
Penny Day
Head of UK and Ireland
£20,000 - £30,000
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Director
Provenance
The Artist, until December 1937, from whom acquired by
Bernard Hailstone
Thence by family descent to the present owner
Private Collection, U.K.
Exhibited
London, Osborne Samuel, Twentieth Century British Art, 16 June-9 July 2011 (col.ill.)
Literature
Norbert Lynton, William Scott, Thames & Hudson, London, 2004, p.28
Sarah Whitfield (ed.), William Scott, Catalogue Raisonné of Oil Paintings, 1913-1951, Thames & Hudson, London, 2013, p.53, cat.no.4 (col.ill.)
Please note that there is an unfinished work verso by Bernard Hailstone.
William Scott enrolled in the Royal Academy School in 1931 and the present work likely dates to circa 1934, the same year he met his future wife Mary Lucas. During this period Scott was seeking portrait commissions and the formality of the boy's pose would seem to suggest that this painting had been commissioned. Even at this very early stage though there are hints of the direction the artist would go, in the colourful stripes of the child's waistcoat and tie and the spatial angularity of the background and armchair.
In 1937 William and Mary married and learned that the cost of living in Italy and France was cheaper so decided to leave England. Before departure, Scott left a number of paintings with Bernard Hailstone for safekeeping, including the present work. Hailstone was a fellow painter, best known for his Second World War portraits of the armed forces and civil defence workers. He also painted the last officially commissioned portrait of Sir Winston Churchill in 1955.