AN ENGLISH CUBIST




WILLIAM ROBERTS:

Her Baby



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.


Her Baby

Her Baby (aka The Mother), c.1920
Black chalk and crayon over traces of graphite, squared, 37.0 cm x 30.4 cm
Signed and inscribed 'Her Kid' (upper left) and 'The Baby' (lower right)

In June 1919 Sarah Kramer had given birth to WR's son, John David Roberts, in a Mission of Hope maternity home for unmarried mothers, in Streatham, London SW16. (She and Roberts married three years later.) This drawing apparently depicting disapproval towards a single mother may reflect her own experience or that of other unmarried mothers she had met in Streatham and whom she had talked about to WR.
PROVENANCE: Augustus John (from Chenil Galleries, 1923) > ? > Leicester Galleries, London > Sir Ivor and Lady Batchelor (Nov. 1963) > Fitzwilliam Museum (PD.152-2015, bequest via the Art Fund, 2015)
EXHIBITION HISTORY: Chenil Galleries 1923, Leicester Galleries 1954 (as The Mother), Cambridge 2018




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