Arthur Hacker (1858 - 1919)

England Arthur Hacker was accomplished in a spectrum of different styles and genres that were distinctively his own. Hacker studied at the Royal Academy Schools from 1876 and in Paris from 1880-81 under the portrait painter Leon Bonnat. He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1878 and his 1892 exhibit, The Annunciation, was bought for the Nation under the terms of the Chantrey Bequest. He was a founding member of the New English Art Club.

Alongside his late allegorical subjects, he produced atmospheric London street scenes such as A Wet Night at Piccadilly Circus, which was chosen for Hacker’s diploma work for the Royal Academy upon his election to a full member in 1910. He also produced genre paintings inspired by the rural realism of Jean-Francois Millet. Furthermore, throughout his life, Hacker was in demand as a portrait painter of glamorous society women, dignified gentlemen, and fellow artists.

Arthur Hacker

ARTHUR HACKER, RA
(1858-1919)

Portrait of Dora Radcliffe

Signed and dated u.l.: To Dora Radcliffe/ from Arthur Hacker/ Aug ‘92
Oil on canvas
Framed

56 by 43 cm., 22 by 17 in.
(frame size 74 by 61.5 cm., 29 by 24 ¼ in.)

Arthur Hacker was the son of Edward Hacker, a London based engraver. He studied at the Royal Academy Schools between 1867-80 and at the Atelier of Leon Bonnat in Paris, where one of his fellow students was Stanhope Forbes. After Paris he travelled in Spain and North Africa with fellow artist Solomon J Solomon and would return to revisit these areas on many future sketching expeditions. His diverse subject matter includes still lifes; romantic, religious and figure subjects; portraits and landscapes. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1878, being elected an Academician in 1910. He was also a regular exhibitor at the New Gallery and became a founding member of the New English Art Club in 1886. Works by him are in the collections of the Tate Gallery, London; Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; Leeds City Art Gallery and many other public and private collections.


Arthur Hacker - Portrait of Dora Radcliffe

Charles March Gere (1869 - 1957)

Gloucestershire Charles March Gere was born in Gloucester in 1869, became a student at the Birmingham School of Art in the late 1880s and a staff member in 1893. He was also a member of the “Birmingham Group,” an informal circle of talented craft workers and artists, which began to form in the 1890s. Most of the group members, including Gere, taught at the Birmingham Municipal School of Art. Under its head Edward R. Taylor it had become one of Britain’s most innovative art schools. Comparable to the famous Glasgow School of Art in its impact on late Victorian design, it was also one of the key centres of the Arts and Crafts movement. Fellow teachers at the school included Arthur Gaskin (1862-1928) Sidney Meteyard (1868-1947), Henry Payne (1868-1940) Mary Newill (1860-1947) and Bernard Sleigh (1872-1954). Joseph Southall (1861-1944) was not connected with the school, but his experiments in tempera at his Edgebaston studio provided another focus for the group.

In addition, Birmingham had been the home city of Sir Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898), and at the end of the century his fame predisposed young Birmingham painters to emulate his decorative medievalising style and his fascination with Pre-Raphaelitism. The revivals, both of tempera painting and of interest in William Blake, emerged from late Pre-Raphaelite circles and were taken up by the Birmingham Group, which provides the context for the subject and technique of Infant Joy.

Group members made personal contact with William Morris (1834-1896) and Burne-Jones in the 1890s. Morris was sufficiently impressed with the Birmingham artists’ decorative drawing style to commission both Gaskin and Gere to illustrate books published by his Kelmscott Press. Gere produced the most famous illustration: the image of Kelmscott Manor, which opens Morris’s Utopian romance News From Nowhere. In this book, Morris contrasts the idyllic English countryside of an imaginary socialist future with the injustice and squalor of modern industrialised society. The idealisation of rural life is widespread in modern culture, but it was an ideal which many members of the arts and crafts movement tried to put into practice as well as express through their art; the phenomenon is studied in Jan Marsh’s Back to the Land Quartet, 1982. In 1901, Gere set Infant Joy in an Arcadian landscape, likely derived from studies made while on holiday in Italy. (The Italian style of the tiny church in the background is notable.) Gere exhibited Sunset in Perugia at the New Gallery in 1898, Assisi in 1904. In 1902, the year it was exhibited, Gere was living for the first time in Painswick in the Cotswolds, a great contrast to industrial Birmingham (then England’s second biggest city), and where he made his permanent home in 1904.

Gere’s early Pre-Raphaelite phase with its imaginative subjects was short-lived. By 1910 he was concentrating on landscapes, and painting increasingly in oil. In fact he became almost exclusively a painter of serene and idyllic landscapes in the later years of his life. Although his art lost much of its early intensity, he retained a sensitivity to the spirit of place, and his later work brought him academic honours. He was elected Associate of the Royal Academy in 1934, and then Member of the Royal Academy in 1939. He was also a member of the Royal Watercolour Society. He died in 1957.

Charles March Gere

CHARLES MARCH GERE, RA, RWS
(1884-1963)

Haresfield Beacon, near Painswick

Signed with monogram and dated l.r.: 1909
Watercolour heightened with scratching out over traces of pencil
Framed

19.5 by 34.5 cm., 7 ¾ by 13 ½ in.
(frame size 43 by 57 cm., 17 by 22 ½ in.)

Provenance:
Benjamin Martin Chadler, Hidcote House;
Paul Whitfield Collection.

Gere was born in Gloucester and studied at the Birmingham School of Art under E R Taylor and he joined the staff of the art school in 1893. In the 1890s he worked as an illustrator, contributing to The Quest and books illustrated by the Birmingham Group and designing the frontispiece for William Morris’s News from Nowhere (Kelmscott Press, 1892). In his early career he was involved in a number of the arts and crafts, designing embroidery, metalwork and stained glass and painting the reredos in the Chapel at Madresfield. Gradually, however, he became almost exclusively a landscape painter. In about 1904 he and his sister Margaret settled in Painswick, near Stroud, and many of his subjects were found in the surrounding Cotswolds, which was to become his favourite painting ground. He exhibited at the New Gallery, Society of Painters in Tempera, Royal Academy, New English Art Club, Royal Watercolour Society and Art Workers Guild. A memorial exhibition was held in Gloucester in 1963.


Charles March Gere - Haresfield Beacon, near Painswick

The present work shows the Painswick stonemason, Henry Musty, accompanied by his dog Pepper. He is shown working on the wall of building near Paradise, a small hamlet about half a mile north of Painswick. There is a study for the painting titled A Survival of the Past in a private UK collection. Although exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1938 it seems likely this is the earlier painting known as The Stonebreaker, exhibited at the Birmingham Group Exhibition in 1919 (no.133) and at the Cotswold Gallery in 1921 (no.3).

Gere was born in Gloucester and studied at the Birmingham School of Art under E R Taylor and he joined the staff of the art school in 1893. In the 1890s he worked as an illustrator, contributing to The Quest and books illustrated by the Birmingham Group and designing the frontispiece for William Morris’s News from Nowhere (Kelmscott Press, 1892). In his early career he was involved in a number of the arts and crafts, designing embroidery, metalwork and stained glass and painting the reredos in the Chapel at Madresfield. Gradually, however, he became almost exclusively a landscape painter. In about 1904 he and his sister Margaret settled in Painswick, near Stroud, and many of his subjects were found in the surrounding Cotswolds, which was to become his favourite painting ground. He exhibited at the New Gallery, Society of Painters in Tempera, Royal Academy, New English Art Club, Royal Watercolour Society and Art Workers Guild. A memorial exhibition was held in Gloucester in 1963.


