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Presentation: Framed
78 x 78 in. (198 x 198 cm)
Provenance: Sir Alfred East RA ; Captain Winterbottom

Exhibited: New Gallery, 1902 (lent by East?); Venice Biennale, 1903; Venice Biennale, 1914; Queen's Gate, 1924 Catalogue: 58 (lent by H W [sic] Winterbottom, titled Cyder Press); St Louis International Exhibition, St Louis, 1904 Catalogue: 43

Literature: Shaw-Sparrow, Frank Brangwyn and his Work, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co Ltd London 1915 p231 H Furst, The Decorative Art of Frank Brangwyn, The Bodley Head London 1924 p214 Art Journal, p85-86 March 1903, F Rinder, 'The Art of Frank Brangwyn' The Studio, p38 Vol 26, June 1902, 'Some Paintings and Sculpture at the London Spring Exhibitions' P Macer-Wright, Brangwyn, A Study of Genius at Close Quarters, Hutchinson & Co London p67 Illustrated: Shaw-Sparrow, The Spirit of the Age, London, 1905 plate 8 Amelia Defries, Frank Brangwyn RA, Master Craftsman, American Magazine of Art November 1924 11 Vol. 15p562 The Studio, p37 Vol 26, June 1902, 'Some Paintings and Sculpture at the London Spring Exhibitions' St Louis International Exhibition, St Louis 1904 p63 The British Art Journal, p41 Libby Horner, 'Brangwyn and the Horton House mystery'

Notes: Described as a ‘lyrical fantasy from the conditions of modern life’* portraying ‘the half-triumphant, half-sad sentiment of October’.* The oil shows two young boys and a nude toddler right foreground, lounging over baskets of gleaming apples and a beautiful pot, whilst to the left a man plays a flute, and others work at the press, the frame of which can be seen background right. The red shirt of the central figure provides a focus point. Although the painting is quite dark in tone there is a wonderful sense of light flickering through the central window of sky. There is something of the Old Masters in this painting, although the technique is vastly different, and a romantic yearning for the glories of rural England. Marion Spielman described this painting as ‘one of (Brangwyn’s) most opulent designs, such as Titian might rejoice in could he come to life in the twentieth century’,* and The Studio critic, less ostentatiously, called it 'masterly in handling and sumptuous in colour'.* Laurence Bradshaw noted in his copy of the Queen's Gate catalogue that the technique was 'earlier' and 'tighter' and commented on the unfortunate habit of owners of varnishing paintings with the result that they ended up brown and cracked when all they required was a little soap and water to remove dust and dirt. Rinder termed the oil a 'robust idealisation of an incident charged with beauty and with significance' and considered it a 'noteworthy attempt to express the half-triumphant, half-sad sentiment of October'. The RA sketchbooks have drawings of a cider press at Weford on Avon which may be related to this painting. In 1904 (17 January) Brangwyn wrote to Kitson that he was 'very sorry that the Cider Press is not going to Leeds, East wished it to go to St Louis, anyway next year you shall have it', and on 9 November 1907 he noted that, with East's approval, it was to be sent to the Salon in 1908. According to Macer-Wright, East purchased the work for £300 to help the younger artist out of financial difficulties, but the claim cannot be substantiated. There is no concrete evidence that after the early years Brangwyn was troubled by impecuniosity. From 1891 to 1894 he was able to afford two studios, he employed an assistant as early as 1895, and by 1902 was established and greatly in demand. Brangwyn borrowed the painting from East to send to an exhibition in Munich, but apparently the packing case was destroyed when on the docks at Tilbury. East recovered the canvas and had it relined and restored. It was sold later for £1400. In 1924 Furst recalled 'the beautiful early rich and mellow Cider-press which alone would secure to its author a place amongst the great masters'*, gracing the walls of Horton House (Colonel Winterbottom's residence). In a letter to de Belleroche, 8 April 1952, Brangwyn asks if he has been able to trace 'Sir Roberts of Saltair who had the Cider Press he was the partner of Sir Titus Salt who made the Town of Saltair in Yorkshire'. Some of his other suggestions of ownership in the letter were decidedly wrong so this comment may be misleading! * Shaw Sparrow, p231 * F Rinder, p82 * The Studio, p38 * Furst, p214

