Provenance: The Artist’s family
Between 1906 and 1961 Spurrier exhibited nearly 100 works at The Royal Academy and he frequently illustrated magazines such as The
Graphic, Illustrated London News and the Radio Times. He was especially drawn to subjects of dance and the circus and attracted by the patterns
created by brightly coloured clothes and the rhythm afforded by subjects conveying movement. During the First World War he worked with the
Admiralty developing dazzle camouflage for ships. I have made countless pencil notes of all sorts of incidents, and the ideas for my pictures evolve
from them and my imagination. I seldom paint a picture with the subject in front of me but from sketches and memory.’ (quoted by Mary Chamot in The
Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, II)
We are grateful to James Manning for assistance.