Description:
[§]
DAVID
BOMBERG
(BRITISH
1890-1957)







PORTRAIT
OF
ANNIE
LOU
STAVELEY







Signed
and
dated
1938,
oil
on
canvas







66cm
x
58.5cm
(26in
x
23in)



















































Notes:
Provenance:






The
sitter
and
thence
by
descent
to
the
sitter''s
family.

Anonymous
sale;
Christie''s,
South
Kensington,
16
July
2008,
lot
37,
where
acquired
by
the
present
owner


Note:
Born
in
Birmingham
in
1890
and
brought
up
in
Whitechapel,
Bomberg
was
the
son
of
Polish
immigrants.
Having
displayed
an
innate
early
talent,
he
was
sponsored
by
the
Jewish
Educational
Aid
Society
to
study
at
the
Slade
under
Tonks,
alongside
the
likes
of
Gertler
and
Stanley
Spencer.


In
1913
however,
he
was
expelled
from
the
Slade
with
the
consensus
of
his
teachers
being
that
his
style
was
too
radical.
Nevertheless,
persisting
in
this
vein,
in
the
period
immediately
preceding
the
First
World
War,
he
painted
a
number
of
notable
geometric
semi-abstract
paintings,
becoming
associated
with
Percy
Wyndham
Lewis''s
Vorticist
movement.


Included
in
the
''Cubist
Room''
at
the
Camden
Town
group
show
in
Brighton
in
1913,
the
following
year,
Bomberg
helped
to
organize
the
Whitechapel''s
20th
Century
Art






show.
A
founding
member
of
the
London
Group
he
was
invited
to
show
at
the
1915
Vorticist
exhibition.
His
best
known
work
of
this
period,
The
Mud
Bath,
is
now
in
the
Tate.


During
the
war
Bomberg
served
on
the
Western
Front
and
the
experience
had
a
long-standing
effect
upon
his
art.
In
1919,
with
the
slaughter
he
had
witnessed
in
the
first
conflict
of
the
''machine
age''
compounded
by
his
disappointment
at
the
rejection
of
a
design
for
a
Canadian
War
Memorial,
he
disappeared
from
public
life.
Instead
he
travelled
extensively,
notably
to
Palestine
from
1923-27
and
also
to
Russia,
Greece,
Spain
and
Morocco.


From
1929
Bomberg
abandoned
semi-abstraction
and
turned
to
an
expressive
figuration,
using
a
muted
palette
and
fluid
brush
strokes,
to
create
deeply
personal
portraits
and
landscapes.
The
present
work
is
an
outstanding
example
of
his
work
of
the
1930s,
during
which
period
he
perfected
this
new-found
freedom.


From
1945
to
1953,
he
taught
at
Borough
Polytechnic
in
London
and
had
an
important
influence
on
an
emerging
generation
of
young
artists,
including
Frank
Auerbach
and
Leon
Kossoff.
With
them
and
other
students
he
formed
the
Borough
Group,
active
from
1947
to
1949.


Bomberg
died
in
1957
and
remained
for
some
years
best
known
for
his
work
of
the
Vorticist
period.
However,
in
1988
he
was
rediscovered
in
a
retrospective
at
the
Tate
and
in
the
last
few
decades,
he
has
come
to
be
seen
in
his
rightful
position
of
an
important
pioneer
of
British
post-war
Expressionism.


Annie
Lou
Staveley
was
an
American
who
moved
to
England
after
marrying
her
English
Professor.
She
was
fascinated
by
the
ideas
of
the
Greco-Armenian
mystic
G.I.
Gurdjieff.
She
studied
his
teachings
and
travelled
to
Paris
numerous
times
to
meet
him.
Staveley
returned
to
America
to
set
up
her
own
Gurdjieff
Work
Centre,
which
is
still
active
today.