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Presentation: Framed
Signed with monogram t.l.: ‘FB’
Oil on canvas, 200.7×200.7cm (79×79in)
Reference: Galloway 81
Provenance: Sir James Roberts, and by descent; Cyril Leeper; private collection
Exh: Berlin Academy, Berlin, 1912 (No 2773); Twentieth Spring Exhibition, Bradford, 1913 (No 157);  Venice Biennale, 1914 (No 1334) ; Exhibition of Paintings Drawings and Etchings by Frank Brangwyn, 184
Queen’s Gate, London, 1924 (No 55); Frank Brangwyn, Leeds, Bruges, Swansea, 2006
Lit: Walter Shaw Sparrow, Frank Brangwyn and his Work, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1915, p95, 234
Ill: Walter Shaw Sparrow, Frank Brangwyn and his Work, London, 1915, facing p88;
NM Lazareva, Frenk Brengvin, Izobrazit, 1978, plate 28

The painting was awarded a gold medal at the Berlin Academy in 1912, and is one of Brangwyn’s seminal works.Brangwyn obviously had problems perfecting the sparkling brass pots and pans,writing to his friend RHKitson that he had ‘been trying to paint the brass pots and I feel wretched’, (37) but his efforts were not wasted,Shaw Sparrow noting that ‘their handling could not well be bettered’. (38)
 
The painting was purchased by Sir James Roberts (1848–1935). Born into
a poor farming family in Haworth,Yorkshire,Roberts started work at Saltaire Mill at the age of twelve and eventually succeeded Sir Titus Salt as owner of the mill. He established the chair of Russian at Leeds University in 1916, and in 1928 purchased and bequeathed to the nation the home of the Brontë family, Haworth parsonage. He probably purchased this particular work because his wife, Elizabeth Foster, had been brought up in Brass Castle, New Jersey.

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Presentation: Framed
Signed "Zevenberghen" (lower left);
Titled and dated 1922 on canvas verso,
Oil on canvas
54 5/16 x 36 1/4 in. (138 x 92 cm).

In a fine gilded oak d section reeded frame
 

This iconic image shows the artist's two daughters in front of Manet's celebrated painting Argenteuil (1874) in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Tournai.  George Van Zevenberghen was a membre of the artistic movement Le Labeur, founded in 1898, and one of the mosted talented of the first generation of Belgian Impressionists.  He was born in Molenbeek, at whose Academy he studied; he then trained at the Academy in Brussels where he exhibited frequently and later worked in Tournai.   Manets celebrated painting Argenteuil was acquired from the artist's widow by Henri Van Cutsem, the great benefactor of the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Tournai, in 1889 and remains today one of their most celebrated paintings.

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Presentation: Framed
SigWatercolour over pencil
17-1/4 × 23 in. (43.7 × 58.5 cm)
Provenance:Artist’s family until 2005; private collection.
Exhibited: Eastbourne Towner Art Gallery, extended loan; The Twentieth Century,
The Fine Art Society, London, October 2005 (cat. no. 24).
Literature:Anne Ullmann (ed.), Ravilious atWar,The Fleece Press, Upper Denby, Huddersfield, 2002, illus. p. 101, no. 50.

Scapa Flow is a body of water in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, and was the site of Britain’s chief naval base during the SecondWorldWar . Churchill ordered the construction of a series of causeways to block the eastern approaches after Scapa Flow was penetrated by German submarine U-47 in October 1939.

Ravilious refers to Leaving Scapa Flow in a letter to E.M.O’R. Dickey on 20 June 1940, as one of a series of watercolours intended for exhibition, probably for a war-effort show at the National Gallery, London, organised by the Artists’Advisory Committee (see Anne Ullmann [ed.], Ravilious atWar, Upper Denby 2002, p. 99).The finished watercolour is in the collection of Cartwright Hall, Bradford.

In July 1941, again attached to the Admiralty as an OfficialWar Artist, Ravilious painted on the Isle of May, in Scotland, near the Firth of Forth.Weekly east coast convoys formed there to make their hazardous voyages down to Sheerness in Kent.The Forth Bridge here is shown protected by Barrage Balloons. Ravilious was killed on 2 September 1942, accompanying a Royal Air Force air–sea rescue mission off Iceland.

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Presentation: Framed
Signed and dated,
Oil on Canvas, 36 x 25 1/2 inches (91 x 65 cms)

In its original Italiante frame


Exhibited:  A typed label attached to the stretcher reads: 'Cleveland - Chicago / Belgium / Catalogue No. 289'.   It is probable that this refers to the exhibition 'Contemporary Belgian Painting, Graphic Art and Sculpture', which was held at the Art Institute of Chicago,  May 1 - June 1, 1930.

