Provenance: Peter Cochran;The Fine Art Society
Exhibited: (?) Arthur Studd, Alpine Club Gallery, London, June 1911
It’s
commonly believed that Paul Gauguin worked in isolation in Tahiti,
living in self-imposed exile from France and far from the reach of the
European avant-garde. But from 1897 to 1898 Gauguin was joined in Tahiti at Papete
by a British painter, Arthur Haythorne Studd (1863 – 1919). It was
Studd’s wish, as he declared in a letter to his friend James McNeil
Whistler (dated 22 June, 1897), to establish a Studio of the South
Seas’
Arthur Studd studied art at the Slade School under Legros in 1888-89 and
in Paris at the Academie Julian. He quickly immersed himself in an
artistic
circle which included, Degas, Puvis de Chavannes,Charles Conder and
James McNeill Whistler.
He also met and befriended Gauguin in Le Pouldou, Brittany in 1890.
From 1894 to 1895 Studd worked with Whistler in London where they were
neighbours in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea.
A man of independent means and a collector Studd bequeathed
three major works by Whistler to the National Gallery, London (now in
the Tate Collection): Symphony in White, No. 2: The Little White Girl;
The Fire Wheel; and Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Cremorne Lights).
Studd held one man shows during his lifetime at the Goupil Gallery in
1896, The Baillie Gallery in 1906, The Alpine Club Gallery, London in
1911 and The City Museum of St. Louis, USA in 1910. Exhibited at the New
English Arts Club.
He excelled in producing small wooden panels painted en plein air, much inspired by the Post Impressionists. Panels by
Studd of a similar size are in the collection of Tate Britain.
A biography of
this important British painter and collector, whose story remains to be
told, is being prepared by Dr Prue Ahrens University of Queensland.