Alvaro Guevara

Catalogue entry

T01992 MERAUD GUINNESS GUEVARA 1930

Not inscribed
Oil on canvas, 24×18 7/8 (61×45.7)
Chantrey Purchase, 1975
Coll: By descent from the artist to Madame Bridget (Nini) Lacroix; with Colnaghi's 1975
Exh: Alvaro Guevara, Colnaghi's, December 1974–January 1975 (7, repr. pl.xx); Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, May–July 1975 (460)
Lit: Diana Holman-Hunt, Latin among Lions: Alvaro Guevara, 1974; John Rothenstein, Introduction to the catalogue of Colnaghi's 1974–5 Guevara exhibition
Repr: Royal Academy Illustrated, 1975, p.27

A portrait of the artist's wife, the painter Meraud Guinness, made shortly after their marriage in 1930. According to the sitter it was painted in London, probably in the Fitzroy Square studio the couple occupied for a few weeks before settling in France.

The conventional, rather demure, appearance of the sitter in this portrait contrasts strikingly with the bohemian ‘The Artist's Wife’ (private collection), a portrait painted a year earlier, which seems to convey her personality more accurately. Guevara's biographer, Diana Holman-Hunt, has suggested that Alvaro painted T01992 to please his wealthy Guinness parents-in-law.

Published in:
The Tate Gallery 1974-6: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions, London 1978

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