- Artist
- Geoffrey Tibble 1909–1952
- Medium
- Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions
- Support: 305 × 406 mm
frame: 409 × 514 × 70 mm - Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Presented anonymously in memory of Sir Terence Rattigan 1983
- Reference
- T03655
Catalogue entry
T03655 Three Women 1930
Oil on canvas 12 × 16 (305 × 406)
Inscribed ‘G. TIBBLE/“THREE WOMEN”/1930’ on reverse
Presented anonymously in memory of Terence Rattigan 1983
Prov: Sir Augustus Daniel; Leicester Galleries 1950–1970; ...; Abbot and Holder; the donor 1970
Exh: London Group 28th Exhibition, New Burlington Galleries, October 1930 (222); Paintings in Oil by Anthony Devas and Geoffrey Tibble, Claridge Gallery, January 1931 (38, as ‘Women and Landscape’); Summer Exhibition, Leicester Galleries, August–September 1970 (42, as ‘Group of Figures’)
Tibble's 1931 joint exhibition with Anthony Devas at the Claridge Gallery was held two years after Tibble graduated from the Slade School and was the first time he had exhibited in depth. It is not known whether Sir Augustus Daniel purchased T03655 from the Claridge Gallery exhibition or shortly afterwards. Daniel must have been an admirer of Tibble's early work since he purchased the artist's ‘Interior’ for the Contemporary Art Society in 1932 (now in the collection of Bradford City Art Gallery). The artist's widow told the donor that she went along with her husband to Sir Augustus Daniel's home in Hampstead to see this work in his collection; this most probably would have been after their marriage in July 1934. It is interesting that although the artist inscribed the work with the title, ‘Three Women’, and the date, presumably in 1930 when he finished it, he was prepared to exhibit it the following year under a different title, ‘Women and Landscape’, one which stressed the setting as well as the figures. Reviews of Tibble's early work tended to concentrate on the sculptural quality of his figures, and the name Cézanne was cited. Equally, the female figures in the foreground do share an affinity with contemporary British sculpture, especially the reclining nude on the right, which has much in common with Henry Moore's exactly contemporary work of 1928–30.
After Sir Augustus Daniel's death in 1950, the Leicester Galleries handled his collection, mounting in June 1951 a selective exhibition from it. T03655 was not one of the works selected on that occasion, but was retrieved from storage for their 1970 Summer Exhibition.
Published in:
The Tate Gallery 1982-84: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions, London 1986