David Bomberg

Sleeping Men

1911

Not on display

Artist: David Bomberg 1890–1957
Medium: Graphite and watercolour on paper
Dimensions: Support: 222 x 902 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Purchased 1923
Reference: N03722

Catalogue entry

N03722 SLEEPING MEN 1911

Inscr. ‘Bomberg 1911’ b.r.
Watercolour, 8 1/4×35 1/4 (22×90).
Purchased from the artist (Duveen Drawings Fund) 1923.
Exh: Arts Council, September–October 1958 and provincial tour (50).

The drawing was made for the Slade Sketch Club in 1911 when the subject set was a quotation from the Book of Ecclesiastes, xii. 5: ‘Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail; because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets.’

A sketch done by Stanley Spencer on the same occasion is also in the Tate Gallery, N05608.

Published in:
Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, I