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Percy Shakespeare (1906 - 1943)
Size:
Height – 56cm x Width – 39cm
Provenance: Jeremy Raynham-Kemp. Studio reference no. 290
Kemp and Shakespeare were exact contemporaries.
Kemp was a gifted cellist (he had played with the
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra before committming himself to
painting) and music provided one of the key ingredients of his art. He
and his wife, Irene Crowther, were one
half of the KERA Quartet, a widely known string quartet. Irene played
with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the
London Symphony.
Shakespeare trained at Dudley Art School and later studied and then
taught at Birmingham School of Art, where he became acquainted with his Arthur Kemp. His carefully organised, flatly
painted compositions in oils, in which great attention was paid to the
outline silhouette of each individual figure, were exhibited at the RA
between 1934 and his death in an air raid. He also exhibited at the
Paris Salon and the RBSA. In spite of his early demise his oeuvre has
undeniable charm – his essentially suburban, and peculiarly English,
compositions are drenched with colour and light and despite sometimes
appearing to verge on caricature are usually carried off with great
panache.
Selected Literature
Robin Shaw, Percy Shakespeare: Dudley’s Painter of the Thirties,
published by Robin Shaw (ISBN 0953912604), 2000.
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Shakespeare trained at Dudley Art School and later studied and then taught at Birmingham School of Art. His carefully organised, flatly painted compositions in oils, in which great attention was paid to the outline silhouette of each individual figure, were exhibited at the RA between 1934 and his death in an air raid. He also exhibited at the Paris Salon and the RBSA. In spite of his early demise his oeuvre has undeniable charm – his essentially suburban, and peculiarly English, compositions are drenched with colour and light and despite sometimes appearing to verge on caricature are usually carried off with great panache.
Selected Literature
Robin Shaw, Percy Shakespeare: Dudley’s Painter of the Thirties, published by Robin Shaw (ISBN 0953912604), 2000.
With thanks to artbiogs.co.uk