The sitter, Mary Louise McBride, was the second wife of the critic, stage director and writer Homer Saint-Gaudens;  they were married in Pittsburgh in 1929, the year this portrait was painted, so it may be considered as a twentieth-century contribution to the long tradition of 'Marriage Portraits'.   Homer Schiff Saint-Gaudens (1880-1958) was the son of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, the great American sculptor and his wife Augusta Fisher Homer.   The elder Saint-Gaudens was born in Dublin of mixed Irish-French parentage, and met his wife whilst studying in Rome.   Their son, Homer, was born in Roxbury, Massachusettes, where he is buried, but he lived the latter part of his life in Florida (his address in the American Dictionary of National Biography is given asBox 246, Route 2, Miami, FL.).

As a young man Homer Saint-Gaudens served as assistant editor of a New York periodical, The Critic, and then as managing editor of Metropolitan Magazine.   He was stage director for Maude Adams in 'Legend of Leonora', 'Kiss of Cinderella', etc 1908-17, and director of production for 'Beyond the Horizon', 'The Red Robe', and other shows, 1919-21.    He was appointed Assistant Director of Fine Arts at the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh in 1921, and promoted to Director the following year, a post he held until 1950, though his time there was interrupted by active service in the 1st Camouflage Unit of the American Expeditionary Force during World War Two.   He was widely decorated for both his war service and his services to art:  he was the recipient of the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star Medal and Purple Heart (USA);  Officier du Legion d'Honneur and Croix de Guerre (with Palm) (France);  Commander of the Hungarian Order of Merit; Chevalier of the Order of Leopold (Belgium).   He was also Corresponding Member of the Royal Academy, London.

His publications include many articles as well as Reminiscences of Augustus Saint-Gaudens and The American Artist in his Times.

Mary Saint-Gaudens outlived her husband dying in 1974, after which the portrait passed to relatives, and remained in family possession until 2008.

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Presentation: Framed
Signed
Oil on canvas
30 x 54 in. (74.7 x 134.7 cm.)

In its original black and silver Italian bolection moulding frame.

Provenance:commission by Sir Benjamin  Johnson for his house Abbot's Lea, Woolton, 1927.  Completed to 1928; given to Halliday as a gift in 1937 upon the death of Johnson.

Exhibited: Royal Academy, 1939, under the title Evening in the Campangna, (with new date added 1930-9 but no changes to the composition).

Literature: Edward Halliday, Art for Life, 1925-1939, Anne Compton, pp 18-21, reproduced p. 20 and on front cover.

Halliday was the Rome Scholar in Painting for 1925, and Hypnos is arguable his masterpiece from his 3 years he spent at the School.
When Halliday arrived in Rome, Winifired Knights, with whom he became a great friend, was hard at work on SantissimaTrinita. It is perhaps more than merely tempting to see the influences of Knights in Halliday’s work, not only with handling of the paint and the theme of sleep, but also compositional devices such as the umbrella in the foreground which, it is recorded, Halliday added late on in the paintings evolution.

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Presentation: Framed
Oil on canvas
27 1/4 x 31 1/8 in. (69.1 x 79.5 cm)

This dancer is possibly Cambodian rather than Burmese.
We are grateful to Nance and Ko Aung for assistance.

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Presentation: Framed
Signed
oil on board 39 1/2 x 29 1/4ins (100 x 74 cm)
Provenance: Private collection, Norfolk
In orginal wooden batten frame with linen slip

This was painted around 1960 in the basement kitchen of a large house on the canalside near Regent's Park, London. The model was a Nigerian student nurse.   The painting is one of a series of conversation pieces that the artist undertook in the 1960's, which included subjects such as boys on bicycles, queues at bakers, gossiping women in the street etc.

We are grateful to Hal Bishop for assistance and the Golsoncott Foundation (who hold Reckitt's copyright).

Exhibited:  Rachel Reckitt, 'Where Everything that meets the eye ... A retrospective', 2001. 

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Presentation: Framed
Signed and dated,
titled on a label to the reverse, Design for Mural for the Committee Room of the London clearing Bankers,
Tempera on prepared panels, five 16 1/2 x 7 in. (42 x 18 cm),
two 16 1/2 x 3 1/2 in. (42 x 9 cm).
In an original Alfred Syles  fruit wood wedge section frame with gesso window mount, overall size 65 x 150 cm.

Provenance: acquired from the artist's daughter, 2004

Exhibibited: Royal Academy, 1958, (933)

This design was commissioned by Austen Hall, an architect and friend of Clarke's, for the  Bankers Clearing House,  which occupied the eastern part of Coutts and Co. 15 Lombard Street, (completed in 1955 by the architectural practice of Whinney, Smith & Austen Hall).   Once Clark's design had been submitted and approved the finished Murals, which measured well over 6 ft in height, were worked upto in Clark's St. Peters Square studio.  The panels depict Transport, Commerce, Industry, Agriculture, and Science.  The two panels to either side, and along the top,  show mofits taken from token coins - money made (sometime officially, sometimes unofficially) as an alternative to small change, for example for used by pubs or fairgrounds.  When the Clearing House relocated in 1992 the original panels were removed and acquired by the Museum of London.

