20th Century English School

Chelsea, Graphite Portrait, English School 20th Century

1960

Graphite on paper, signed bottom right Image size: 13 x 8 3/4 inches (33 x 22.25 cm) Original frame Dora Thacher Clarke, later Dora Middleton, (1895–1989) was a British sculptor and wood carver who also wrote about, and promoted African art. Clarke was born in Harrow in Middlesex. Her father, Joseph Thacher Clarke was an American architect. Clarke won a scholarship that allowed her to attend the Slade School of Fine Art. Aged fifteen, Clarke initially studied at the Slade on a part-time basis for three days each week throughout 1910 and 1911 but during 1915 and 1916 she studied sculpture there as a full-time student. Clarke first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1923 and continued to do so until 1959. In the early 1930s she was a regular exhibitor in group shows at the Goupil Gallery and in March 1937 had her first solo show at the French Gallery. She also exhibited at the Paris Salon and with the Royal Society of British Artists. Clarke's works included bronze castings, memorials and wood sculptures, often of African heads. For example she was commissioned to sculpt the posthumous portrait bust of Sir Walter Morley Fletcher. The most notable of her memorials is the panel and medallion tribute to Joseph Conrad at Bishopsbourne in Kent, which was unveiled in 1927. Clarke also wrote about, and promoted African art and spent a year, between 1927 and 1928 in Kenya, where she made many drawings which when she returned to London she used as the basis for wood carvings and bronzes of tribal figures. Wood carving became her technique of choice, often working with hardwoods and, on occasion, sperm whale teeth. Clarke married Admiral Gervase B Middleton in 1938 but rarely exhibited work under her married name. During World War II, Clarke was commissioned by the War Artists' Advisory Committee to produce a portrait medallion depicting a serviceman who had been awarded the George Cross. This proved to be the only portrait medallion acquired for the WAAC collection. Sculptures by Clarke are held in various museums, including the Ashmolean Museum which also holds a 1936 portrait of her by Orovida Camille Pissarro.

Graphite on paper Image size: 5 1/2 x 20 1/2 inches (14 x 52 cm) Framed This sketch is a portrait of Thomas Gotch is by his lifelong friend and confidante, Jane Ross, whom he met at...

Graphite on paper, signed lower right Image size: 17 x 21 inches (43.25 x 53.25 cm) Contemporary frame James Stroudley Stroudley was born in London on 17 June 1906, the son of James Stroudley, showcard and ticket writer. He studied at Clapham School of Art (1923-27) and then at the Royal College of Art (1927-30), where his teachers included Alan Gwynne-Jones and William Rothenstein. As a recipient of the first Abbey Scholarship he was able to spend three years in Italy from 1930, where he absorbed the influences of Giotto and Piero della Francesca, and produced one of the last wholly satisfying decorative cycles by a Rome Scholar of the period. From 1934, he exhibited at the Royal Society of British Artists, and was elected to its membership in the following year. From the Second World War – in which he worked with the Camouflage Unit – Stroudley taught at St Martin’s School of Art and was a visiting lecturer at the Royal Academy Schools. Though he continued to live in London, his later work, exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1955, indicated regular painting trips to Kent and Sussex coasts. However, much of his later work was abstract. In 1971, his former student, Peter Coker, paid homage to Stroudley by including his work in the exhibition ‘Pupil & Masters’, held at Westgate House, Long Melford, Suffolk. Stroudley married three times, and his wives included the fashion artist to the Sun newspaper...

Pastel on paper Image size: 13 x 17 1/2 inches (33 x 44.5 cm) Mounted and framed This original pastel drawing by Thomas Frye is a half-length portrait of a man dressed in a turban. This drawing is the original sketch for one of the heads depicted in Frye's collection 'Twelve Mezzotint Prints' of 1760 and it can be assumed that this pastel work was created earlier of this same year. Two versions of the print, created from this original work, are currently held in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Frye's evocative figures, although presumably based on living models, exceed the conventions of portraiture, and also function as character studies. The man shown here - dressed in the fashionable 'Turkish' manner - turns with parted lips as if poised to speak, while raising the elegant fingers in one hand in a rhetorical gesture. His long eyelashes and smoothly rendered wrinkles and dimples are hallmarks of Frye's refined style. The Artist Thomas Frye (c. 1710 – 3 April 1762) was an Anglo-Irish artist, best known for his portraits in oil and pastel, including some miniatures and his early mezzotint engravings. He was also the patentee of the Bow porcelain factory, London, and claimed in his epitaph to be "the inventor and first manufacturer of porcelain in England," though his rivals at the Chelsea porcelain factory seem to have preceded him in bringing wares to market. The Bow porcelain works did not long survive Frye's death; their final auctions took place in May 1764. Frye was born at Edenderry, County Offaly, Ireland, in 1710; in his youth he went to London to practice as an artist. His earliest works are a pair of pastel portraits of boys...

A lady at her dressing table Signed and indistinctly dated 190*, watercolour, Miss K* B* Curtis (ex.1917 -1919) framed and glazed(modern frame) ready to hang in very good condition size overall 30 x 24 inches approx. size of painting 20 x 14 inches approx. Miss K* B* Curtis exhibited 1917-1919 portrait...

19th century silhouette of a male , description to reverse gives name and date, copied from back of silhouette see photo framed and glazed and in good condition with only minor sig...

19th century silhouette of a female , framed and glazed and in good condition with only minor signs of age as to be expected. 2nd image with flash to show highlights etc.. Apologie...

A finely detailed silhouette of a Victorian clergyman. Frederick Frith (1819-1871) The Reverend James Metze, bust length, turned to the right, wearing coat and cravat Inscribed to t...