AN ENGLISH CUBIST

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WILLIAM ROBERTS:

Sidney J. Barton

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Illustration © The Estate of John David Roberts. 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.

Sidney J. Barton, 1959
Oil on canvas, 90 cm x 70 cm

Sidney James Barton (1909–86) grew up in Wandsworth and, after working as a laboratory technician, in 1934 became an officer of the National Union of Public Employees. In 1950 he was elected to the executive of the London Labour Party, and he was also appointed chairman of London County Council in 1959–60. It was to mark this appointment that Roberts was commissioned to paint his portrait. In addition, Barton was made a Commander of the Legion of Honour by France, awarded the Order of Homayoun class III by the Shah of Iran, and given the Grand Cross of the Order of Al Merito by Peru.
According to the Holdaway Family website (accessed 20 Feb. 2018):

William Roberts …was commissioned to paint Sir Sidney Barton, who gave him ten sittings and rejected the finished result. In the Greater London Records files there is a plaintive note from Roberts saying that he had delivered the Barton portrait to Room 151 at County Hall, as it was the room in which Barton had sat to him and he could find no one who would take the painting from him. He finished by saying, he hoped it would be framed. It was not framed but shunted from storeroom to storeroom and, somewhere along the way, a graffiti biro moustache was added … A portrait [of Barton] by Leslie Robert Baxter was accepted.