We are grateful to Michael Barker for assistance

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Presentation: Framed
Tempera on panel
titled on a label on the reverse
12 1/2 x 11 1/2 in. (32 x 29 cm).
Geoffrey Clement Cowles - currently a subject of on going research - began exhibiting during World War I (at the Chenil Gallery and with the NEAC) and at the R.A, 23 works between 1930 and 1970. His address was Studio 2, Kensington Church Street, W8. He painted several pictures of St Clement's, Jersey, Channel Islands.

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Presentation: Framed
Signed
Oil on board
18.3 in.x 14.4 in. (46.5 cm. x 36.6 cm.)

Provenance: gifted to the husband of the previous owner by his mother on 5th July 1946, thence by descent.

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Presentation: Framed
inscribed XiX on canvas edge
oil on canvas 45 x 35 ins. (114.3 x 88.9 cm).
Provenance: Napper

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Presentation: Framed
Oil on canvas,
Signed and dated and titled on the reverse
15 x 22 ins. (38 x 56 cm).

Provenance: Marjorie Guthrie
Exhibited: Stephenson, Drain Gallery, September 1960, no. 14

'The vicissitudes of the art world are such that it is possible for an artist of great talent to work for a lifetime in obscurity, and only towards the end of his career find the recognition that is due to him. He was one of the earliest artists in the country to develop a completely abstract style, a conscious craftsman ... he has created a world of visual delight that must at last be shared with a wide and appreciative public' (Herbert Read, introduction to Cecil Stephenson, exh. cat., Drian Gallery, London, 1960).

In April 1959 Stephenson met Halima Nalecz, the ebullient, Juno-esque owner of the recently opened Drian Gallery in London. She invited Stephenson to prepare for a one-man show (surprisingly his first), which took place in September 1960. He had about eighteen months to prepare for it. This resulted in a remarkable body of abstract work,most of which, according to their titles, are analogous to aspects of music. Some paintings were on a fairly modest scale (24× 18 in.) but at least ten were quite large (usually 48× 36 in.). Many refer back to small sketches in oil on paper that Stephenson had made during the Second World War, materials being in short supply. Some are fairly thinly painted in oil on paper; others are painted in heavy impasto on canvas and board. With the latter there is a dramatic gestural quality that shows an awareness of American Abstract Art, with which Stephenson was familiar through his activities as Chairman of the Hampstead Artists' Council. The smaller pictures were priced at around £50; the larger ones £100.

At the time of the exhibition, which was a critical if not a commercial success, Stephenson gave an interview (his last, as he was shortly to suffer a stroke, after which he was tragically incapacitated):

'Many misuse the word 'abstract'; Kandinsky explains it very well. Abstraction is a matter of condensing everything down to certain forms, such as the vertical (dynamic), the horizontal (static), and the diagonal somewhere between the two. The movement of a straight line runs across the canvas, but it can be broken up,like the teeth of a saw, to make quite a different effect.

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Presentation: Framed
Signed and dated, titled on a label to the reverse,
Egg tempera on a gesso, panel
12 x 10 in. (30.5 x 25.5 cm.)

Exhibited: Society of Women Artists, 1962 (40)

In the artists original narrow limed oak frame

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Presentation: Framed
Collage from old stamps, bonds and notes
Triptych, two panels 14.5 x 10in  and one 14.5 x 24in.

"Stevenson's Locomotion 1" Commissioned by Southern Railways for the fitting-out of Pullman Saloon Coach 'Phoenix' part of the Golden Arrow train.

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Presentation: Framed
Oil on canvas
18 5/16 x 13 3/4 in. (46.5 x 35 cm).



Provenance: Madeline Canney

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Presentation: Framed
Brown ink on tracing paper, squared, laid on paper, 5¾ x 10¾ ins. (14.5 x 25.7 cms., mount opening)
Exhibited: The Fine Art Society, 1995 (9e)

Although Winifred Knights' Rome Scholarship came to an end in 1923, she continued to live and work at the British School at Rome during 1924-5, where she married her fellow student Thomas Monnington in April 1924. These studies, undertaken whilst on her honeymoon at Lake Piedeluca, were later used as the background of Knights' epic Santissima Trinita, 1924-30.

Knights made extensive landscape studies during her stay in Italy (see Italian Landscape, 1920, Tate Gallery NO3683), most frequently of the countryside around Lazio, Umbria and the Abruzzi. She often worked in triplicate, creating a drawing, then an outline on tracing paper and lastly a colour study. This colour study is sold with a brown ink outline drawing of the same subject.

