Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson

Self-Portrait

1911

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Not on display

Artist: Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson 1889–1946
Medium: Oil paint on wood
Dimensions: Support: 311 x 232 mm
frame: 506 x 425 x 39 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Bequeathed by Mrs Margaret Wynne Nevinson 1932
Reference: N04672

Display caption

This portrait was painted while Nevinson was studying at the Slade School of Art and may have been used to attract potential patrons. The influence of his teacher at the Slade, Henry Tonks, is evident in the attention to detail with which he has painted his facial features. His striking profile, set against a dark background, is reminiscent of portraits by the Italian Renaissance artist, Sandro Botticelli.

Nevinson later became involved with the Futurist Movement, contributing to the publication Vital English Art with Marinetti in 1914.

Gallery label, August 2004

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Catalogue entry

N04672 SELF-PORTRAIT 1911

Inscr. ‘CRWN II’ in monogram b.l., the figures flanking the letters, in black, and ‘1911’ b.l. and ‘C. R. W. Nevinson’ b.r. in pale pink.
Oil on panel with bevelled edges (save on r.) painted on except at bottom, 12 1/4×9 1/8 (31·25×23).
Bequeathed by the artist's mother Mrs Margaret Wynne Nevinson 1932.
Exh: N.E.A.C., winter 1912 (170); (?) London Group, November–December 1916 (96), as ‘Portrait of a Very Young Man’.
Lit: Nevinson, 1937, p.118, repr. facing p.216.
Repr: O[sbert] S[itwell], C. R. W. Nevinson, 1925, pl.2; Apollo, VIII, 1928, p.258.

The date and signature in pink do not appear in any of the reproductions listed above (which seem to be from two different photographs) and were probably added some time after the picture was painted. The copy of the 1916 London Group catalogue in the Tate Gallery Library is annotated, at No.96, ‘Himself’ and ‘Like an old Italian portrait’, which fairly accurately describes the composition and finished technique of this picture.

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