Gerald Spencer Pryse

(British, 1882-1956)

Derby Day

Footnotes

Provenance
The artist's family
Thence by descent

Gerald Spencer Pryse mastered many different media, reconciling a portraitist's feel for character with a bold and quick style. This is evident in his lithographs, watercolours, drawings and also his impressive large oils. He is primarily remembered as a lithographer in the tradition of Brangwyn. It was with his lithographs that he first rose to fame as a recorder of the War in Flanders in the August of 1914. He must have been quite conspicuous on the Western Front that summer as he had been supplied by his patron, the Queen of Belgium, with some huge lithographic stones and a large Mercedes. He was to fight in the Great War and went on to win the Military Cross at Passchendaele in 1917 before becoming an official War Artist.

Perhaps as a result of his lithographic work Pryse had a very assured style, a pre-requisite for work on the scale of the present lot. The subject of the painting is a cross section of society, their gazes all passing across the picture plane to the race beyond. The painting makes an interesting comparison with William Powell Frith's The Derby Day (RA, 1858, Tate Britain). Whilst Frith paints the different social types engaged in their separate pursuits, the present lot presents the different types united through their interest in watching the race. Pryse was a member of the Fabian Society and was known for his posters for the Labour Party. This social awareness informs much of his work.