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Presentation: Framed
Titled on a label to the reverse
Oil on board
14 1/4 x 21 3/8 ins (36x54.5cms)
Provenance: The Artist's daughter

In its original Alfred Stiles and Sons, Ltd frame, black and gold D-section frame.

Although Mahoney worked independently from mainstream movements, he remained interested in, and open-minded about the contemporary scene. He was especially interested in Surrealism, elements of which are reflected in this painting.

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Presentation: Framed
Signed
Watercolour
14 x 17 3/4 in. (35.5 x 44.5 cm.)

Provenance: Christine Sheppard
Literature: Raymond Sheppard, Capturing the Moment, Langford Press, reproduced in colour pages 148/9

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Presentation: Framed
Signed, number 170 on the reverse;
pencil,14 1/2 × 10 1/4 in. (36.7 × 26 cm.)
Provenance: the artistí's studio; William de Belleroche; private collection

'While his works are diverse ... they celebrate foremost the womanhood of our time ... These are thoroughly modern works which capture brief, reverent moments of joy, tenderness and wonder, much like the works of Sargent, Helleu or Besnard.Belleroche's portraits of woman are iconographic' (Claude Roger-Marx, 'Peintres-lithographes Contemporains: Albert Belleroche', Gazette des Beaux-Arts I, vol.39, 1908,p.74).

Along with Paul Helleu, Belleroche produced some of the most evocative images of belle-Èpoque women of his generation. Although Belleroche made a number of lithographs of women with turbans or toques around this period, none are known to relate specifically to this study.

We are grateful to Gordon Anderson for assistance.

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Presentation: Framed
inscribed: full page in Punch on reverse
oil on card 11 3/8 x 9 7/8 in. (29 x 25 cms).

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Presentation: Mounted
Watercolour over pencil
15 1/2 x 23 in. (39.5 x 58.5 cm.)

Provenance: Jeremy Kemp, studio ref no. AK43
This sketch is of the head workings of the great old DORETHEA slate quarry up by NANTLE. The tall building was the pump house with its huge single cylinder beam engine. The steep ramp was used to pull the massive blocks of slate op to the cutting sheds above. The wooden winch heads which hoisted the slate up from the quarry bottom are to the left. As a small boy  the artist's son Jeremy used to love playing up there.  This was a study for  a large mural that  Kemp did to depict the decline of the slate industry in North Wales, around 1940.


We are grateful to Jeremy Kemp for assistance. 

Enquire about this picture£3,000

Presentation: Framed
Signed with monogram
Chalk on blue paper
24 x 7 1/2 in. (61 x 19 cm).

In a square section gilded oak frame with broad inner slip, glazed

Enquire about this picture£2,950

Presentation: Framed
Signed and dated October 1948, inscribed with title to reverse Oil on panel, 8½ x 10½ ins. (26.7 x 21.6 cms.)

1948, the year of this picture, marks Roger's move from realism to highly coloured, geometric abstract pictures and cut-metal sculptures. This transition was partly inspired by the extensive travels that he undertook in Europe, India and Egypt whilst serving in the Royal Air Force during World War II.

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Presentation: Passe-partout
Watercolour and pen on light blue paper, 37 x 31.5cm (46 x 41cm framed)

Enquire about this picture£900

Presentation: Framed
Pencil
4 3/4 x 5 1/2 in. (12 x 14 cm.)

Provenance: The Artist's Estate

This is likely to be a study for the Deluge.  The model appears to be Arnold Mason, who Knights was at the time engaged to.

Enquire about this picture£850

Presentation: Passe-partout
Pencil and watercolour on paper, 17.5 x 17cm (24.5 x 24.5cm framed)

‘Great advances were made by the artists of the last generation in the treatment of form and of colour, it is doubtful whether the twentieth century will not be marked by certain discoveries’ (James Wood, introduction to R.A. Wilson: Exhibition of Paintings and Colour Studies, exh. cat., Guild of Decorators Syndicate, London, May 1922).

Exploring colour harmony was central to Wilson’s work and a subject on which he wrote and lectured. ‘Colour: its meaning and use, logic,mystery, symbolism and power’ was the title of his BBC radio broadcast talk, in May 1920. His paintings, which go beyond the routine colour studies based on Chevruel’s theories, were much studied by art students of the period, and were part of a wider discourse that was taking place at the time, led by intellectual luminaries such as James Wood.

Literature: Eye-Music, Kandinsky, Klee and all that Jazz, Frances Guy, Pallant House, Chichester, 2007, p. 96-99