William Roberts, R.A.

Ernest Cooper
His sale, Sotheby's London, 9th November 1988, lot 101
Private Collection
Jonathan Clark Fine Art, London, from whom acquired by the present owner in 2001

Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, Young British Painters, 1939, cat. no.90;
London, Redfern Gallery, William Roberts, Exhibition of Drawings and Oils, 1942, cat. no.29 (as Errand Boys);
London, The Arts Council, Tate, William Roberts, A.R.A. Retrospective Exhibition, 20th November - 19th December 1965, cat. no.62 (as Errand Boys), with tour to Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, and Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester;
Rotterdam, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, De Fiets, 1977, cat. no.90.

Sir John Rothenstein, Modern English Painters, Lewis to Moore, Eyre and Spotiswood, London, 1956, p.288;
William Roberts, Paintings 1917-1958, 1960, illustrated p.43 (as The Errand Boys, dated 1936-7).

Original canvas. The canvas appears sound. Generally, the work appears to be in excellent overall condition. There are one or two very small scuffs apparent along the lower horizontal edge, one underneath the signature, one at the extreme edge just left of the signature, and a further one at the centre of the lower horizontal edge. There is an extremely small indentation to the canvas apparent to the blue spokes of the bike at the left in the foreground, above which is a small horizontal smudge. There are two very minor areas of craquelure, apparent in the wheels towards the lower left vertical edge and to the grey pigment of the central left figure's apron. Ultraviolet light reveals some very small flecks of retouching around the extreme edges of the work and one or two further extremely tiny flecks across the work. There is some retouching to the aforementioned scuffs beneath the signature, and to the bottom rear wheel of the leftmost bike and the blue spokes of the bike beneath it. There is also some retouching to the left arm of the leftmost figure with the scarf. All of these have been very sensitively executed. The work is presented in a painted and gilded wooden frame. Please telephone the department on +44 (0) 207 293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
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William Roberts felt it rang false to purely invent a subject and he never committed to a composition without it having some source, either from his observations of everyday life, from literature or scripture, or from his studies of the arts. It was in part for this reason that he always had an uncomfortable relationship with so called ‘pure abstraction’, writing in 1976 that ‘the artist who tells no more of his life and times, than a collection of abstract designs might well never have been born’ (William Roberts, Paintings and Drawings by William Roberts R.A., William Clowes & Sons Limited, London, 1976, unpaginated). He would often spend long hours strolling around his neighbourhood in London, or later meandering by the canals and streams in Marston  (the suburb of Oxford his family occupied during the Second World War), jotting down sketched observations on little slips of paper as he went.

Bicycle Boys is perhaps derived from such an expedition, and certainly the subject, which focuses on the tumultuous energy of urban life and human interaction, would have been appealing to the artist. Roberts had always been in thrall with the vivacity of modernity, and was particularly drawn to uproarious environments, from the boisterous atmosphere of packed noisy cafes, to the movement and hustle and bustle of crowds. With a keen eye for detail and observation, and using the distinctive style he developed between the wars, in works such as Bicycle Boys, Roberts was able to articulate the intricacies of social interaction through gesture and facial expression. Here he has arranged the figures within a characteristically deliberate compositional arrangement, a series of diagonals that pull our eye across and up the tableau. The scene is one of men going about their daily errand runs throughout the city, delivering fish, supplies and goods - many clearly revelling in their task. They wave and yell at one another, hitching rides and showing off with their balancing tricks, a showcase of joviality and working class comradery.

Painted in 1939, Bicycle Boys was included in the only one man show Roberts held during the Second World War, which took place at the Redfern Gallery in 1942. As the economy suffered and commissions and gallery shows slowed significantly, the War was a particularly financially difficult time for the Roberts family.  At the onset of the War, Roberts had signed up to participate in the government art scheme in which the War Artists Advisory Committee (WAAC) purchased and commissioned pieces to document the ongoing conflict. Having been an official war artist during the First World War, this seemed a natural choice for Roberts. However, having been initially commissioned to do a series of drawings which would require a journey to France, Roberts was unimpressed by the transportation logistics and perhaps reticent to return to the front, he abandoned the journey. What would have provided him with some security during these tenuous times amounted to effectively a broken contract, and he was consequently only commissioned to produce two official pictures during wartime.

The show at the Redfern Gallery subsequently took on particular weight, and included several well accomplished oils as well as watercolours. While Roberts' early patron Wilfred Evil purchased Windy Day (sold in these rooms, Sotheby's London, 16th June 2011, lot 135, The Evill/Frost Collection Part II, for £121,250), the show was a resounding disappointment, with only a handful of the oils and watercolours finding buyers. Many of the paintings in the show, including Bicycle Boys, would in time end up finding their way into the collection of Ernest Cooper, the owner of a successful health food company in London. Cooper was originally introduced to Roberts' work through his wife, who worked at the Ben Uri Gallery, and who had befriended Sarah Roberts. William and Ernest struck up a friendship which continued for many years, and Ernest became the major patron of Roberts’ work from the late 1940s, adding such important pieces as The Connoisseur (1921), Bank Holiday in the Park (1921), The Playground (1934-35), and Masked Revels (1953), to his collection.