A Cotswold Stonebreaker by Charles March Gere

Gilbert Joseph Holiday (1879 - 1937)

Gilbert Joseph Holiday

GILBERT JOSEPH HOLIDAY
(1879-1937)

Lost a Shoe

Signed with initials l.r.: G.H.
Pencil
Unramed

11.5 by 17 cm., 4 ½ by 6 ¾ in.
(mount size 25.5 by 30 cm., 10 by 11 ¾ in.)

Gilbert Holiday was the son of Sir Frederick Holiday and nephew of Henry Holiday, the painter and stained-glass designer. His early years were spent in St John’s Wood where he would have been familiar with the horses and troops of the Royal Horse Artillery. He was educated at Westminster before attending the Royal Academy Schools and first worked as an illustrator for The Graphic, Tatler and The Illustrated London News. At this time he shared a studio with Lionel Edwards who said of Holiday “no one can, or ever could, paint a horse in action better that Gilbert could.”

In 1908 he married Mina Spencer of Guernsey. At the First World War he worked as a war artist for The Graphic before being commissioned into the Royal Field Artillery as a Forward Observation Officer in 1915. Later appointed as Reconnaissance Officer, he was allowed to draw across the 8th Corps area and prepared a number of artillery panoramas, several of which were later purchased by The Imperial War Museum (now believed lost). He played an active part in drawing up plans of enemy positions, often venturing into No Man’s Land with his sketchbook.

Holiday left the army in 1919. His work continued to appear regularly in Tatler and Illustrated London News, although he now became a well-respected equestrian artist and illustrator, painting every kind of equine subject including hunting, racing, polo, coaching, working horses and show jumping. He was also popular for Regimental commissions. Being equally confident working in oil, watercolour, pastel or pencil, he was considered on the outstanding equestrian artists of his day. A keen hunting man, Holiday had a serious fall in 1932, crushing his spinal cord. He never walked again and although paralysed below the waist he continued to paint until his death in 1937.


Gilbert Holiday Hunting Scene - Lost a Shoe

William Shackleton (1872 - 1933)

William Shackleton was born in Bradford, the son of a paper manufacturer and merchant.  He was educated at Bradford Grammar School and then studied art at Bradford Technical College.  In 1893 he won a scholarship to the National Art Training School (later to become the Royal College of Art), where he gained a British Institute Scholarship in 1896.  This enabled him to study in Paris and Italy.  On returning to London, he took a studio in Chelsea, sharing it with Philip Connard and Oliver Onions.  He would spend many of the summer months West Sussex, joining Edward Stott and his artistic community based around the South Downs village of Amberley.  After 1914 he moved to a cottage close to Gordale Scar, near Malham, in the Yorkshire Dales.  There the dramatic landscape would feature in many of his later paintings.  

Greatly influenced by Turner and George Frederic Watts in his colouring, atmosphere and impressionist handling, Shackleton developed a personal vision of the spirituality of nature which was reflected in his symbolist paintings which often depicted the mysticism of life and destiny via the myths and legends of antiquity.  He described his own work as “conscientious symbolism”.

Shackleton exhibited widely sending being a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy and many other major venues both in London and regionally.  He also represented Britain at the Venice Biennale in 1910 and again in 1922.  He held solo shows at the Goupil Gallery in 1913 and at the Twenty-One Gallery in 1910 and 1922.  In 1933 a memorial exhibition was held at the Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, Bradford.  Works by him are in many public collections


William Shackleton

WILLIAM SHACKLETON, NEAC
(1872-1933)

Pelargoniums

Signed l.c.: Wm Shackleton
Oil and pencil on paper
Framed

37 by 24 cm., 14 ½ by 9 ½ in.
(frame size 50.5 by 37.5 cm., 20 by 14 ¾ in.)

Provenance:
The artist’s studio sale.

William Shackleton was born in Bradford, the son of a paper manufacturer and merchant. He was educated at Bradford Grammar School and then studied art at Bradford Technical College. In 1893 he won a scholarship to the National Art Training School (later to become the Royal College of Art), where he gained a British Institute Scholarship in 1896. This enabled him to study in Paris and Italy. On returning to London, he took a studio in Chelsea, sharing it with Philip Connard and Oliver Onions. He would spend many of the summer months West Sussex, joining Edward Stott and his artistic community based around the South Downs village of Amberley. After 1914 he moved to a cottage close to Gordale Scar, near Malham, in the Yorkshire Dales. There the dramatic landscape would feature in many of his later paintings.

Greatly influenced by Turner and George Frederic Watts in his colouring, atmosphere and impressionist handling, Shackleton developed a personal vision of the spirituality of nature which was reflected in his symbolist paintings which often depicted the mysticism of life and destiny via the myths and legends of antiquity. He described his own work as “conscientious symbolism”.

Shackleton exhibited widely sending being a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy and many other major venues both in London and regionally. He also represented Britain at the Venice Biennale in 1910 and again in 1922. He held solo shows at the Goupil Gallery in 1913 and at the Twenty-One Gallery in 1910 and 1922. In 1933 a memorial exhibition was held at the Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, Bradford. Works by him are in many public collections.


William Shackleton - Pelargoniums

Gerald Mackenzie Leet (1913 - 1998)

Gerald Mackenzie Leet

GERALD MACKENZIE LEET
(BRITISH 1913-1998)

A Day at the Seaside – Design for a Mural

Watercolour and gouache over pencil, arched top
Framed

26.5 by 49.5 cm., 10 ½ by 19 ½ in.
(frame size 47.5 by 69.5 cm., 18 ¾ by 27 ½ in.)

Provenance:
The artist’s estate;
Harry Moore-Gwyn Fine Art.

Gerald Leet was born in South London and studied at Goldsmiths’ School of Art 1929-1934, the Royal Academy of Art 1934-1937 and later at the Courtauld Institute. As a young man he shared a studio with Carel Weight. His first teaching appointment at Ealing School of Art in 1933 where he met fellow art student Denton Welch. He painted a portrait of Welch and had a large collection of his paintings. Having spent some time in the USA he returned to Britain in 1939 and at the outbreak of war he joined the army served in South Africa and Egypt. During this time he came to the attention of Lord Wavell, Viceroy of India, and was appointed official war artist in New Delhi. Following the war he returned to teaching being a master at Eton, 1946-1949 and later at Brighton College of Art. As a portrait painter he painted portraits of a number of members of the Queen Mother’s staff living, for a time in an apartment in Windsor Castle.


Gerald Mackenzie Leet - A Day at the Seaside - Design for a Mural

Helen Allingham (1848 - 1926)

Helen Allingham

27 by 20 cm., 10 ¾ by 8 in.  (frame size 47 by 42 cm., 18 ½ by 16 ½ in.)

Helen Allingham (nee Paterson) was born near Burton-on-Trent, Derbyshire, and received her training as an artist at the Birmingham School of Design and Royal Academy Schools. She began her career as an illustrator for The Graphic and the Cornhill magazines; she also produced colour illustrations for a number of books. 

In 1874 Helen married the Irish poet William Allingham, a close friend of Rossetti, which enabled her to enter the closed circle of the Pre-Raphaelites. She edited for publication her husband’s diary, which was published in 1907 and contains many interesting reminiscences of Tennyson, Carlyle and other well known contemporaries, including John Ruskin, who wrote kindly of her work in his book The Art of England, 1884. She worked continuously until her death, painting studies of rural cottages and country gardens, recording the changing rural lifestyles. She supplied colour illustrations for a number of books: 

 (1909). Works by her are in many public collections.

