Mabel Gear (1898 - 1987)

Mabel Gear

Signed and dated l.r.: MABEL GEAR/1924 Oil on canvas 

45 by 51 cm., 17 in. (frame size 59 by 65 cm., 23 by 25 in.) 

Mabel Gear was born in Suffolk and studied at Colchester School of Art under Septimus Power and at Herkomer”™s Art School. She is best known as a painter of birds and animals. She exhibited at the Royal Academy, Royal Society of British Artists, Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, Royal Institute of Oil Painters, Royal Scottish Academy and the Society of Women Artists.

Cockerels

Henry Larpent Roberts (1841 - 1917)

Henry Larpent Roberts

Autumn Leaves – The Gold of the Ruined Woodlands



Signed and dated l.l.: Larpent Roberts/1868
Oil on canvas, arched top



51 by 51 cm., 20 by 20 in.
(frame size 64 by 64 cm., 25 ¼ by 25 ¼ in.)



Henry Larpent Roberts was born in Nottingham, the son of Thomas Roberts, a wealthy lace manufacturer. It is not known where he studied but it is very likely that he would have attended Nottingham School of Art & Design. His father died in 1863 and in that same year he exhibited his first work at the Royal Academy and appears to have moved to London. He exhibited at the Royal Academy and Royal Society of British Artists producing still life, landscape and figure paintings which showed a strong Pre-Raphaelite influence. In his later years his fortunes declined and although he appears not to have exhibited, he continued to work as an artist. He died in Walthamstow workhouse in 1917.


Autumn Leaves

Oliver Messel (1904 - 1978)

Oliver Messel

Costume Design for Caesar and Cleopatra - 1945 

Signed l.r.: Oliver Messel Watercolour and chalks heightened with white and gold paint Framed 

14 by 9 in., 36 by 24 cm. (Frame size 26 by 21 in., 66 by 54 cm.) 

Born in London, Messel was the grandson of the illustrator Linley Sambourne. After Eton he studied art at the Slade School of Art and by the early 1930s had established himself as one of Britain”™s principal stage designers. Initially working for the Cochran Revues, he went on to design for many theatrical, operatic, ballet and film productions. His books included Stage Designs and Costumes, 1933; Designs for A Midsummer Night”™s Dream, 1957 and Delightful Food, 1958. He exhibited at the Leicester Galleries and Redfern Gallery and also designed interiors and gardens of the Dorchester Hotel, Flaxley Abbey, Gloucestershire and elsewhere as well as several houses and grounds in Barbados and Mustique. The Victoria & Albert Museum hold the majority of his design archives. The present work is a costume design for the 1945 film Caesar and Cleopatra, directed by Gabriel Pascal and staring Claude Rains, Vivien Leigh, Stewart Granger and Flora Robson. Messel designed the costumes, props and interior decorations for what was billed as one of the most lavish movies of all times, costing over a million pounds. It was an amazing production to be achieved in a time of extreme austerity towards of the end of World War II, filming starting just a few days after D-Day. In addition to his meticulous historical research, at this time of rationing Messel had to show enormous resourcefulness and improvisation sourcing his materials and fabrics.

Costume Design for Caesar and Cleopatra - 1945

Brian Stonehouse (1918 - 1998)

Brian Stonehouse

Signed, inscribed and dated l.r.: Brian Stonehouse/London 1981 Pastel 

56 by 36 cm., 22 by 14 in. (frame size 72 by 51 cm., 28 by 20 in.) 

Brian Julian Warry Stonehouse was born in Torquay. He went to school in France before studying at Ipswich School of Art. At the outbreak of World War II he was conscripted into the Royal Artillery. Because of his fluent French he joined Special Operations Executive and was parachuted into occupied France in July 1942. After several months of regular wireless transmissions back to Britain he was arrested by the Germans on 24 October 1942. After frequent brutal interrogations he was moved from concentration camp to concentration camp until he eventually arrived in Dachau where he was liberated by US troops on 29 April 1945. After the war he was able to testify at several war crimes trials. In 1946 Stonehouse returned to his career as a fashion artist in the United States, drawing for magazines including Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and Elizabeth Arden. In 1979 he returned to Britain where, in addition to his fashion illustrations, he became a portrait painter whose sitters included several members of the Royal Family.

