AN ENGLISH CUBIST

WILLIAM ROBERTS:

The Critic Intervenes + study

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.

(recto) The Critic Intervenes (Roger Fry), c.1948
Pencil, 15.2 cm x 13.3 cm

'The critic, book in hand, restrains the inspired artist' – Gillian Jason Gallery 1990. The Gillian Jason Gallery (2) 1986 catalogue, where 'Roger Fry' appears in parentheses after the title, comments that 'A watercolour where the critic does not resemble Fry at all is in the collection of the British Museum,' implying that the critic in this version does resemble Roger Fry (though the critic looks much the same in both versions). But it is not clear why Roberts would have been exercised by Fry (d. 1934) in the late 1940s

(verso) Milking Goats

PROVENANCE: Estate of John David Roberts, accepted by HM Government in lieu of inheritance tax and allocated to Tate 2007 (T12708)
EXHIBITION HISTORY: Gillian Jason Gallery (2) 1986, Gillian Jason Gallery 1990

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The Critic Intervenes (aka The Critic Demonstrates), c.1948
Pen and black ink and watercolour, 38 x 28 cm

PROVENANCE: Contemporary Art Society > British Museum (1953). This is probably the Roberts Drawing bought for the CAS by Wilfrid Evill in 1953.
EXHIBITION HISTORY: Leicester Galleries (3) 1949 (as The Critic Demonstrates), Newcastle 2004