AN ENGLISH CUBIST

WILLIAM ROBERTS:

Kit

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.

Kit, 1923
Oil on canvas, 50 cm x 39 cm

The Tate Gallery 1965 catalogue describes the sitter as 'Kate Knewstub, a niece of John Chenil of the Chenil Galleries'. This refers to Katie Knewstub, later Katie Bissett-Smith (1907–2008), the daughter of Frederick Oliver Knewstub, whose brother John founded the Chenil Galleries, where in 1923 Roberts had his first one-man show. Katie and the elder of her two brothers, Fred (also painted by Roberts), lived with John Knewstub and his wife, Helen, after their mother (née Florence Nelson Fulcher) died in 1915, their father having died the previous year.
PROVENANCE: Sir Edward Marsh > Contemporary Art Society (1953) > Wolverhampton Art Gallery (1929)
EXHIBITION HISTORY: Chenil Galleries 1923, Whitechapel Gallery 1929, Venice 1932 (as Testa di fanciulla), Tate Gallery 1965