The Blue Shirt

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

  Glaxy from Wales - Variations on a Theme XII

 Signed with monogram l.r.; bears title and  on a label on the backboard, tempera on board, framed

 24.5 by 31.5 cm., 9 by 11 in. (frame size 34 by 41 cm., 13 by 16 in.)

  London, Fine Art Society, Homage to Maxwell Armfield, 1970, no”¦..

 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 

. 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.

Glaxy from Wales ”“ Variations on a Theme XII

Maurice

 34 by 25 cm., 13 ¼ by 9 ¾ in.  (frame size 52 by 42 cm., 20 ½ by 16 ½ in.)

 The style and composition suggests this work was executed as a commercial project for advertising or illustration.

Girl in a Red and White Striped Skirt

William Huggins (1820 - 1884)

William Huggins

 Signed and dated l.r.: 1882 W Huggins  Coloured chalks  Framed

26.5 by 37 cm., 10 ½ by 14 ½ in.  (frame size 46.5 by 56 cm., 18 ¼ by 22 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.

Ducklings

Frederic Whiting (1874 - 1962)

United Kingdom Frederic Whiting was born in Hampstead, London and educated at Deal and St Mark’s College, Chelsea. He studied at the St John’s Wood School of Art, the Royal Academy Schools and at the Academie Julian, Paris. During the civil wars in China, 1900-1, Whiting drew for The Graphic, also covering the 1904-5 Russo-Japanese War. An excellent portrait and equestrian artist he first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1893 and continued to exhibit there, at the Royal Watercolour Society, National Portrait Society and elsewhere. He won a silver medal at the Paris Salon and a bronze medal at the Anglo-German Exhibition of 1913. His work is in the collections of Wolverhampton Art Gallery, the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool and other public collections in this country and abroad.

Frederic Whiting

Signed u.l.: FREDERIC WHITING Oil on canvas Framed

 61 by 51 cm., 24 by 20 in. (frame size 74 by 64 cm., 29 by 25 in.) 

Frederic Whiting was born in Hampstead, London and educated at Deal and St Mark’s College, Chelsea. After a short time working in the City he studied at the St John’s Wood School of Art, the Royal Academy Schools and at the Academie Julian, Paris. He started a career an illustrator for various publications. During the Boxer uprising, 1900-1, Whiting went to China to record the events for The Graphic. He again acted as special correspondent covering the 1904-5 Russo-Japanese War when he accompanied the Japanese army in Manchuria and was present of the battles of Nan-Shan, Llao-yang and Sha-ho. An excellent portrait painter and equestrian artist Whiting first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1893 and continued to exhibit there, at the Royal Watercolour Society, National Portrait Society and elsewhere. He won a silver medal at the Paris Salon and a bronze medal at the Anglo-German Exhibition of 1913. His work is in the collections of Wolverhampton Art Gallery, the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool and other public collections in this country and abroad. Painted circa 1914 the sitter can be identified as the same model in his oil painting Eva, illustrated in The Studio magazine, 1914.

This year the Cotswold Art & Antique Dealers' Association Fair will be held at:

Compton Verney Art Gallery & Park
Compton Verney
Warwickshire CV35 9HZ

The following is an online exhibition of the pictures I will have on my stand.

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

Compton Verney Fair 2021

Online Exhibition

Mabel Gear

Henry Larpent Roberts

Oliver Messel

Oliver Messel

Brian Stonehouse

Maxwell Ashby Armfield

Maurice

William Huggins

Frederic Whiting