Thomas Lowinsky

The Dawn of Venus

1922

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Not on display

Artist: Thomas Lowinsky 1892–1947
Medium: Tempera on canvas
Dimensions: Support: 775 × 724 mm
frame: 1150 × 1130 × 115 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Purchased 1940
Reference: N05226

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Lowinsky studied at the Slade School of Art, London and had his first solo exhibition at the Leicester Galleries, London, in 1926. He liked to paint very detailed imaginative compositions inspired by the Bible or classical mythology, of which this is a major example. In Renaissance paintings Venus is usually depicted rising naked and triumphant from a large sea-shell floating on the surface of the sea. Instead, Lowinsky has decided to portray Venus in a rather withdrawn mood, seated within a large shell, which appears to be resting on the sea floor.

Gallery label, September 2004

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Catalogue entry

N05226 THE DAWN OF VENUS 1922

Inscr. ‘TEL [in monogram] 1922’ b.l. and ‘The Dawn of Venus by T. E. Lowinsky’ on back.
Tempera on canvas, 30 1/2×28 1/2 (77·5×72·5).
Purchased from the artist (Knapping Fund) 1940.
Exh: Leicester Galleries, February 1926 (25); N.E.A.C., November 1926 (225); International Exhibition, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, October–December 1927 (245); Paintings, Drawings, Engravings and Sculpture by Artists resident in Great Britain and the Dominions, Imperial Gallery of Art, March–June 1931 (139); Wildenstein, January–February 1949 (16).
Lit: Allan Gwynne-Jones, Portrait Painters, 1950, p.37.

Repr: Studio, CXXII, 1941, p.68.

[no further details]

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