A U G U S T U S  E D W I N  J O H N

Welsh, 1878-1961

Portrait of a lady

Oil on board

31.7 x 24.2 cm

Signed lower left: John

With a letter attached to the back from the headed note paper of John’s house (Fryern Court, Nr. Fordinbridge, Salisbury) attached verso signed and dated: Augustus John. Dec 1931

In a fine French 17th century Louis XIII frame

PROVENANCE

Private Collection, Yorkshire

Although well-known early in the century for his drawings and etchings, the bulk of John's later work consisted of portraits, some of the best of which were of his two wives and his children. He was known for the psychological insight of his portraits, many of which were considered "cruel" for the truth of the depiction. Lord Leverhulme was so upset with his portrait that he cut out the head (since only that part of the image could easily be hidden in his vault) but when the remainder of the picture was returned by error to John there was an international outcry over the desecration.

By the 1920s John was Britain's leading portrait painter. John painted many distinguished contemporaries, including T. E. Lawrence, Thomas Hardy and W. B. Yeats,  Perhaps his most famous portrait is of his fellow-countryman, Dylan Thomas

PRICE £12,500