The Camden Town Group in Context

...; Sotheby’s, London, 15 May 1985 (100, part of a large folio of watercolours and drawings by Fox Pitt); purchased by the artist’s great niece Sarah Fox-Pitt and Anthony Pitt Rivers, by whom presented to Tate 2009.

Interior with Maid is executed on cream laid paper that has watermarks stating that it was ‘Made in France’ by the probable maker ‘JCA’ as well as the paper type ‘Ingres’. The drawing has been carried out using bright watercolours that have retained their vibrancy, and charcoal has been used to accentuate the outlines. The paper has been left unpainted in some areas, such as the figure’s apron and the fireplace.

There is some slight damage and discolouring to the paint and paper on the bottom edge, possibly resulting from it having been attached with an adhesive to an old mount from which it has been removed.

There are pinholes in the four corners suggesting that it was pinned to a wall. The watercolour is squared up as if for transfer onto canvas, but no version in oils is recorded.

Although he was never one of its formal constituents, Douglas Fox Pitt was part of the circle around the Camden Town Group. When they disbanded and reconvened as the more radical London Group in 1913 – containing the advanced modern elements of David Bomberg, Jacob Epstein and the vorticists – Fox Pitt became a founder member. His own art nevertheless followed the progressive but still conservative figurative style established by the Camden Town painters, most notably adopting their bright, post-impressionist palette. Fox Pitt’s pictures of street scenes and city landscapes to some degree also recall Camden Town Group subject matter. A man of independent means, he worked generally in watercolour, and his pictures became known through a series of London exhibitions of scenes painted on foreign travels in India, Morocco and elsewhere. Closer to home, views of Brighton formed the most common subject in his art.

In Interior with Maid Fox Pitt shows his sitting room in Brighton with an unidentified maid in dark blue dress and white apron tending the fire. There is a connection with Camden Town Group depictions of figures in interiors, such as those painted by Walter Sickert, Harold Gilman and Spencer Gore (fig.1). The watercolour documents a revealing mixture of traditional and more advanced taste. The bold design of the sofa throw suggests it came from Roger Fry, Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell’s avant-garde Omega Workshops, which opened in July 1913. Hanging on the wall are two Camden Town Group paintings owned by Fox Pitt. On the chimney piece is Harold Gilman’s Norwegian Street Scene (Kirkegaten, Flekkerfjord) 1913 (Government Art Collection).1 Next to the mirror is an oil by Charles Ginner, The Wet Street, Dieppe 1911 (private collection),2 which Fox Pitt had acquired when it was shown in the second Camden Town Group exhibition in December 1911. Fox Pitt’s income allowed him modestly to collect work by his friends in the Camden Town Group. He also owned, for instance, Ginner’s The Café Royal 1911 (Tate N05050), and he commissioned Gilman to paint his nephew’s portrait during the First World War when he served in the army.3