Walk Through British Art: 1900
Free entry- Artist
- Gwen John 1876–1939
- Medium
- Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions
- Support: 403 x 254 mm
frame: 495 x 375 x 55 mm - Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Presented by the Contemporary Art Society 1917
- Reference
- N03174
Display caption
Gallery label, July 2008
Catalogue entry
N03174 A LADY READING c. 1898–1900
Not inscribed.
Canvas, 15 7/8×10 (40·5×25·5).
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society 1917.
Coll: An anonymous member of the C.A.S. Committee who presented it to the Society in 1911.
Exh: C.A.S., Loan Exhibition, Manchester, winter 1911 (96); C.A.S., Loan Collection of Modern Paintings, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, October 1912 (128); C.A.S., First Public Exhibition in London, Goupil Gallery, April 1913 (71), as ‘Interior’; C.A.S., Purchases and Gifts, 53 Grosvenor Street, June 1914 (11a); C.A.S., Modern Paintings, Belfast, November 1914 (22).
Repr: Burlington Magazine, LXXXI, 1942, p.239, pl.2b; John Russell, From Sickert to 1948, 1948, pl.19; Allan Gwynne-Jones, Portrait Painters, 1950, pl.134.
It is generally accepted by those who knew Gwen John that this is an early self-portrait and was painted in Paris. Gwen John painted several pictures of this room and the wicker chair. A very similar picture was in the Quinn Collection and in it the sitter is turned more towards the window and wears a bow in her hair (sold American Art Association, New York, 11 February 1927, lot 465, repr. p.183). Mrs Frances Cornford of Cambridge owns a small interior painted in the same room with the artist sitting in the chair (exhibited N.E.A.C., spring 1908 (109), as ‘La Chambre sur le Cour’); ‘A Corner of the Artist's Room in Paris’, 1900–5 (?), is reproduced by John Rothenstein, Modern British Painters: Sickert to Smith, 1952, pl.18. Note the pictures of cats on the wall of N03174 and see N05154, N05155 and T00156.
Published in:
Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, I
Explore
- interiors(4,372)
- domestic(1,731)
- living room(277)
- domestic(1,731)
- leisure and pastimes(7,581)
- recreational activities(2,851)
- reading(405)
- recreational activities(2,851)
- objects(23,044)
- fine arts and music(3,781)
- picture(234)
- furnishings(3,051)
- reading, writing, printed matter(5,035)
- book - non-specific(1,959)
- fine arts and music(3,781)
- people(35,276)
- actions: postures and motions(9,053)
- standing(3,140)
- adults(22,960)
- woman(9,099)
- named individuals(12,462)
- John, Gwen(3)
- portraits(4,343)
- self-portraits(753)
- actions: postures and motions(9,053)
- places(41,821)
- cities, towns, villages (non-UK)(13,080)
- Paris - non-specific(392)
- countries and continents(17,343)
- France(3,609)
- cities, towns, villages (non-UK)(13,080)
- work and occupations(14,300)
- arts and entertainment(6,577)
- artist, painter(2,168)
- arts and entertainment(6,577)