Ennui

In June 1914 the art connoisseur, collector and curator of the Holbourne Museum, Bath, Hugh Blaker (1873–1936), published a letter in the Observer highlighting the display at the New English Art Club of one of ‘the finest pictures painted in England in recent times ... It is one of those precious things the ultimate destination of which is a public gallery, and I suggest that the [Chantrey Bequest] trustees give it their serious consideration.’1 Blaker was not alone in his admiration of the work which was almost immediately purchased for the nation, not under the auspices of the Chantrey Bequest but through the Contemporary Art Society. This painting, eventually presented to the Tate Gallery in 1924, was Ennui, which has become the most well-known and widely discussed image of Sickert’s oeuvre.

The basis for the reputation of Ennui is somewhat unclear. As the art historian Wendy Baron has pointed out, Tate’s version of Ennui is uncharacteristic of Sickert’s work during this period because of its large size. Part of its fame can certainly be attributed to the multiple versions of the image. Tate’s painting is considered to be the principal manifestation of the subject, and is also the largest and most highly finished example. However, the familiarity of the picture rests with a further four painted versions, a host of drawings and preparatory studies and three etched plates in various sizes, indicating that Sickert himself considered it an important subject worthy of repetition. Although it is not possible to ascertain the exact date order of the paintings, Baron has argued that two appear to be small preliminary oil studies for Tate’s version dating from 1913.2 Both of these, Ennui c.1913 (Royal Collection)3 and Ennui c.1913 (James Saunders Watson, Rockingham Castle, formerly in the possession of Dr A.S. Cobbledick),4 are broadly executed, cropped studies showing the same male and female figures but omitting the table in the foreground. A further Ennui (private collection)5 is a small oil on canvas inscribed by Sickert to the French painter Maurice Asselin (1882–1947) and dated 1916. The composition is adapted from Tate’s earlier, large painting and shows the seated male with the figure of the woman, visible only to the shoulders, behind him.