour, 14 by 9½ ins (36 by 24 cm)
Provenance: the artist’s estate, by direct descent
These playful depictions of dancing jesters are
influenced by the design work executed for Diaghilev’s
Ballet Russes in the previous decades of the century.
They are unusually attractive, free and finished for
working designs perhaps suggesting they were not
intended for specific productions but rather as
individual works of art in their own right. The focus
on the figure’s movement rather than specific
characterisation or instructions to a costumier may also
suggest ballet as an inspiration. The style of execution
suggests a date of the late 1930s to the 1940s. I am
grateful to Jonathan Gibbs for his assistance.
. 
John Armstrong, ara (1893–1973)
Churchyard
Signed with initials l.r.: JA
Watercolour, 8¼ by 12¼ ins (21 by 31 cm)
Provenance: the artist’s estate, by direct descent
Fuelled by the strength of a new British film industry
and by the diverse originality of inter-war opera,
ballet and theatre, Britain produced some of the most
outstanding and original design work of the twentieth
century. The designers counted amongst themselves
some of the most important English painters of their
age, including such figures as Edward Burra, Edward
McKnight Kauffer John Piper and John Armstrong.
Of them all Armstrong was possibly responsible for
the most enduring and consistent contribution to
design of the period, his work forming the costumes
and backdrops for some of the most memorable films
of the 1930s, including The Private Life of Henry VIII
(with Charles Laughton in 1933), As you Like it (with
Lawrence Olivier) and Things to Come (both in 1936).
His role on the stage included work for numerous
Shakespearean productions and for William Walton
and Edith Sitwell’s great modern ballet Façade. This
group of previously unrecorded watercolours (see also
the works opposite) has come directly from the artist’s
family. Whether or not they were intended for a specific
production, they are illustrative of Armstrong’s unique
quality as one of the most talented, idiosyncratic and
original painters in mid twentieth century Britain.
. 
John Piper, ch (1903–1992)
The towers of Pagodaland
Signed, inscribed and dated (verso): John Piper/Pagodas/
Covent Garden/1957
Watercolour, gouache and wax resist with collage
15¼ by 29 ins (39 by 73.5 cm)
This is a backdrop design for one of Piper’s most
colourful and vibrantly-quirky collaborations with
his close friend, the composer Benjamin Britten.
The Prince of the Pagodas is Britten’s only ballet
and was partly conceived by the choreographer John
Cranko (with whom Piper also worked on a number
of other projects). Although the first performance,
particularly from a musical and choreographic
perspective, met with mixed reviews, there can be
little doubt of the colourful originality of Piper’s
working designs. The inventive use of cut collage also
looks forward to the artist’s original abstract work
of the late 1950s and early 1960s.
. 
. 
Sir Cecil Beaton (1903–1980)
Lady in a ballgown, for ‘Vanessa’
Sir Cecil Beaton (1903–1980)
Rhodope
Signed: Beaton and inscribed extensively
Watercolour over pen and ink
16 by 9 ins (40 by 23 cm)
Provenance: the Cecil Beaton Studio Sale, Christie’s
Inscribed extensively
Watercolour over pen and ink with material sample
16½ by 11 ins (42 by 28 cm)
Provenance: the Cecil Beaton Studio Sale, Christie’s
The present work is an original design for a dress for
the Ballroom scene in Act III of the opera Vanessa by
Samuel Barber. Beaton designed all the costumes and
sets for the production which opened at the Metropolitan
Opera House, New York in 1958. The late 1950s
accounted for the most flamboyant and distinctive of
Beaton’s designs, his famous ones for the stage version
of My Fair Lady also being created in 1958.
A design for the costume of Rhodope for the 1940s
play Crisis in Heaven, directed by John Gielgud and
for which Beaton designed the costumes.
Final Txt_HMG007 23/05/2012 18:50 Page 70
. 
. 
James Boswell (1906–1971)
Football
John McKenzie (1897–1972)
The Tempest
Signed and dated l.r.: Boswell/53
Watercolour, 13¾ by 20 ins (35 by 51 cm)
Signed with monogram l.r.: JMcK and inscribed with names
of the characters Trinculo/Stephano/Caliban
Painted carved-wood relief panel, 13 by 8¼ ins (33 by 21 cm)
Boswell was a lifelong football fan and his daughter
remembered being taken to matches at Arsenal and
watching young men playing the game on Hampstead
Heath. Although this initially resulted in little
artistically it was this subject that he chose when
invited to take part in the third series of School Prints
commissioned in time for the Festival of Britain in
1951. That work The Winning Side is strongly
illustrative in execution, whilst the present work,
painted some two years later, shows Boswell’s more
mature and bold artistic style associated with the
original representational work he created in the mid
1950s. I am grateful to Ruth Boswell and Sal Shuel
for their assistance in researching this work.
McKenzie’s quirky and highly individual sculpted
reliefs were executed either in slate, or (as with the
present work) in painted carved-wood. Although he
exhibited work at the Royal Scottish Academy and
the Royal Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts, he executed
most of his sculpture in his spare time and sold hardly
a single piece in his own lifetime. His subject matter
varied from everyday life to scenes from mythology
and (as in this case) Shakespeare, depicting three
of the main characters from The Tempest.
. 
Frederick Austin, re (1902–1990)
Goldmine, Ontario
Signed and dated (1932)
Watercolour, 8 by 10½ ins (20.5 by 27 cm)
Austin won the Prix de Rome for engraving whilst a
student at the Royal College of Art in the late 1920s.
Both his great gift for printmaking and his consistently
inventive and original work in watercolour show an
affinity with his friend and contemporary
Eric Ravilious.
moore-gwyn FINE ART
7 Phillimore Terrace, Allen Street, London w8 6bj
Telephone 020 7937 2131, facsimile 020 7938 1499, mobile 07765 966 256
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Viewing by appointment outside of exhibition hours
[2012]