James Stroudley

Portrait of a Woman Sitting in Profile

Graphite on paper Image size: 11 ¾ x 8 ½ inches (30 x 21.5 cm) Original frame This superbly-drawn portrait highlights the artist’s undeniable skill as a portrait artist, particularl...

James Stroudley 1906 -1985 Portrait of a Lady Graphite on paper Image size: 15 x 12 inches James 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...

Benjamin II Vautier (1895–1974) was a Swiss-born artist, known for his contributions to both painting and graphic art. He was born into a family with artistic roots, as the son of Ot...

Self Portrait sketching with Vignette in Profile Graphite on thin wove paper, c. 1940's Unsigned Condition: Small nicks in the right margin, not affecting the image Sheet size: 14 1/2 x 10 inches Provenance: Paul Cadmus Jon F. Anderson (1937-2018) Born in Hoboken, New Jersey, Margaret Hoening (1906–1998) was a painter and an etcher perhaps best known for her photographs as part of the PaJaMa photography collective. After attending Smith College, she settled in New York, where she pursued formal artistic training at the Art Students League. There, she met the artist couple Paul Cadmus and Jared French. In 1937, she married French, fifteen years her junior, who had spent the previous decade with Cadmus. The trio formed a tight bond, with Cadmus and French continuing their relationship. Born in Hoboken, New Jersey, Margaret Hoening (1906–1998) was a painter and an etcher perhaps best known for her photographs as part of the PaJaMa photography collective. After attending Smith College, she settled in New York, where she pursued formal artistic training at the Art Students League. There, she met the artist couple Paul Cadmus and Jared French. In 1937, she married French, fifteen years her junior, who had spent the previous decade with Cadmus. The trio formed a tight bond, with Cadmus and French continuing their relationship. Together, the three formed PaJaMa (a mashup of their first names, Paul, Jared, and Margaret). Using Hoening’s Leica, they captured themselves, their artist friends, and members of the gay community posing in artful tableaux on the beaches of Fire Island, Provincetown, and Nantucket over the following eight years. Those captured by their camera include the photographer George Platt Lynes; Cadmus’s sister and artist Fidelma; artist Bernard Perlin; and Monroe Wheeler, director of exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, among others. Though she produced few canvases, Hoening’s paintings demonstrate the influences of French and Cadmus, particularly with her adoption of the time-intensive, traditional medium of egg tempera that they championed. In the 1940s, the Frenches’ social circle continued to expand. They befriended the British author E.M. Forster, who stayed with them on his first trip to New York in 1947, spending a few days with them in Provincetown, and visiting them again in 1949. When Cadmus began a relationship with the young artist George Tooker in 1944, the trio became a foursome, with Tooker regularly vacationing with the group and appearing in PaJaMa’s photographs...