AN ENGLISH CUBIST

WILLIAM ROBERTS:

Artist and Family at Marston

Illustration © The Estate of John David Roberts. Reproduced with the permission of the William Roberts Society. Catalogue information based on the catalogue raisonné by David Cleall. For this and full details of the exhibitions cited, see the links below. Any auction prices quoted may not include all fees and taxes, such as VAT and Artist's Resale Right charges.

(recto) Artist and Family at Marston (aka The Family), 1942
Pencil, squared, 17.8 cm x 12.8 cm
'Family meal in the kitchen during the second world war. William Roberts has added a pipe, a palette and a couple of canvases' – note by John Roberts in the Gillian Jason Gallery 1990 catalogue.
'A drawing by WR of grim humour showing us round the card table which he has placed in the studio with palette and canvas. He has a pipe & a pork pie [hat] here doing duty for a halo, while he drinks his soup. There are saucepans on the floor and table, which S[arah]. would not have permitted. She wears dungarees, which she never did. On a picture in the background is a beautiful nude, her arm encircling WR's head. I am larger than life with an oafish expression wearing a singlet, which I never did – An instructive drawing that I saw after his death' – comment in a John Roberts notebook.

(verso) Fragment of a female nude life study, c.1942
Red chalk, 17.5 cm x 12.5 cm

PROVENANCE: Estate of John David Roberts (held in Tate store, 2014)
EXHIBITION HISTORY: Reading 1983, Gillian Jason Gallery 1990