Helen Allingham - The Woodland Path

Alfred William Hunt (1830 - 1896)

Alfred William Hunt

Watercolour heightened with scratching out 

26 by 36.5 cm., 10 by 14 in. (frame size 45 by 55.5 cm., 17 by ) 

Hunt was born in Liverpool in 1830. He began to paint while at the Liverpool Collegiate School. However, at his father’s suggestion he went in 1848 to Corpus Christi College, Oxford to study classics. His career there was distinguished; he won the Newdigate Prize in 1851 for his poem Nineveh, and he became a fellow of Corpus in 1853. He did not, however, abandon his artistic practice for, encourage by Ruskin, he exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1854, and afterwards contributed landscapes in oil and watercolour to London and other provincial exhibitions. In 1861 he married, gave up his Fellowship, and in 1862 was elected as an Associate of the Old Water-Colour Society, receiving full membership in 1864. His work is distinguished mainly by its exquisite quality and poetic rendering of atmosphere. He was associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and the extraordinary detail apparent in his landscapes and the careful rendering of grass, leaves and trees is a consequence of this. The present work is related to the artist’s large 1889 watercolour of Windsor Castle now in the collection of the Tate Gallery. It also shows the castle as viewed from the Eton side of the River Thames although slightly further upstream and away from the moored boats which feature in the foreground of the Tate picture. There is another watercolour version of the Tate picture in the collection of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and a related sketch in the collection of the British Museum. Hunt spent a considerable time in Windsor in 1888, filling several sketchbooks. Two finished watercolours of the castle were later exhibited at the Royal Watercolour Society in 1889 and 1890.

Windsor Castle, Morning by Alfred William Hunt

John Paddy Carstairs (1916 - 1970)

John Paddy Carstairs

JOHN PADDY CARSTAIRS
(1910-1970)

Boats at Teddington

Signed and dated ‘52; bears title and the artist’s address on the label attached to the backboard
Watercolour and bodycolour over pencil

34 by 48.5 cm., 13 ½ by 19 in.
(frame size 47 by 61 cm., 18 ½ by 24 in.)

Exhibited:
London, The Chelsea Art Society.

John Paddy Carstairs (born John Keys) was a British film director, television director, comic novelist and painter.

He studied at Repton and the Slade School of Fine Art. He exhibited at the Royal Academy, Leicester Galleries, Royal Society of British Artists and Paris Salon and held one man shows at the Redfern Gallery, Leger Gallery and Walkers Galleries. Works by him are in the collections of Trinity College, Oxford, Manchester City Art Gallery and Kirkcaldy Museum and Art Gallery.

As a director he is best known for his long associate with the television and film adaptations of Leslie Charteris’ novels chronicling the adventures of his charming hero Simon Templar, alias “The Saint”. He also directed many British comedies including many of Norman Wisdom’s films.

He lived in Chiswick and later at Kingston Hill, Surrey.


Boats at Teddington by Paddy Carstairs

George Louis Palmella Busson Du Maurier (1834 - 1896)

United Kingdom Du Maurier was born in Paris and came to London as a student studying Chemistry at University College in 1851. He returned to Paris as an art student in 1856-7 to work under Gleyre and there made the acquaintance of Whistler and Poynter (a period of his life to feature in his novel Trilby). The loss of an eye precluded him from following a career as a painter and he decided to concentrate on black and white work. He returned to London in 1860 and took up book and magazine illustrating becoming one of the greatest social satirists of the period. From 1864 he became a regular contributor to Punch and succeeded John Leech as one of the chief observers and caricaturists of Victorian fashion and high society.

George Louis Palmella Busson Du Maurier

Ada: “What horrid things black-beetles are, Miss Grimm! The kitchen is full of them!” The Governess: “I agree with you, Ada! But as they are not beetles, and not black, perhaps you will call them cock-roaches for the future!” Ada: “Certainly, Miss Grimm; although they are not roaches, and not cocks!” 

15.5 by 19.5 cm., 6 by 7 in. (frame size 32.5 by 37 cm., 12 by 14 in.) 

: Mr Punch with The Children, The Punch, London, c.1910, p.64, illus. 

George Louis Palmella Busson du Maurier was born in Paris and came to London as a student studying Chemistry at University College in 1851. He returned to Paris as an art student in 1856-7 to work under Gleyre and there made the acquaintance of Whistler and Poynter (a period of his life to feature in his novel Trilby). The loss of an eye precluded him from following a career as a painter and he decided to concentrate on black and white work. He returned to London in 1860 and took up book and magazine illustrating becoming one of the greatest social satirists of the period. From 1864 he became a regular contributor to Punch and succeeded John Leech as one of the chief observers and caricaturists of Victorian fashion and high society.

Scientific Accuracy

Maxwell Ashby Armfield (1882 - 1972)

EnglandBorn at Ringwood of Quaker parents, his father being a milling engineer, Armfield entered the Birmingham School of Art in 1899. There he came under the influence of Henry Payne, Gaskin and Southall, who taught him the tempera technique he was to practice for the rest of his life, and was deeply impressed by the Pre-Raphaelite paintings in the Art Gallery. In September 1902, after visiting Italy at the suggestion of Gaskin, he went to Paris, enrolling at the Académie de la Grande ChaumiÃ¨re and sharing a studio with three other students - Norman Wilkinson (also from Birmingham), Keith Henderson and the sculptor Gaston Lachaise. In 1904 his painting Faustine, inspired by the English poet Algernon Swinburne, was bought for the Luxembourg.

Returning from London the following year, he embarked on a series of one-man exhibitions that were henceforth to mark his career, showing first at Robert Rosss Carfax Gallery (1908, 1912), subsequently at the Leicester Galleries and elsewhere, as well as contributing regularly to the RA, NEAC and RWS (member since 1941). In 1909 he married the writer Constance Smedley, with whom he was to work closely until her death in 1941. In 1915 they left for an intensely active and successful seven year spell in America. Armfield was not only a painter but a prolific illustrator and versatile decorative artist, while being deeply involved in theatre, music, teaching and journalism and writing some twenty books, including poetry, accounts of foreign travel, and such textbooks as the much-acclaimed Manual of Tempera Painting (dedicated to Southall, 1930).

He was also a tireless researcher into occult religions, and passionately interested in the formal and philosophical basis of art. Neglected for many years after the Second World War, he lived to see a revival of interest in his work before his death at the age of ninety-one in 1972.

Maxwell Ashby Armfield

Signed, inscribed and dated l.c.: MAXWELL ARMFIELD/MDCCCCIV [1904] PARIS;SIEGFRIED/ACT III, 

24 by 16 cm., 9 by 6 in. (frame size 42.5 by 34.5 cm., 16 by 13 in.) 

The present work is a preparatory drawing for the artist's 1905 tempera painting of the same subject.

