Not for sale

Signed
Crayon, pencil and watercolour
30 x 43 cms

Not for sale

Sold

Pen and ink and watercolour, 12⅝ × 21⅝ in. (32 × 55 cm.), arched top
Provenance: Michael Whitehall;Twentieth-Century Gallery, London

Whitehall Farm was one of two compositions that Lewis prepared for the 1930 Rome Scholarship in Decorative Painting, which he entered on the insistence of William Rothenstein, Principal of the Royal College of Art, having won an entrance scholarship there in 1925. Lewis missed winning the 1930 Rome Scholarship by a single vote.

‘I was brought up on a big farm called “Whitehall Farm” six miles from the city of Newport in Monmouthshire. As a toddler I was fascinated with all the animals and the goings-on that made up life on a farm in those far-off years: the huge horses (Shires), the bullocks and cows and the sheep, chickens, ducks,turkeys, pigs, dogs, etc., and especially the farm workers. My father loved horses and banned horse-whips from the farm.

‘The background shows only a small section of the buildings – there were huge barns, stables and sheds and a large pool where I sailed my model ships which I made in the carpenter’s shed. On the left is a farm boy carrying hay, andflirting with the maids! Then two men are talking: the old man is Mr Philips, and Albert Hall with horse collar on his right arm. Many jokes were made on Albert’s name, but he took it in good heart. My father is milking the cow in the centre,my sister is holding a pet rabbit,myself doing up laces. My mother sits deeply in thought. The man on the ladder is culling a square of hay from the hayrick. Jim Miles is shown greeting his young wife and baby, and of course the real occupants of the farm – the animals – are all about’ (Letter to Paul Liss, 28 November 2006).

We are grateful to Jennifer and Beverley Heywood, Stanley Lewis and Kingsley Wood for their assistance.