AN ENGLISH CUBIST

WILLIAM ROBERTS:

Bohemians + studies

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.

Bohemians – study, c.1934
Pencil, 17.3 cm x 24.3 cm

PROVENANCE: Estate of John David Roberts (held in Tate store, 2014)
EXHIBITION HISTORY: Reading 1983 (as Bohemians)

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Bohemians – study (aka Music Lovers), c.1934
Pencil lightly squared in red chalk, 17.8 cm x 36.2 cm
Inscribed in margin in red chalk below lower right, 'Size of panel 4'.6" x 9'.6" Drawing 1 1/2 inches to a foot'; below this the title Music Lovers. Inscribed in pencil above upper right various calculations, then, '18 x 14 1/2' and ' Size of drawing 20 ins x 14 ins' and below this '4'.6" x 9'.6"'

PROVENANCE: Estate of John David Roberts, accepted by HM Government in lieu of inheritance tax and allocated to Tate 2007 (as Music Lovers, T12637)
EXHIBITION HISTORY: Redfern Gallery 1942? (as no. 2, Music Lovers – it is not known whether it was the ‘finished’ red-chalk drawing, the pencil study or the gouache study that was shown at this exhibition), Cambridge 1985 (as Music Lovers), Tate Britain 2012 (as Music Lovers)

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Music Lovers (aka Bohemians), c.1934
Watercolour, pencil and gouache, 17.2 cm x 36.2 cm
Inscribed in margin bottom right, '3 inch Mount'; signed in red top right and dated 1938 below the signature. The date appears to have been added later, and does not tally with this being a study for a work first exhibited in 1935.

PROVENANCE: Estate of John David Roberts, accepted by HM Government in lieu of inheritance tax and allocated to Tate 2007 (T12661)
EXHIBITION HISTORY: Redfern Gallery 1942? (as no. 2, Music Lovers – it is not known whether it was the ‘finished’ red-chalk drawing, the pencil study or the gouache study that was shown at this exhibition), Tate Britain 2012 (as Music Lovers)

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Bohemians, c.1934
Red chalk, 35 cm x 50 cm

This highly finished drawing and its associated studies and what is evidently a companion series entitled The Card Players / Intellectuals seem to have been intended to lead to two large decorative panels: annotations in the margin of the pencil Bohemians study suggest that an eventual size of about 140 x 290 cm was envisaged, comparable with that of The Gutter, carried out around the same time. However, the project never progressed beyond the highly finished drawings. The red-chalk Bohemians having a less wide format than its equivalent in the Card Players series – corresponding to the only part of the pencil study squared up for transfer – may suggest that the idea of large panels was abandoned before this series was complete. The titles Bohemians and Intellectuals were evidently meant sardonically – each is at variance with the content of the picture to which it is applied – and possibly a dig at members of the Bloomsbury Group was intended.

PROVENANCE: Wilfrid Evill (May 1942, 20 gns) > Honor Frost (1963) > private collection, London (2011)
EXHIBITION HISTORY: Lefevre Gallery (1) 1935 (as Bohemians), Lefevre Gallery 1938 (as Bohemians, 12 gns), Redfern Gallery 1942? (as no. 2, Music Lovers – it is not known whether it was the ‘finished’ red-chalk drawing, the pencil study or the gouache study that was shown at this exhibition), Cairo 1947 (as Group), Whitechapel Gallery 1952, Brighton 1965 (as Music Party, Bloomsbury), Tate Gallery 1965 and tour (as Bohemians), Anthony d’Offay Gallery (2) 1980 (as Bohemians)