Antoon Derkzen van Angeren Two Skulls Dutch, 1908-9 Etching 30 x 39.7 cm This etching revives the distinctive Dutch seventeenth-century painting category of vanitas still-life. One or more skulls in isolation was a tradition established by Angeren’s seventeenth-century predecessor, Hercules Seers (1589/90-1633/38). Purchased 2001 (No. 2001.1).
Lovis Corinth Christ on the Cross (Christus am Kreuz) Berlin, 1919 Woodcut Plate: 51 x 43 m; mount: 73 x 59 cm Christ is shown at his crucifixion, his head crowned by a searing sun and his body scored by the deep lines carved in the wood. Corinth uses chaotic hatched lines to emphasis Christ’s … Read more
Gwendolen Mary John A Nun Seated at a Table Paris, the 1910s Black chalk on paper 32.4 x 23.5 cm This drawing of an unknown nun is closely related to the series of portraits of Mère Poussepin Gwen John executed from 1913, one of which is shown in the Blue Gallery. The artist worked from … Read more
Otto Dix Chalk Cliffs in the Sun German, 1916 Black chalk on beige paper 284 x 208 mm The experience of war was a dominant theme in Dix’s work until the 1930s. Taken from a sketchbook compiled during the artist’s service in the German field artillery during the First World War, this drawing depicts a … Read more
André Derain La Chute de Phaëton (The Fall of Phaeton) France, about 1905 Brush, pen and black ink 64 x 35.8 cm Phaethon, son of Helios the sun-god, persuades his father to let him drive his sun-chariot, but wreaks such havoc that he is struck from the sky by Zeus (Ovid: Metamorphoses II, 150-327). A … Read more
Percy Wyndham Lewis A Portrait of the Artist’s Wife, ‘Froanna’ (Gladys Anne Hoskins 1900-1979) America, 1940 Pencil and coloured chalks on blue paper 48.3 x 31 cm This portrait of the artist’s wife Gladys Hoskins (1900-1979), known as Froanna, was made in America where Lewis spent the war years. The artist bought the distinctive blue … Read more
PIERRE BONNARD The Evening Meal Paris, about 1903 Oil on canvas 37.4 x 45.5 cm The scene shows Bonnard’s sister Andrée Terrasse and two of her children, Robert, and, silhouetted against the lamp, Vivette. They are seated for an evening meal in the Terrasse’s home at Le Grand-Lemps in the rural south of France. Bonnard … Read more
20th-Century Portrait Drawings From formal commissions to intimate sketches of friends and lovers, Defining Faces focuses on portraiture in a century that witnessed radical changes in artistic style. The exhibition – the second in a prestigious collaboration with the National Portrait Gallery, London – examines the function of, and the variety of approaches to the … Read more