Born at Ringwood, Hampshire, of Quaker parents, his father being a milling engineer, Armfield studied at the Birmingham School of Art under Arthur Gaskin and Joseph Southall who taught him the tempera technique he was to practice for the rest of his life. In September 1902, after visiting Italy at the suggestion of Gaskin, he went to Paris, enrolling at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere and sharing a studio with three other students: Norman Wilkinson (also from Birmingham); Keith Henderson and the sculptor Gaston Lachaise. Returning to London the following year, he embarked on the series of one-man exhibitions that were henceforth to mark his career, showing first at Robert Ross’s Carfax Gallery (1908, 1912) and subsequently at the Leicester Galleries and elsewhere, as well as contributing regularly to the RA, NEAC and RWS. In 1909 he married the writing Constance Smedley, with whom he was to work closely until her death in 1941. In 1915 they left for an intensely active and successful seven-year spell in America.

 Armfield was not only a painter but a prolific illustrator and versatile decorative artist, while being deeply involved in theatre, music, teaching and journalism and writing some twenty books, including poetry, accounts of his foreign travels and such textbooks as the much-acclaimed Manual of Tempera Painting (1930). He was also a tireless researcher in occult religions and passionately interested in the formal and philosophical basis of art.

 He is represented in the collection of the British Museum and many provincial and overseas galleries. The present work is a preparatory drawing for the artist’s 1905 tempera painting of the same subject.

Siegfried by Maxwell Armfield

Albert Rutherston (1881 - 1953)

Albert Rutherston

At Valescure Signed and dated l.r.: Albert Rutherston 1938; bears title on a copy of the original label attached to the backboard 

Watercolour, bodycolour and pen and ink Framed 

25 by 35 cm., 9 by 13 in. (frame size 51 by 64 cm., 20 by 25 in.) 

: The artist and by descent to Gloria, Countess Bathurst. 

Born Albert Daniel Rothenstein, he was the youngest of the six children of Moritz and Bertha Rothenstein, German-Jewish immigrants who had settled in Bradford, Yorkshire in the 1860s. He and his siblings proved to be a hugely talented and artistic family, his elder brother became Sir William Rotherstein (1872-1945), the artist and director of the Royal College of Art; two of his other siblings, Charles Rutherston and Emily Hesslein, both accumulated major modern British and French art collections and his nephew Sir John Rothenstein was direct of the Tate Gallery. He was educated at Bradford Grammar School before moving to London in 1898 to study at the Slade School of Art where he became close friends with Augustus John and William Orpen. He met Walter Sickert during a painting holiday in France in 1900 and by introducing Sickert to Spencer Gove became instrumental in the beginning of the Camden Town Group. He was one of Sickert’s most frequent companions and was one of the original members of the Fitzroy Street Group Rutherston had a sociable and attractive personality, he frequently travelled abroad with other artists including Max Beerbohm, Spencer Gore, Walter Russell and Edna Clarke Hall. It was Clarke Hall who introduced him to watercolour painting and in 1910, while in Grasse on the France Riviera with the artist Gerald Chowne, he tried his hand at watercolour painting on silk, a technique most famously used by his friend Charles Conder. These watercolour lead to his first solo exhibition at the Carfax Gallery in October1910. In 1911 he collaborated with the English dramatist and director, Harley Granville-Barker, to design costumes for Granville-Barker’s innovative production of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, performed at the Savoy Theatre in 1912. At the outbreak of World War I he was initially assigned a desk job with the Engineers’ War Service Register at the Board of Trade and from October 1916 he served with the Northamptonshire Regiment in Egypt and Palestine. At this time he he anglicised his surname as a declaration of patriotism to the country of his birth. Following the war he returned to his artistic career and married the actress, Marjory Holman. He took a number of teaching posts, starting at Camberwell School of Art and later becoming Ruskin Master of Drawing in 1929. At the same time his own work flourished when he was recruited as an illustrator by the Curwen Press along with Claud Lovat Fraser and Paul Nash. In 1938 he largely returned to oil painting. Rutherston became a member of the New English Art Club in 1905, a member of the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours in 1942 and was also a regular exhibitor at the Cheltenham Group. Examples of his work are in the collections of the Tate Gallery, Victoria & Albert Museum Ashmolean Museum, Bradford Art Gallery Manchester City Art Gallery and elsewhere. This work comes from the collection of Gloria, Countess of Bathurst (1927-2018) whose first marriage had been to David Rutherston, the son of Albert and Marjory Rutherston.

At Valescure, South of France by Albert Rutherstonlan

Leslie Frederick Jewell

Leslie Frederick Jewell was born in Whipton, on the outskirts of Exeter, and lived in the same house in Whipton Village Road for all his life.  He trained at the Exeter firm of J Wippel & Co, supplier of ecclesiastical fabrics and clothes who at that time were also involved in the repair and restoration of church interiors.  During World War II he served in the Royal Engineers and following the war he became master carver to Herbert Read Ltd of Exeter.  He was responsible for the carving in many of the company’s major commissions, including the work at Windsor Castle after the fire; the Houses of Parliament; Exeter Cathedral and the magnificent interior of Washington DC National Cathedral.

Jewell’s employment meant he was constantly working in the gothic style, however, for pleasure he would turn to nature for his inspiration and he produced a small number of wonderfully complex carvings of birds and animals.  He would occasionally exhibit these carvings at local shows and competitions but they were primarily executed for his own pleasure.


LESLIE FREDERICK JEWELL
(1912-2005)

Barn Owl and Harvest Mice

Carved beechwood on circular dark oak base

58.5 by 52 cm., 23 by 20 ½ in.

Leslie Frederick Jewell was born in Whipton, on the outskirts of Exeter, and lived in the same house in Whipton Village Road for all his life. He trained at the Exeter firm of J Wippel & Co, supplier of ecclesiastical fabrics and clothes who at that time were also involved in the repair and restoration of church interiors. During World War II he served in the Royal Engineers and following the war he became master carver to Herbert Read Ltd of Exeter. He was responsible for the carving in many of the company’s major commissions, including the work at Windsor Castle after the fire; the Houses of Parliament; Exeter Cathedral and the magnificent interior of Washington DC National Cathedral.

Jewell’s employment meant he was constantly working in the gothic style, however, for pleasure he would turn to nature for his inspiration and he produced a small number of wonderfully complex carvings of birds and animals which include the present example. He would occasionally exhibit these carvings at local shows and competitions but they were primarily executed for his own pleasure.

We are grateful to Laurence Beckford, Master Carver, for his kind assistance in cataloguing this item.


Barn Owl and Harvest Mice - Wood Carving by Leslie Frederick Jewell

John Frederick Herring Jnr

JOHN FREDERICK HERRING, JNR
(1820-1907)

Taking the Team Home

Signed and dated l.c. l.r.: J F Herring 1844
Oil on canvas
Framed

46 by 61 cm., 18 by 24 in.

Provenance:
Private collection, UK

John Frederick Herring Jnr was born in Doncaster, the son of the great equestrian and sporting artist John Frederick Herring, Snr. He studied under his father and from about 1835 Herring Snr would add Sr behind his signature to distinguish his own work from that of his talented son. His brothers Charles and Benjamin were also artists.


Taking the Team Home by John Frederick Herring Jnr

Carton Moore Park (1877 - 1956)

Carton Moore Park

CARTON MOORE PARK
(1877-1956)

The Kicking Donkey and Watching Cow

A Pair
One signed
Both grisaille watercolour heightened with white
Framed

37 by 35 cm., 14 ½ by 13 ¾ in. each
(frame size 58.5 by 55.5 cm., 23 by 21 ¾ in. each)

Canadian born Frederic Carton Moore Park studied at Glasgow School of Art under Francis Newbery. He specialized in highly stylized illustrations and prints of animal subjects. He wrote and illustrated a variety of children’s books featuring animals, including; An Alphabet of Animals (1899); A Book of Birds (1900); The Dog Book (1902); The King of the Beasts (1904); The Fables of La Fontaine (1905); The Wonders of the Insect World (1906); The Children’s Story of the Bee (1909) and Biffel – A Trek Ox (1909). In 1910 he move to the USA.

