Hidden Gems II: Full Length

In this week’s edition of Hidden Gems, Liss Llewellyn are delighted to unveil Full-length.Whilst full-length figure painting was a staple of art schools in the twentieth-century – and a tradition that was given renewed impetus in the second half of the century by artists such as Freud and Bacon – the greatest invention of the century, Abstraction, was in essence conceived in opposition to figurative art.

Nevertheless, full-length figures remained central to many of the principal genres of the twentieth century including portraiture, allegorical compositions, and depictions of everyday life. And while not as conspicuously modern’ as their non-figurative contemporaries, many artists in this selection used the human form in quietly pioneering ways.

Full-length is certainly an unusual mode to elect for a self-portrait, and Colin Gill (1892-1940) does just this with his 1910 watercolour. Painted shortly after he had enrolled at the Slade School, this image shows Gill as the confident Bohemian, who mixed with Augustus John, Mark Gertler, and William Roberts at the Cafe Royal in Piccadilly.

Friends and relatives are chosen as the subject, elsewhere in the selection. There’s Barnett Freedman’s (1901-1958) long, almost serpentine painting of a man who is believed to have been his contemporary at the RCA. Or Edith Granger-Talyor’s (1857-1958) The Liberty Scarf, which shows the artist’s sister-in-law, Olive Deakes, admiring her new accessory in a hand-held mirror. Furthermore, friends become collaborators in Frances Richards’ (1903-1985) Penitent Figure, as Margaret Pond assisted with the embroidery, rendering Richards’ distinctively full-length, sylphlike figures in yarn.

Works FEATURED in this Exhibition

Ernst Deutsch Dryden (1883 - 1938)
Design for Blaupunkt Waldorf-Astoria Cigarettes, for Die Dame, 1928
£4,500
Private
Tirzah Garwood-Ravilious (1908 - 1951)
Vegetable Garden, circa 1933
Private
Claude Francis Barry (1883 - 1970)
Girl on a pink rock, Bordighera
Frances Richards (1903 - 1985)
Penitent Figure, 1984
£3,500
Sold
Frances Richards (1903 - 1985)
Girl in a Garden, late 1940’s
Sold
Leon Underwood (1890 - 1975)
The Woodcutter, 1925
Sold
Edith Granger-Taylor (1887 - 1958)
The Liberty Scarf
Frank Brangwyn (1867 - 1956)
Making Sailors: Youthful Ambition c.1917
£1,400
Clare Leighton (1898 - 1989)
The Reverend Hill Walks Away, BPL500, 1942
Barnett Freedman (1901 - 1958)
Sketch for Portrait of Young Man, mid-1920s
£9,750
On Loan
Gilbert Spencer (1892 - 1979)
Study for Composition with Three Children Seated in a Meadow, 1914
David Evans (1929 - 1988)
An Evening Out; (The Magic Circle), 1960
£1,950
Private
Clare Leighton (1898 - 1989)
Ellen and Her Children (BPL578), 1944
Robert Austin (1895 - 1973)
The Mother, 1932
£5,750
Sold
Colin Gill (1892 - 1940)
Self-portrait, 1910
Colin Gill (1892 - 1940)
Flora, 1912
£8,750