SKU: 2202
Clare Winsten (1894 - 1989)
Listening to the Wireless circa 1940
£1,450.00
Sold
Clare Winsten (1894 - 1989)
Signed
Pencil, 7 3/8 x 5 1/8 in. (18.8 x 13 cm.)
Size:
Height – 18.8cm x Width – 13cm
In a fine gilded oak slip with square section outer moulding
Provenance: Theodara Winsten, the artist’s daughter.
Literature: Whitchapel At War: Isaac Rosenberg & His Circle, Ben Uri Gallery, 2008
In 1931, during his time in London, Clare was given ‘unrestricted access’ to Mahatima Gandhi in order to execute his portrait. According to Gombrich, Gandhi was so pleased with the final result ‘that he took hold of her brush and signed his name in oil colour’,
Sarah MacDougal, Whitchapel Girl, chapter 7 of Whitchapel At War: Isaac Rosenberg & His Circle, Ben Uri Gallery, p 114
This is the finest in a series of portraits that Winsten made of
Gandhi when she made his acquaintance in Hampstead during Gandhi’s celebrated trip to England in 1931. Unlike so many portraits of Gandhi which were taken from photographs Winsten had the privilege of meeting Gandhi in person.
My parents life-time active involvement in social, humanitarian causes,
as well as the arts, brought them into touch with likeminded people
from many spheres. This affinity produced portraits of, among others,
D.H.Lawrence, Montessori, Catherine Lonsdale, Mahatma Gandhi, Bernard
Shaw…. My parents first met Mahatma Gandhi in the 1930s when living at
Hampstead (and this) led to a remarkable series of paintings and
drawings. There was such an empathy between them that Clare was invited
to be there …..whenever she wanted.
Disclaimer:
Modern British Art Gallery are continually seeking to improve the quality of the information on their website. We actively undertake to post new and more accurate information on our stable of artists.
We openly acknowledge the use of information from other sites including Wikipedia, artbiogs.co.uk and Tate.org and other public domains. We are grateful for the use of this information and we openly invite any comments on how to improve the accuracy of what we have posted.
Clare Winsten (n e Clara Birnberg) emigrated from Romania to
England in 1902, where she trained at The Slade School of Fine
Art (1910’12). Gaining recognition within the circle of Jewish
painters emerging at the time, she was the only female member
of the so-called Whitechapel Boys. As a portraitist, she made
drawings of numerous eminent figures, including George Bernard
Shaw, Benjamin Britten and Mahatma Gandhi. She also illustrated
several books, such as Shaw’s Buoyant Billions: A Comedy of No
Manners in Prose, published in 1949.
Winsten joined the Women’s Freedom League and became
active in women’s suffrage soon after leaving the Slade. A female
artist and pacifist working during a particularly turbulent time
in English history, her work came to reflect the notional gulf
between the forward movement of emerging modernist art and the
traditionalism at the heart of the war effort and society at the time.
With thanks to artbiogs.co.uk
Clare Winsten (1894 - 1989)
£1,450.00