AN ENGLISH CUBIST

WILLIAM ROBERTS:

Cockneys + studies

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.

Cockneys – study, c.1919
Red chalk, 37.5 cm x 38.1 cm

PROVENANCE: Redfern Gallery July 1966 > ? > Sotheby's 23 May 1984 (£5,800) > ? > Sotheby's 7 Nov. 1990 (£12,650) > ? > Crane Kalman Gallery > Christie's 20 Nov. 2013 (£43,750)
In the Sotheby's catalogue it is described as 'the only surviving study for a large canvas painted c.1919 and subsequently destroyed' – but see here.
For more information on this picture, click here.

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The Cockneys

Cockneys – study, c.1919
Pencil, pen and black ink and watercolour, part squared for transfer, 37.5 cm x 37.5 cm

PROVENANCE: WR > Wyndham Lewis > Agnes Bedford > ? > Christie's 6 June 2003 (£21,510) > Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert
EXHIBITION HISTORY: possibly the study shown in Mansard Gallery 1920

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Cockneys: A Street Scene, c.1919
Large canvas.

PROVENANCE: ‘A large painting The Cockneys … was bought by Eric Kennington. This picture was left behind when Kennington moved from his studio. The new tenant [in 1935], Julian Trevelyan, returned it to me, and I destroyed it’ – Roberts, Some Early Abstract and Cubist Work, p. 12. For more information on this picture, click here.
EXHIBITION HISTORY: Mansard Gallery 1920 (‘the figures are engaged in some kind of common action, but seem to be all acting furiously and separately like mechanical toys a little out of order’ – The Times, 1 Apr. 1920)