Sir George Clausen

Brown Eyes

1891

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On loan

Southampton City Art Gallery (Southampton, UK): Stott Tour

Artist: Sir George Clausen 1852–1944
Medium: Oil paint on canvas
Dimensions: Support: 559 x 413 mm
frame: 850 x 700 x 120 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Presented by C.N. Luxmoore 1929
Reference: N04484

Display caption

Clausen studied in France and painted open-air ‘rural naturalist’ subjects in an impressionist style. In 1886 he helped to found the New English Art Club as an alternative exhibition venue to the Royal Academy. This is a portrait of a local girl from the village of Cookham in Berkshire, where the artist was living. The delicate play of light across the model’s features, together with the flicked brushwork in the background, suggest both the freshness and transience of youth.

Gallery label, February 2016

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Catalogue entry

N04484 BROWN EYES 1891

Inscr. ‘G. Clausen 1891’ c.l.
Canvas, 22×16 1/4 (56×41).
Presented by C. N. Luxmoore 1929.
Coll: Purchased from the artist by C. N. Luxmoore, formerly of Cookham Dean, Berkshire.
Exh: R.A., 1892 (137); Barbizon House, May–June 1928 (2).
Repr: National Gallery, Millbank [Tate Gallery], Review of the Acquisitions, 1927–29, 1930, p.32.

The model was a village child at Cookham Dean.

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