Works by him at in the collection of the Tate Gallery and National Portrait Gallery, London and the Smithsonian Institute, Washington.


Carton Moore Park - Donkey and Cow - a pair

WILLIAM SHACKLETON, NEAC
(1872-1933)

Sky Study

Signed and dated l.l.: Wm Shackleton ‘92
Oil on paper
Framed

32 by 47 cm., 12 ½ by 18 ½ in.
(frame size 51.5 by 66 cm., 20 ¼ by 26 in.)

Provenance:
The artist’s studio sale.

William Shackleton was born in Bradford, the son of a paper manufacturer and merchant. He was educated at Bradford Grammar School and then studied art at Bradford Technical College. In 1893 he won a scholarship to the National Art Training School (later to become the Royal College of Art), where he gained a British Institute Scholarship in 1896. This enabled him to study in Paris and Italy. On returning to London, he took a studio in Chelsea, sharing it with Philip Connard and Oliver Onions. He would spend many of the summer months West Sussex, joining Edward Stott and his artistic community based around the South Downs village of Amberley. After 1914 he moved to a cottage close to Gordale Scar, near Malham, in the Yorkshire Dales. There the dramatic landscape would feature in many of his later paintings.

Greatly influenced by Turner and George Frederic Watts in his colouring, atmosphere and impressionist handling, Shackleton developed a personal vision of the spirituality of nature which was reflected in his symbolist paintings which often depicted the mysticism of life and destiny via the myths and legends of antiquity. He described his own work as “conscientious symbolism”.

Shackleton exhibited widely sending being a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy and many other major venues both in London and regionally. He also represented Britain at the Venice Biennale in 1910 and again in 1922. He held solo shows at the Goupil Gallery in 1913 and at the Twenty-One Gallery in 1910 and 1922. In 1933 a memorial exhibition was held at the Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, Bradford. Works by him are in many public collections.


William Shackleton - Sky Study

MAXWELL ARMFIELD, RWS.
(British 1882-1972)

Costume Design for Geranos

Signed l.l.: MAXWELL ARMFIELD, inscribed u.l.: Costume, PHEONIX CEREMONY/ IAN (?) VALO as DAVID, and further inscribed u.r.: GERANOS
Watercolour and pencil
Framed

37.5 by 31 cm., 14 ¾ by 12 ¼ in.
(frame size 65 by 58 cm., 25 ½ by 23 in.)

Provenance:
The Estate of the late Peter Farley, theatre designer.

The Geranos is the most famous dance of Greek antiquity. Probably Minoan in origin, legend says it was invented by Theseus, who danced it for the first time in Delos after the rescue of seven youths and seven maidens from the Labyrinth.

Born at Ringwood, Hampshire, of Quaker parents, his father being a milling engineer, Armfield studied at the Birmingham School of Art under Arthur Gaskin and Joseph Southall who taught him the tempera technique he was to practice for the rest of his life. In September 1902, after visiting Italy at the suggestion of Gaskin, he went to Paris, enrolling at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere and sharing a studio with three other students – Norman Wilkinson (also from Birmingham), Keith Henderson and the sculptor Gaston Lachaise. Returning to London the following year, he embarked on the series of one-man exhibitions that were henceforth to mark his career, showing first at Robert Ross’s Carfax Gallery (1908, 1912) and subsequently at the Leicester Galleries and elsewhere, as well as contributing regularly to the RA, NEAC and RWS.

In 1909 Armfield married the writer Constance Smedley, with whom he was to work closely until her death in 1941. They became involved in theatre producitons when they lived in Minchinhampton and had staged the Gloucestershire Historical Pageant of Progress. This led to the formation of the Cotswold Players, which toured village halls, seeing themselves very much in the medieval tradition of travelling players. In early 1915 they moved to Glebe Place, Chelsea where they founded the Greenleaf Players which involved striking costumes and highly choreographed rhythmic movements. Later that year they took they moved to New York, taking the Green Leaf Players with them where it became part of their intensely active and successful seven-year spell in America.

Armfield was not only a painter but a prolific illustrator and versatile decorative artist, while being deeply involved in theatre, music, teaching and journalism and writing some twenty books, including poetry, accounts of his foreign travels and such textbooks as the much-acclaimed Manual of Tempera Painting (1930). He was also a tireless researcher in occult religions and passionately interested in the formal and philosophical basis of art. Armfield designed his own house at Ibsley, on the edge of the New Forest in Hampshire. During this period, he and Constance helped found the New Forest Group of Painters.

He is represented in the collection of the British Museum and many provincial and overseas galleries.


Maxwell Armfield - Costume Design for Geranos

James Woodford, RA (1893-1976)

James Woodford



Signed l.r.: JAMES WOODFORD RA
Red chalk
Fframed



31 by 24 cm., 12 ¼ by 9 ½ in.
(frame size 50.5 by 43 cm., 20 by 17 in.)



James Arthur Woodford was born in Nottingham and studied at Nottingham School of Art until the outbreak of World War I, resuming his studies at the Royal College of Art after the war. There he became a Rome Scholar, 1922-25. A sculptor, his first major commission was for a set of bronze doors for Liverpool Blind School. This was followed by his 1934 commission to create a pair of monumental doors for the headquarters of the Royal Institute of British Architects in Portland Place, London. As part of the same project, he also made figures for the exterior columns, interior ceiling plaster reliefs and stone window pieces. During World War II he served as a camouflage officer with the Air Ministry and following the war he created a number of war memorials. For the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 he made a set of ten plaster sculptures of the Queen’s Beasts, each 6 feet tall, to be placed at the entrance of Westminster Abbey. These are now in the collection of the Canadian Museum of History, Quebec but stone replicas were made which were presented to Kew Gardens in 1956. Woodford supplied decorative work and sculpture for many London buildings in London and elsewhere, as well as for the interior the liner RMS Queen Mary.


Cockerel by James Woodford

Anne Harriet Sefton (1890 - 1964)

Anne Harriet Sefton

ANNE HARRIET SEFTON “FISH”
(1890-1964)


Signed l.r.: Fish and inscribed l.l.: Violet/to Edmond & Don
Watercolour
Framed



15.5 by 33 cm., 6 by 13 in.
(frame size 37 by 53.5 cm., 14 ½ by 21 in.)



Anne Fish was born in Bristol and studied at the London School of Art under Charles Orchardson and John Hassall followed by a time in Paris. In 1918 she married Walton Sefton, an Irish linen merchant, although she always used her maiden name, signing her works “FISH”. A great animal lover, she became particularly well-known for her amusing paintings of cats. She was also a noted caricaturist and social satirist, contributing drawings to Vogue, Vanity Fair and Tatler in the 1920s and 1930s, and writing and illustrating a number of humorous books of her own. After the war the couple moved to St Ives where she painted from her Digey studio and became involved in the management and hanging of the Newlyn Art Gallery.


