AN ENGLISH CUBIST

WILLIAM ROBERTS:

The Stockbroker's Clerk

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.

The Stockbroker's Clerk, 1920
Oil on canvas, 77.5 cm x 63.5 cm

'A portrait of one of the artist's brothers, who worked in a stockbroker's office and died young' – Tate Gallery 1965 catalogue. In the 1921 England and Wales census, WR's brother Joseph (b. 1903) appears as a stockbroker's clerk employed by T. G. Washington & Co. of Copthall Court, EC. 'The Stock-broker's Clerk' is also the title of one of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, in which someone takes up an ostensibly good job but is then kept hanging around doing little.
PROVENANCE: Hugh Blaker > Leicester Galleries > E. Brown and Phillips (?) > British Council (March 1948)
EXHIBITION HISTORY: Goupil Gallery 1920, Whitechapel Gallery 1928, Manchester 1929, Brighton 1929, New Zealand and Australia 1934, Tate Gallery (2) 1935, Leicester Galleries (1) 1948, British Council several exhibitions worldwide from 1957, Tate Gallery 1965 and tour