£52,000
GEORGE SPENCER WATSON ROI, RP, ARA, RA (1869-1934)
'A Study', oil on canvas, 40 x 34 in
Exhibited :The Royal Academy, London 1933.
Dorset County Museum, Dorchester & Southampton Art Gallery, 18th Sept 1981-10 January 1982. no.55.
Literature; Modern Masterpieces. Publ. Newnes, c 1935 p 4, first issue (Cover Illustration)
'This striking and brilliantly executed painting of 'the female form divine' is one of the last of this Academician's works, and in it is summed up the knowledge of a lifetime' Modern Masterpieces, (ibid). That appreciation of his work is also echoed in an obituary printed shortly after the artist's death state which stated that 'his painting of the nude was remarkable for its refinement of feeling'
This work can be compared with a slightly earlier work from the late 1920s, titled 'A Sunlit Nude', (Russell Cotes Museum and Art Gallery, Bournemouth). It also bears comparison with another important female figure study titled 'Nude' (1927) Harris Art Gallery, Preston.cf also a nude study of Marishka, Christie's King Street, 27th March 2003.
Though Spencer Watson's oeuvre contained a wide range of portrait, landscape and classical subject matter, nude studies by the artist are relatively rare. His nude studies varying in character, to some extent dependent on the attributes and character of the sitter.
In this study Spencer Watson observes a classical clarity of outline with a precisely observed rendering of a seated model, contrasted with a dark blue background.
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