Anne Harriet Sefton "Fish" - Violet, at Cat

Jules Lessore

Jules Lessore was born in Paris and initially studied under his father, the painter, printmaker and ceramic artist, Emile Lessore (1805-1876).  He travelled throughout Europe, painting landscapes, marines and portraits, although he principally known for his work in England, where he settled in 1871.  In Britain he exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1879 until his death in 1892.  He also exhibited at the Society of British Artist, New Watercolour Society and Grosvenor Gallery.  His son Frederick Lessore was a sculptor who founded and ran the Beaux Arts Gallery in London and his artist daughter Therese was a founder member of the London Group and third wife of Walter Sickert.

JULES LESSORE
(1849-1892)

The Bridge of Sighs, Venice

Signed l.r.: Jules Lessore
Watercolour
Framed

24.5 by 17 cm., 9 ¾ by 6 ¾ in.
(frame size 44.5 by 36.5 cm., 17 ½ by 14 ½ in.)

Provenance:
With Duncan Miller Fine Art, London.

Jules Lessore was born in Paris and initially studied under his father, the painter, printmaker and ceramic artist, Emile Lessore (1805-1876). He travelled throughout Europe, painting landscapes, marines and portraits, although he principally known for his work in England, where he settled in 1871. In Britain he exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1879 until his death in 1892. He also exhibited at the Society of British Artist, New Watercolour Society and Grosvenor Gallery. His son Frederick Lessore was a sculptor who founded and ran the Beaux Arts Gallery in London and his artist daughter Therese was a founder member of the London Group and third wife of Walter Sickert.


Jules Lessore - The Bridge of Sighs, Venice

Catharine Carrington

Born Catharine Whalley Alexander, she studied at the Slade School of Art.  In 1925 she married Noel Carrington, the author and publisher who was the brother of Dora Carrington.  Through her relationship with Dora she became closely associated with other members of the Bloomsbury Group.

CATHARINE CARRINGTON
(1904-2004)

Lovers

Watercolour and bodycolour over traces of pencil, shaped
Framed

13 by 19.5 cm., 5 by 7 ¾ in. at largest
(frame size 35 by 39.5 cm., 13 ¾ by 15 ½ in.)

Born Catharine Whalley Alexander, she studied at the Slade School of Art. In 1925 she married Noel Carrington, the author and publisher who was the brother of Dora Carrington. Through her relationship with Dora she became closely associated with other members of the Bloomsbury Group.

The present work probably dates to her time at the Slade when she would have been a near contemporary to Mary Adshead and Rex Whistler.


Lovers - by Catharine Carrington

Arthur Wardle

Arthur Wardle was born in London.  He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1880 when he was aged only 16 and thereafter was a regular and frequent exhibitor there and at many other London and provincial venues.  His early work seemed to concentrate on landscape and rustic scenes and it was not until the 1890s that he began to explore the subject matter for which he was to become so famous, namely domestic and wild animals, and big cats in particular.  He soon established a reputation for exhibiting large mythological and dramatic subjects, which gave him the opportunity to include lions, tigers, leopards and occasionally even polar bears.

Wardle lived in St John’s Wood.  Here he was close to London Zoo, which provided him with the chance to study his subjects closely.  As a regular visitor to the zoo he made numerous sketches, which he would then use to work on in the large canvases in his studio.  He was equally proficient in oils, watercolour and pastels and was elected to the Pastel Society in 1911.


Arthur Wardle was born in London. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1880 when he was aged only 16 and thereafter was a regular and frequent exhibitor there and at many other London and provincial venues. His early work seemed to concentrate on landscape and rustic scenes and it was not until the 1890s that he began to explore the subject matter for which he was to become so famous, namely domestic and wild animals, and big cats in particular. He soon established a reputation for exhibiting large mythological and dramatic subjects which gave him the opportunity to include lions, tigers, leopards and occasionally even polar bears. Wardle lived in St John’s Wood. Here he was close to London Zoo, which provided him with the chance to study his subjects closely. As a regular visitor to the zoo he made numerous sketches that he would then use to work on in the large canvases in his studio.

Study of a Water Hyacinth

William Huggins (1820 - 1884)

William Huggins

WILLIAM HUGGINS
(1820-1884)

Cockerel and Hens

Signed and dated l.r.: W Huggins 1880
Oil on board
Framed

31 by 46 cm., 12 ¼ by 18 in.
(frame size 44.5 by 59.5 cm., 17 ½ by 23 ½ in.)

Huggins was born in Liverpool and studied at the Liverpool Mechanics’ Institution, exhibiting work at the Liverpool Academy of Arts from an early age. Largely and animal painter, he drew from life, sketching the animals in Liverpool’s zoo, Wombwell’s Traveling Menagerie and the many pets and domestic animals in his own household. In addition to his animal subjects, he also painted landscapes and literary themes from Milton, Shelley and Spenser, although the subjects invariably included an animal. He exhibited Androcles and the Lion at the Royal Academy in 1846 and thereafter becoming a regular exhibitor both in London and in other major UK venues. He became a member of the Liverpool Academy in 1850. Examples of his work are in many public collections throughout the UK.

The board has been extended at all edges by the artist. This is visible to the eye.


William Huggins - Cockerel and Hens

George Denholm Armour (1864 - 1949)

Scotland George Denholm Armour, animal painter and cartoonist, was born at Waterside, Lanarkshire on the 30th January 1864. After attending St Andrews University, he moved to Edinburgh, where he studied at the School of Art and the RSA Schools. It was through the RSA that he met Robert Alexander and travelled with him to Tangiers in 1885 to paint and also to buy cheap horses, only returning when their money ran out. It was on a subsequent expedition to Tangiers that he met Joseph Crawhall, who remained a great friend until the latter’s untimely death in 1913. Both hunting mad, upon their return to England the two friends ran a stud together at Wheathampstead, Hertfordshire, where Crawhall continued to influence his friend’s work. The household only broke up when Armour married, with Crawhall standing as his best man. Although always a fine draughtsman, it was after he met Crawhall that Armour developed the subtle but strong drawing style seen in his work for Punch and other publications. He was first illustrated in The Graphic in 1890, while sharing a studio with Phil May in London, and from 1894 concentrated largely on his cartoon work. He contributed to Punch for 35 years, although never entirely abandoning his hunting and shooting watercolours and washes. He was appointed OBE in 1919, following his command of the army’s remount depot in Salonika. His love of the outdoors, horses and his work are interwoven. When hunting he always carried a sketch book, while his total commitment to his horses led to his converting half his studio into a stable. It is this great enthusiasm which lends so many of his animal portrayals their power and flowing movement, just as his sense of humour, wit and keen observation of outdoor pursuits give his cartoon illustrations their appeal. Caw states that in comparison to the works of other exponents of the pictured ‘sporting joke’, in ‘draughtsmanship and design they are incomparably finer.’

George Denholm Armour

GEORGE DENHOLM ARMOUR, RSA, OBE
(1864-1949)

“Keep your ‘ead in”

Signed, inscribed:
Cabman: “Now then bunny, you keep your ‘ead in the rabbit-‘utch, there ‘aint no lettuces for you today!”
Pencil and grisaille watercolour heightened with white

27 by 22 cm., 10 ½ by 8 ½ in.
(frame size 42 by 34 cm., 16 ½ by 13 ¼ in.)

