I admire Sickert’s ability to describe a lot with very little. His mark-making often appears sparse and rough, graduating the tone from dark to light, working from the darkness at the back of the painting forwards into the light. Brown staining and dull dirty pinks become radiant. The blue-black hollow eyes mirror the blue-black background, turning her face into a mask – an impossibly pallid lead-white facade of a face. Her skin blends in with the colour of the voluminous gown that occupies half of the canvas: a strange, claustrophobic and awkward composition choice. This awkwardness is a regular feature in Sickert’s work. The imperfections and approximations lend his paintings a sense of urgency, and seem to describe the flawed, complex and brutal nature of the world he worked in.
Walter Richard Sickert's Miss Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies as Isabella of France 1932 Tate Britain Rehang
Tate Etc. invited a selection of contemporary artists featured in the new rehang of British art at Tate Britain to choose a favoured work from a fellow artist – past or present – also on display. Here, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye discusses Walter Richard Sickert’s Miss Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies as Isabella of France 1932
See also
Modern Painters: The Camden Town Group
Modern Painters: The Camden Town Group; past exhibition at Tate Britain
W.R. Sickert: Drawing and Paintings 1890–1942
W R Sickert: Drawing and Paintings 1890–1942 past Tate Liverpool exhibition
Sickert: Paintings and Drawings
Sickert: Paintings and Drawings: past exhibition at Tate Britain
'Poor abraded butterflies of the stage': Sickert and the Brighton Pierrots
Sickert's interest in popular entertainment extended beyond the London music-hall and his 1915 painting Brighton Pierrots depicts a troupe of vaudeville performers on the beach at Brighton. This paper explores the social-historical context of seaside Pierrot groups in England and the related European traditions of the Commedia dell'Arte and French pantomime
Degas, Sickert and Toulouse-Lautrec
Degas, Sickert and Toulouse-Lautrec, past exhibition at Tate Britain during 2005 to 2006