Stephen Bone (1904 - 1958)

Portrait of a Gentleman, Seated

£800.00

SKU: 8340
Signed
Black crayon
9 3/4 x 11 1/2 in. (24.8 x 29.2 cm)
Presentation:
folio

Size:
Height – 24.8cm x Width – 29.2cm

1 in stock

DESCRIPTION

Provenance:
James Bone

Quentin Bone has identified the sitter as Campbell Dodgson, keeper of prints and drawings at the British Museum. 

Campbell Dodgson (1867-1948)
Historian of German and Flemish drawings, Keeper of the Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum. Dodgson came from a middle-class investment family, distantly related to Lewis Carroll (née Charles Lutwidge Dodgson). He attended Winchester and then New College, Oxford, where he read in Classics and Theology. His intention to be ordained changed after college (perhaps because of his realization of latent homosexuality). Dodgson assisted Oscar Wilde’s friend Lord Alfred Douglas at Oxford, spending a well-documented weekend with Wild and Douglas at Babbacombe near Torquay. 
He joined the British Museum in 1893 in the Department of Prints and Drawings under Sir Sidney Colvin (q.v.). He hired Oxford poet Laurence Binyon (q.v.) as an assistant Keeper in 1895. In 1898 he co-founded the publications of the D√ºrer Society (lasting until 1911) with Montagu Peartree. He translated many of the immensely popular Künstler-Monographien series of Velhagen & Klasing publisher into English, especially those of Hermann Knackfuss (q.v.). 
In 1903 and 1911, the two volumes of his catalog of the Flemish and German woodcuts of the British Museum were published. This achieved him international recognition as an authority of those areas. Other volumes in this series were written under the emerging scholars of the department, including the young Arthur M. Hind (q.v.). 
In 1912 Dodgson succeeded Colvin as Keeper. In 1913 he married Catharine Spooner, daughter of the Reverend W. A. Spooner, Warden of New College. 
Dodgson edited the Print Collectors Newsletter for and frequently contributed articles to the Burlington Magazine. During World War I, he was a German translator for the British government running the Department largely by himself because of the lack of labor the war had caused. In 1929, Dodgson’s niece married the art historian J. Byam Shaw (q.v.). Shaw and Dodgson became close, despite a subsequent divorce by Shaw. Binyon succeeded Dodgson as Keeper in 1932 for one year before his own retirement. 
Throughout his life, Dodgson collected prints and, being heirless, did so with the understanding they would go to the Department of Prints and Drawings. He also was instrumental in donating GBP2000, a large sum of money at the time, to assist in the purchase of the magnificent Dürer drawing of a Tirolean woman

Peter Roth describes Dodgson as being one of the first in England to apply the rigorous techniques of German art history. Dodgson carefully described and analyzed prints. His interests were primarily northern renaissance prints and drawings.

Home Country: United Kingdom
 

Sources: Panofsky, Erwin. “The History of Art.” In The Cultural Migration: The European Scholar in America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1953, mentioned, p. 85; Erwin Panofsky. “Wilhelm V√∂ge: A Biographical Memoir.” Art Journal 28 no. 1 (Fall 1968): 27, mentioned; Roth, Peter. “Campbell Dodgson” Print Review 4: 34; [obituaries:] “Dr. Campbell Dodgson, Prints And Drawings.” The Times [London]. July 14, 1948, p. 7; Schilling, E. “Campbell Dodgson.” The Burlington Magazine 90 (October 1948): 293-4. 
Bibliography: [complete bibliography:] Schilling, E. “Campbell Dodgson.” The Burlington Magazine 90 (October 1948): 293-4; Catalogue of early German and Flemish woodcuts preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum. London: The Trustees of the British Museum, 1903. 
 Source: https://dictionaryofarthistorians.org 
We are grateful to Quentin Bone for his assistance.

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THE ARTIST

Stephen Bone
Stephen
Bone
1904 - 1958

Stephen Bone (13 November 1904 – 15 September 1958), was an English artist, writer, broadcaster and noted war artist. Bone achieved early success in book illustration using woodcuts before he turned to painting and art criticism.

Born in Chiswick, London and was the son of Sir Muirhead Bone and of Gertrude Helana Dodd, a writer. After leaving Bedales School he travelled widely in Europe with his father before enrolling at the Slade School of Fine Art in 1922. He became disillusioned with the Slade and left in 1924 to begin illustrating books, with woodcuts, for his mother and other writers. In 1925 Bone was awarded the Gold Medal for Wood Engraving at the International Exhibition in Paris. In 1926 he was the subject of a joint exhibition at the Goupil Gallery, alongside Rodney Joseph Burn, and in 1928 he painted a mural for the underground station at Piccadilly Circus.

In 1929 he married the artist Mary Adshead and they were to have two sons and a daughter. The couple travelled extensively across Britain and Europe which allowed Bone to paint outdoors in all weathers and develop a style of bright landscape painting that proved popular and sold well at a number of gallery exhibitions.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, Stephen Bone enlisted as an officier in the Civil Defence Camouflage Establishment based in Leamington Spa. In June 1943 Bone was appointed by the War Artists’ Advisory Committee to be a full-time salaried artist to the Ministry of Information specialising in Admiralty subjects. The post had originally being held by Stephens father, Muirhead Bone, but following the death of Gavin Bone, Stephens brother, Muirhead decided not to continue with the commission. Stephen produced a large quantity of works showing naval craft and coastal installations around Great Britain. He recorded the 1944 Normandy landings, painted scenes in Caen and Courseulles after the invasion and went on to record the assault on Walcheren Island in the Netherlands. Towards the end of 1944 he travelled to Norway and painted the wreck of the Tirpitz.

After the War, Bone found his style of painting somewhat out of fashion and, although he continued to paint, he found it difficult to get his work exhibited. He became an art critic for the Manchester Guardian, wrote humorous pieces for the Glasgow Herald and did television and radio work for the BBC. With his wife, he wrote and illustrated children’s books. He died of cancer on 15 September 1958 at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London.

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Christmas Tree, circa 1938

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At the haberdashers, 1920’s

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Sketches, probably of Normandy landings
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Portrait of a Gentleman, Seated

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Forthcoming
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Portrait of a Gentleman, Standing
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Design for poster; Pictures of Spain and Scotland, 1920’s

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Mary Adshead Sketching

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