With all exhibitions and art fairs in London (and worldwide) now cancelled for the foreseeable future, access to art is understandably limited. As it is not possible for you to come to me, I have decided to come to you and present a series of short pieces highlighting selected pictures from my collection.
I hope that by providing extended information about certain works, you can become acquainted with artists you may not know, or if you are already familiar with them, develop a further understanding of particular works. In the very least, it will hopefully distract you from the news for 5 mins!
It goes without saying, that we wish everyone the best of health..
Robert Colquhoun (Scottish 1914-1962), Portrait of Robert MacBryde (1913-1966), c.1938, pencil on brown paper, signed (lower right) 28cm x 22cm (53cm x 45cm framed), £8,500.
Known as 'the Two Roberts', Colquhoun and MacBryde met at the Glasgow School of Art in 1933. Both were working class Scots from Ayrshire. They quickly became lovers and then lifelong partners, living together openly when homosexuality was still illegal. After a brief period in the Army Medical Corps, Colquhoun joined MacBryde in London in 1941. They were part of a group of poets and painters who had left Scotland in the 1940s, and moved to London. The Glasgow group, in turn, mixed with other artists and writers already in London, including Dylan Thomas, Francis Bacon, Keith Vaughan, John Minton, John Craxton and Lucian Freud, to name but a few. Usually congregating in the bars and clubs of Fitzrovia and Soho, there are few memoirs of the time, that do not mention them, given the central role they played in the art scene at the time.
Soon after their move, Colquhoun had his first solo show at the Lefevre Gallery in June 1943, by then the most prestigious gallery in London for contemporary artists, followed up with a joint show of their work a year later.
Their also exhibited in several group shows at the Lefevre Gallery, including one in February 1946, alongside Ben Nicholson, Graham Sutherland, Bacon and Freud. Works were bought by the Arts Council, the British Council, the Contemporary Art Society and the Imperial War Museum. Major art patrons added their work to their collections, including Sir Kenneth Clark, art historian, one time Director of the National Gallery and Keeper of the King's Pictures. In 1948, the Museum of Modern Art, in New York, purchased works from the new wave of British artists; they selected Francis Bacon, Edward Burra, Lucian Freud, Robert Colquhoun and Robert MacBryde.
Robert MacBryde and Robert Colquhoun, 1949.
Despite their meteoric success in 1940s, by the early 1950s, their work was out of fashion with the rise of abstraction,and their life became increasingly tumultuous. Some notable commissions were received, such as set and costume designs for the Sadler's Wells Ballet at Covent Garden and King Lear at Stratford-upon-Avon, but by the mid 1950s, the couple were hardly painting at all.
Having been forced to leave their studio in London, the pair moved to a variety of addresses, usually staying with friends until their hospitality ran out. Always short on money, letters to friends and patrons would often end with requests for financial support. Drink certainly played its part, and perhaps was the cause of their downward spiral.
A momentary respite came in 1957 with a major exhibition of Colquhoun's work at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, however, he would be dead only four years later at the age of 47. A penniless MacBryde then moved to Dublin, living off money given to him by friends, until, in 1966, he was run over and killed by a car, whilst dancing in the street outside a pub, aged 53.
Since their deaths, in later years, they have rightfully been recognised as two of the most influential artists of their generation, rather than simply as fixtures in the bohemian London post-war art scene. A major exhibition of their work, 'The Two Roberts: Colquhoun and MacBryde' was held at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in 2015.
For further reading about the artists, see The Two Roberts: Colquhoun and MacBryde, by Patrick Elliott, Adrian Clark and Davy Brown (2014). The National Galleries of Scotland also produced a short video to accompany the exhibtion which is available to view on YouTube here
The best place to see their works online is via the ArtUK.org website.. for Colquhoun click here and for MacBryde click here
The portrait in my collection is from a time before the couple came to London. This sensitive pencil drawing, captures an intimate and tender moment, one partner drawing the other, before their extraordinary trajectory to the heights of the London art scene and beyond. There are two other recorded drawings of MacBryde by Colquhoun; one is at the National Portrait Gallery, London, the other in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh. The attribution of MacBryde as the sitter has been recently confirmed by the Senior Curator of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and is recorded in the Heinz Library, National Portrait Gallery, London.
If you would like any further information about the drawing, please do not hesitate to contact Henry by phone or email.