Sir William Coldstream

(British, 1908-1987)

Lord Rhodes of Saddleworth 92 x 71 cm. (36 x 28 in.)

Footnotes

Provenance
The sitter, thence by descent to
The Hon. Helen Sutcliffe, thence by descent to the present owner
Private Collection, U.K.

Literature
Bruce Laughton, William Coldstream, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2004, p.341, cat.no.173
Peter T.J. Rumley, William Coldstream, Sansom and Company, Bristol, 2018, p.93, cat.no.116 (col.ill.)

Hervey Rhodes (1895-1987) later Lord Rhodes of Saddleworth was a British politician, and Member of Parliament for Ashton-Under-Lyne 1945-1964, serving as a minister at the Board of Trade in Atlee's government. Born into a mill-working family he left school at 12 to work as a 'piecer' dodging under the working looms to repair threads. At the outbreak of WW1 he signed up as a private and fought at Loos and through the Somme campaign. In September 1918 he was severely wounded and assigned for permanent hospital care. By February 1921 however he had recovered enough to be discharged as "80% disabled". Unable to find employment, he rescued looms from a dump and set up his own woollen-manufacturing business.

As a politician Rhodes was very active in promoting trade (especially textiles); improving working conditions, arts in the community, prison and remand reform, the application of science and technology in business, building relationships with post-War Europe and Japan, supporting the interests of Hong Kong and forging links with China. Sometimes referred to as "the Queen's favourite Yorkshireman" he was made a Knight of the Garter in 1972. When, following his death, his daughter returned the garter insignia to Queen Elizabeth II, the Queen's PPS told his daughter "your father was the only man who could ring up Buckingham Palace, ask if the Queen was free that afternoon – and she would agree to see him".

Rhodes began sitting for the present portrait on the 9th of July 1957 at the Slade. The work took fifty sittings, spanning one of the longest execution durations of any of Coldstream's portraits, with completion finally reached a decade later in August of 1967.

Rhodes was L.S. Lowry's local MP, and an important patron of his work. For more information, please see lot 69.