Gerald Leslie Brockhurst (1890-1978)Portrait of Charlotte Elizabeth Hollingsworth Oil on board, 60 x 47cm (23½ x 18½'')SignedLast year Gerald Brockhurst’s portrait of Florence Forsyth attracted much attention when it came under the hammer at Adam’s. The painting had been commissioned by Florence’s father, who worked for Norwich Union in Dublin, in the late 1920s. This portrait has as its subject his wife, Charlotte Hollingsworth, Florence’s mother. She makes an imposing figure against a muted, mountainous background, but rather than projecting hauteur or distance, she has a notably benign, warm presence, skillfully conveyed by the artist.Brockhurst was celebrated as a society portrait painter from the early 1920s. From Edgebaston, Birmingham, he was recognised as precociously gifted at drawing from an early age, even though he was a poor student academically. His aptitude gained him early entry to art school. His self-portrait as an art student, painted when he was just 15, is in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. Visiting France and Italy on a scholarship, he was much taken with the work of several Italian renaissance painters, including Botticelli and Piero della Francesca, influencing the classical poise of his mature style. While travelling he met, and married, Anaïs Melisande Folin and they spent most of the First World War years in Ireland, including in Connemara, where he posed and painted Folin as Ireland personified. He also made portraits of others in Ireland including poet Francis McNamara and Aileen Cox. The latter portrait, with graphic works he made in Ireland, is in the National Gallery of Ireland. Back in London from 1919, he became a much sought-after portrait painter, and was also recognised as a printmaker of brilliance. His capacity to lend his sitters film star aura, positioning them skillfully lit against low horizon lines in almost photographic images, gained him many prestigious sitters. His pre-eminence was only disrupted when his relationship with his model Kathleen ‘Dorette’ Woodward became front-page news and his marriage broke up. He and Woodward decamped to the United States, where he attracted another succession of well-known clients (Merle Oberon, Marlene Dietrich, J Paul Getty among them). By the time of his death in 1978 he was, though, largely neglected. A number of exhibitions and sales have revived interest in his work over the last two decades.Aiden Dunne, February 2020