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Bernard Fleetwood Walker - Study for Mr and Mrs R. H. Butler and Their Daughters

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Bernard Fleetwood Walker
Study for Mr and Mrs R. H. Butler and Their Daughters
1932

Name: Study for Mr and Mrs R. H. Butler and Their Daughters
Brand: Bernard Fleetwood Walker
Price: 1532.42 CHF
Availability: InStock

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CA$2,627.33

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NOK 19,451.23

SEK 18,371.46

DKK 12,284.52

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About the Item

Bernard Fleetwood-Walker RA RWS (1893-1965) Study for Mr and Mrs R. H. Butler and Their Daughters, c. 1932 Graphite, coloured graphite and wash on paper, mounted to card 64.5 x 74.5 cm.; (within frame) 87.4 x 91.8 cm. Provenance: The artist’s studio, 1965 (no. 525); Private Collection, United Kingdom. Dated to c. 1932, the present drawing belongs to a series of preparatory studies for Mr and Mrs R. H. Butler and Their Daughters (1932), a large family composition in oil of the same date, in the collection of Wolverhampton Art Gallery (OP903). Of the four studies acquired by Haveron Fine Art from a single private collection, this full compositional study of the Butler family – squared to a grid for transfer – is most certainly the final of all the works, created to formalise the intended design before translating it to the primed canvas. Taken together, the studies are an important record of Fleetwood-Walker’s working process, and reveal his dynamic approach to composition. Painted in 1932, Mr and Mrs R. H. Butler and Their Daughters depicts Robert H. Butler, a Director of Mitchells and Butlers Brewery, with his wife and young daughters. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 1935 (no. 105). The present work remained in the artist’s studio following his death in 1965, and is recorded as no. 525 in Nicola Walker’s inventory of the remaining drawings. Mrs Butler is seated with her youngest daughter resting on her knees, and her older daughters to either side. Her husband sits opposite, leaning forward towards his family with a hand resting on his shin. The study refines previously incomplete compositional ideas, and arrives at the most balanced and closely comparable of the five studies. Here, Fleetwood-Walker straightforwardly colours select areas with a light wash, perhaps as an aide-mémoire for particular tones such as the sitters’ hair colour. The rustic basket of apples conceived in a preceding study is emphasised with a ripe green wash, though is omitted from the final composition. Notably, the youngest daughter’s bare stomach remains visible even until this final study, presumably covered for modest purposes in the painting itself. Squared to a grid for transfer, the drawing likely constitutes the last study for the oil, and would have been used by the artist to transfer the design onto a primed canvas ready for painting. Bernard Fleetwood-Walker was born Birmingham in 1893, a twin and one of five children of William Walker and Electra Amelia Walker. Fleetwood-Walker’s father was an electrical engineer and co-inventor of the so-called Walker-Wilkins Patent Non-Polarising Voltaic Battery, which required cheaper chemicals and meant reduced costs in the running of engines and household lighting. Electra Amelia Walker (née Varley) was a granddaughter of the 19th century watercolourist Cornelius Varley FRSA (1781-1873), who together with his brother John Varley had founded the Royal Watercolour Society in 1804. Fleetwood-Walker was educated at Barford Street School and King Edward VI Five Ways School, before training as a modeller and metalworker, furthering his studies at Birmingham School of Arts and Crafts, and later in London and Paris. Fleetwood-Walker served as a sniper during the First World War in the Artist’s Rifles, a volunteer light infantry formed in 1859 with a historic association with artists, musicians, and writers. Wounded and gassed in combat, Fleetwood-Walker continued drawing and painting where he could: in Christmas 1918, he decorated the walls of a warehouse in Auberchicourt being used as a mess hall with a mural, made up of dry colours and the glutinous remains of porridge. Upon his return to England, he exhibited his first work at the Royal Birmingham Society of Art (RBSA) in 1919, and in 1920 married Marjorie White, who had also studied at the School of Arts and Crafts. The couple would have two sons, Colin and Guy. He taught for some 10 years at King Edward’s Grammar School, Ashton, and left in 1929 to teach at Birmingham School of Arts and Crafts. After the death of his first wife, Walker re-married in 1939 to the medical doctor Peggy Frazer. Fleetwood-Walker held a solo exhibition at the Ruskin Gallery, Birmingham, and between 1925-65 (save 1929), exhibited in every Summer Exhibition of the Royal Academy, being elected a Royal Academician in 1956. He showed a total of 147 works at the RA during his lifetime. Regular exhibitions included those of the Royal Watercolour Society (RWS), New English Art Club (NEAC), Royal Society of Portrait Painters (RP), and RBSA. Fleetwood-Walker was proud to be the only Royal Academician from Birmingham who still lived in the city, and was elected as President of the RBSA in 1950. Around the same time, he was elected to the RWS, founded by his great-grandfather Cornelius Varley – satisfying a condition in Varley’s will that his studio collection be inherited by the next family member to be a member of the society. Later in his career he won a silver medal at the Paris Salon, and after his retirement from teaching in Birmingham he moved to Chelsea in 1951 to dedicate more time to his students at the Royal Academy Schools, where he had been appointed Assistant Keeper. Upon his death in 1965, a memorial exhibition was held in Birmingham. I am grateful to Nicola Walker for her diligent efforts to record the Fleetwood-Walker estate.

Creator:

Bernard Fleetwood Walker (1893 - 1965, British)

Creation Year:

1932

Dimensions:

Height: 34.41 in (87.4 cm)Width: 36.15 in (91.8 cm)

Medium:

Watercolor

Movement & Style:

Post-War

Period:

1930-1939

Condition:

The work is in good and stable condition. Light marks throughout, commensurate with age and having been stored within the artist's studio until his death.

Gallery Location:

Maidenhead, GB

Reference Number:

Seller: Bernard Fleetwood-Walker1stDibs: LU2820215587522

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