Armour was born in Waterside, Lanarkshire and studied at St Andrews University, Edinburgh School of Art and the Royal Scottish Academy Schools. He was a close friend of Joseph Crawhall and visited Tangiers with him and Robert Alexander in the 1880s. In the 1890s he settled in London, sharing a studio for some time with Phil May and becoming a regular contributor of illustrations for Punch, The Tatler, Country Life and The Graphic as well as illustrating many sporting books. In 1910, he studied military equestrianism at the Spanish Riding School in Vienna. During the First World War he commanded the depot of the Army remount service and from 1917 to 1919 served with the Salonika Force. By the end of the war he was the Director of Remounts in that area and was awarded the OBE for his services. He worked in oil, watercolour and pastel, painting sporting subjects and exhibiting at the Royal Academy, Royal Scottish Academy and elsewhere and later lived in Malmesbury, Wiltshire. Works by him are in the collections of Aberdeen Art Gallery, the National Galleries of Scotland and in other private and public collections.


'Keep your 'ead in' - watercolour illustration by George Denholm Armour

Henry Albert Payne (1868 - 1940)

Payne was born in King’s Heath, Birmingham.  He studied at Birmingham School of Art under E R Taylor and was among the students who painted murals in the Town Hall.  He joined the staff of the Birmingham School of Art in 1889.  In addition to his teaching he ran a busy stained-glass practice and was involved in a number of decorative schemes with the Bromsgrove Guild.  In 1902 he was commissioned to decorate the chapel at Madresfield Court, a task which occupied him for twenty years and is one of the great achievements of the Arts and Crafts movement.  This also led to him painting a mural for the Palace of Westminster - his work The Plucking of the Red and White Roses in the Temple Garden, an allegory on the War of the Roses, now hangs in the Palace's East Corridor.  He exhibited at the Royal Academy (1899-1935), with the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society and elsewhere and was a member of the Society of Painters in Tempera.  In 1901 he married Edith Gere, sister of Charles and Margaret Gere and they later settled at St Loe’s House, Amberley, in Gloucestershire thus joining and encouraging many of the Birmingham artists to settle in the Cotswolds.

Henry Arthur Payne

HENRY ARTHUR PAYNE, RWS
(1868-1940)

Evening, Brimscombe Hill

Signed and indistinctly dated l.l..: HENRY A PAYNE
Watercolour
Framed

20.5 by 24.5 cm.; 8 by 9 ¾ in.
(frame size 35 by 38.5 cm., 13 ¾ by 15 ¼ in.)

Payne was born in King’s Heath, Birmingham. He studied at Birmingham School of Art under E R Taylor and was among the students who painted murals in the Town Hall. He joined the staff of the Birmingham School of Art in 1889. In addition to his teaching he ran a busy stained-glass practice and was involved in a number of decorative schemes with the Bromsgrove Guild. In 1902 he was commissioned to decorate the chapel at Madresfield Court, a task which occupied him for twenty years and is one of the great achievements of the Arts and Crafts movement. This also led to him painting a mural for the Palace of Westminster - his work The Plucking of the Red and White Roses in the Temple Garden, an allegory on the War of the Roses, now hangs in the Palace's East Corridor. He exhibited at the Royal Academy (1899-1935), with the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society and elsewhere and was a member of the Society of Painters in Tempera. In 1901 he married Edith Gere, sister of Charles and Margaret Gere and they later settled at St Loe’s House, Amberley, in Gloucestershire thus joining and encouraging many of the Birmingham artists to settle in the Cotswolds.


Henry Arthur Payne - Evening Brimscombe Hill, near Stroud

William Bell Scott (1811 - 1890)

United Kingdom William Bell Scott was the son of the engraver Robert Scott and younger brother of the Scottish artist David Scott. Born in Edinburgh, he initially studied under his father before entering the Trustees’ Academy in 1831. He went to London in 1837 where he worked as an engraver and watercolourist. After unsuccessfully entering the Westminster Hall Competition, in 1843 he was appointed as master of the Government School of Design in Newcastle where he remained until 1863. While in Newcastle he executed produced a series of paintings depicting the History of Northumbria for the Inner Hall of Wallington Hall, the Northumberland seat of the Trevelyan family. He painted another series called “The King’s Quhair” for Alice Boyd of Penkill Castle, Ayrshire. Sadly this series has not survived the damp conditions of the walls. As a poet he came to the notice of Rossetti and Holman Hunt and at their invitation contributed poems to The Germ. One his return to London in 1858 he renewed his close friendship with Rossetti and other members of the Pre-Raphaelite circle and took a post teaching at the South Kensington Schools. As an artist-illustrator he was a great admirer of the work of Durer and Blake, writing on the former and publishing a compilation his etchings after drawings by the later. Scott exhibited at the Royal Academy, Royal Scottish Academy, British Institution, Royal Society of British Artists and elsewhere.

William Bell Scott

Signed with initials and dated l.r.: WBS 1885 

12 by 17 cm., 4 by 6 in. (frame size 31 by 35.5 cm., 12 by 14 in.) 

William Bell Scott was the son of Robert Scott, an Edinburgh engraver and brother of the artist David Scott. He was born at St Leonard's, Edinburgh and studied under his father, and at the Trustees's Academy before leaving for London in 1837. After entering for the Westminster Hall Competition he was appointed as master of the Government School of Design in Newcastle in 1843. Rossetti wrote to him in 1847 praising one of his poems, the two became close friends and Scott contributed several poems to The Germ. While in Newcastle he executed a series of large paintings depicting the History of Northumbria for the Inner Hall of Wallington Hall, the seat of the Trevelyan family. At Penkill Castle he executed a similar series illustrating The King's Quair. He also helped James Leathart of Low Fell to form his Pre-Raphaelite collection. He returned to London in 1864 and bought Bellevue House in Chelsea. 

He exhibited at the Royal Academy, British Institution, Royal Society of British Artists and elsewhere. In addition to his artistic production he also undertook considerable literary works including editing the works of Keats, Byron, Coleridge, Scott and Shelley. His Autobiographical Notes were published posthumously in 1892.

Winter Ploughing by William Bell Scott

Eileen Soper (1905 - 1990)

Eileen Alice Soper was born in Enfield, Middlesex in 1905. In 1908 the family moved to Harmer Green, Welwyn in the Hertfordshire countryside and she was the live in that same house of the rest of her life. She attended Hitchen Girls School and was artistically trained by her father, the noted illustrator and etcher, George Soper. The house, which she later named “Wildings” was built by her father, and Eileen and her older sister Eva, also an artist, inherited the house after his death in 1942 and turned the extensive garden into a sanctuary for the wildlife she studied and adored. The two sisters continued to live in the house until their deaths in 1990.

Eileen showed early promise as an artist as at the age of only 15 two of her etchings were shown in the Royal Academy in London, after which she showed three prints at an exhibition organised by the International Society of Printmakers in California. She continued to produce around 180 etching mostly of children at play into the early 1930s. Queen Mary bought two of her etching and her work was extremely popular and exhibited in the UK and USA.

She is probably best known for her work as an illustrator. Perhaps her most famous illustrations were her collaboration with Enid Blyton for whom she was to illustrate 35 books, most notably for all the Famous Five books. She illustrated and wrote her own books, her first Happy Rabbit was accepted by Macmillan in 1945 and was followed by many more including a book of poetry and from the 1950s she also wrote and illustrated many wildlife books including: Wild Encounters (1957) and No Badgers in My Wood (with Phil Drabble, 1979). Duff Hart-Davis wrote Wildings - The Secret Garden of Eileen Soper in 1991 which is extensively illustrated with her delightful drawings and watercolours of the wildlife in her garden.

Eileen Soper was a founder member of the Society of Wildlife Artists and elected a member of the Royal Society of Miniature Painters, Sculptors and Gravers in 1972.

