AN ENGLISH CUBIST

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WILLIAM ROBERTS:

History of the Omnibus

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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.

History of the Omnibus, 1924
Painting, 610 cm x 213 cm

In his essay 'Dealers and Galleries', Roberts described the origin of this work as follows:

Muirhead Bone, who had written an introduction to the catalogue of the show [Roberts's 1923 one-man show at the Chenil Galleries], brought Frank Pick, head of the Underground, to see it. As a result of their visit I was asked to do a poster, to be put up at the entrance of the British Trade Fair [the British Empire Exhibition] at Wembley. It was to be in two sections, about thirty feet over-all in length, and some eight feet in height. [It was eventually 20 ft x 7 ft.] The poster was to illustrate the development of the bus, from the horse-drawn to the mechanical.

The painting was done in a large, dingy petrol-smelling shed, part of a bus dépôt in Chelsea. Outside, adjoining my impromptu studio, was a spacious courtyard where bus-drivers practised skids, on ground made slippery with oil and water. Before I began the poster Bone decided the job would be too much for one person, and brought in Neville Lewis to paint one of the sections. Lewis, a South African, was known as 'Nigger' Lewis, because of his frequent use of negresses and negroes as models. I fear Lewis did not get much inspiration from his new model: the motor bus. His visits to this grimy bus dépôt were very irregular, and once in desperation he suggested that I should paint his portion as well. But 'Nigger' made no mention of payment.