Eileen Soper

EILEEN SOPER
(1905-1990)

Fox Cubs

Pencil
Framed

13 by 15 cm., 5 by 6 in.
(frame size 28.5 by 29.5 cm., 11 ¼ by 11 ¾ in.)

Provenance:
The artist’s estate;
Chris Beetles, London;
Private collection.

Eileen Alice Soper was born in Enfield, Middlesex in 1905. In 1908 the family moved to Harmer Green, Welwyn in the Hertfordshire countryside and she was the live in that same house of the rest of her life. She attended Hitchen Girls School and was artistically trained by her father, the noted illustrator and etcher, George Soper. The house, which she later named “Wildings” was built by her father, and Eileen and her older sister Eva, also an artist, inherited the house after his death in 1942 and turned the extensive garden into a sanctuary for the wildlife she studied and adored. The two sisters continued to live in the house until their deaths in 1990.

Eileen showed early promise as an artist as at the age of only 15 two of her etchings were shown in the Royal Academy in London, after which she showed three prints at an exhibition organised by the International Society of Printmakers in California. She continued to produce around 180 etching mostly of children at play into the early 1930s. Queen Mary bought two of her etching and her work was extremely popular and exhibited in the UK and USA.

She is probably best known for her work as an illustrator. Perhaps her most famous illustrations were her collaboration with Enid Blyton for whom she was to illustrate 35 books, most notably for all the Famous Five books. She illustrated and wrote her own books, her first Happy Rabbit was accepted by Macmillan in 1945 and was followed by many more including a book of poetry and from the 1950s she also wrote and illustrated many wildlife books including: Wild Encounters (1957) and No Badgers in My Wood (with Phil Drabble, 1979). Duff Hart-Davis wrote Wildings - The Secret Garden of Eileen Soper in 1991 which is extensively illustrated with her delightful drawings and watercolours of the wildlife in her garden.

Eileen Soper was a founder member of the Society of Wildlife Artists and elected a member of the Royal Society of Miniature Painters, Sculptors and Gravers in 1972.


Fox Cubs - Pencil Drawing by Eileen Soper

Eileen Alice Soper was born in Enfield, Middlesex in 1905. In 1908 the family moved to Harmer Green, Welwyn in the Hertfordshire countryside and she was the live in that same house of the rest of her life. She attended Hitchen Girls School and was artistically trained by her father, the noted illustrator and etcher, George Soper. The house, which she later named “Wildings” was built by her father, and Eileen and her older sister Eva, also an artist, inherited the house after his death in 1942 and turned the extensive garden into a sanctuary for the wildlife she studied and adored. The two sisters continued to live in the house until their deaths in 1990. Eileen showed early promise as an artist as at the age of only 15 two of her etchings were shown in the Royal Academy in London, after which she showed three prints at an exhibition organised by the International Society of Printmakers in California. She continued to produce around 180 etching mostly of children at play into the early 1930s. Queen Mary bought two of her etching and her work was extremely popular and exhibited in the UK and USA. She is probably best known for her work as an illustrator. Perhaps her most famous illustrations were her collaboration with Enid Blyton for whom she was to illustrate 35 books, most notably for all the Famous Five books. She illustrated and wrote her own books, her first 

 was accepted by Macmillan in 1945 and was followed by many more including a book of poetry and from the 1950s she also wrote and illustrated many wildlife books including: 

(with Phil Drabble, 1979) . Duff Hart-Davis wrote 

 in 1991. Eileen Soper was a founder member of the Society of Wildlife Artists and elected a member of the Royal Society of Miniature Painters, Sculptors and Gravers in 1972.

Squirrels on a Washing Line and Feeder

EILEEN SOPER
(1905-1990)

Squirrel

Pencil
Framed

12.5 by 12 cm., 5 by 4 ¾ in.
(frame size 27.5 by 26 cm., 10 ¾ by 10 ¼ in.)

Provenance:
The artist’s estate;
Chris Beetles, London;
Private collection.

Eileen Alice Soper was born in Enfield, Middlesex in 1905. In 1908 the family moved to Harmer Green, Welwyn in the Hertfordshire countryside and she was the live in that same house of the rest of her life. She attended Hitchen Girls School and was artistically trained by her father, the noted illustrator and etcher, George Soper. The house, which she later named “Wildings” was built by her father, and Eileen and her older sister Eva, also an artist, inherited the house after his death in 1942 and turned the extensive garden into a sanctuary for the wildlife she studied and adored. The two sisters continued to live in the house until their deaths in 1990.

Eileen showed early promise as an artist as at the age of only 15 two of her etchings were shown in the Royal Academy in London, after which she showed three prints at an exhibition organised by the International Society of Printmakers in California. She continued to produce around 180 etching mostly of children at play into the early 1930s. Queen Mary bought two of her etching and her work was extremely popular and exhibited in the UK and USA.

She is probably best known for her work as an illustrator. Perhaps her most famous illustrations were her collaboration with Enid Blyton for whom she was to illustrate 35 books, most notably for all the Famous Five books. She illustrated and wrote her own books, her first Happy Rabbit was accepted by Macmillan in 1945 and was followed by many more including a book of poetry and from the 1950s she also wrote and illustrated many wildlife books including: Wild Encounters (1957) and No Badgers in My Wood (with Phil Drabble, 1979). Duff Hart-Davis wrote Wildings - The Secret Garden of Eileen Soper in 1991 which is extensively illustrated with her delightful drawings and watercolours of the wildlife in her garden.

Eileen Soper was a founder member of the Society of Wildlife Artists and elected a member of the Royal Society of Miniature Painters, Sculptors and Gravers in 1972.


Eileen Soper - Squirrel

Nutty Scratching ” Studies of a Nuthatch "

14 by 16 cm., 5 by 6 in. (frame size 36.5 by 37 cm., 14 by 14 in.) 

: The artist’s estate; Chris Beetles, London; Private collection. 

 (with Phil Drabble, 1979). Duff Hart-Davis wrote 

Wildings - The Secret Garden of Eileen Soper

 in 1991 which is extensively illustrated with her delightful drawings and watercolours of the wildlife in her garden. Eileen Soper was a founder member of the Society of Wildlife Artists and elected a member of the Royal Society of Miniature Painters, Sculptors and Gravers in 1972.

Nutty Scratching - A Nuthatch

Once again I am delighted to be exhibiting at the Cotswold Art & Antiques Dealers' Association Fair at Compton Verney, Warwickshire, CV35 9HZ

Please contact me for further information and complimentary tickets to the fair.

A full list of items on my stand will be added to this page the day before the fair opens.

CADA Fair at Compton Verney

Online Exhibition

Arthur Hacker

Charles March Gere

Charles March Gere

Gilbert Joseph Holiday

William Shackleton

Gerald Mackenzie Leet

Helen Allingham

Alfred William Hunt

John Paddy Carstairs

George Louis Palmella Busson Du Maurier

Maxwell Ashby Armfield

Albert Rutherston

Leslie Frederick Jewell

John Frederick Herring Jnr

Carton Moore Park

William Shackleton

Maxwell Ashby Armfield

James Woodford

Anne Harriet Sefton

Jules Lessore

Catharine Carrington

Arthur Wardle

William Huggins

George Denholm Armour

Henry Arthur Payne

William Bell Scott

Eileen Soper

Eileen Soper

Eileen Soper

Eileen Soper