Glyn Philpot, R.A. 1884-1937

Miss Gabrielle Cross, The Artist's neice
Mrs Rosemary Smalley, London

London, Leicester Galleries, Summer Exhibition, 1936, no.82;
London, Redfern Gallery, Figure Pieces, Portraits, Landscapes and Flower-Pieces in Oil and Watercolour by Glyn Philpot, 1937, no.2 (220 gns.);
London, Tate Gallery, Paintings and Sculpture by  the late Glyn Philpot, R.A. (1884-1937), 1938, no.57;
Warsaw, Helsinki and Oslo, British Council touring exhibition, 1939, details untraced;
London, National Gallery, British Painting since Whistler, 1940, no.119;
London, Leighton House, Drawings, Paintings and Sculpture by Glyn Warren Philpot, R.A., 1884-1937, 1959, no.58 (followed by a tour with the Art Exhibitions Bureau 1959-60);
Worthing, Worthing Art Gallery, Paintings and Drawings by Glyn Philpot, R.A., 1962, no.42

D. Philpot, Manuscript Catalogue of Paintings by Glyn Philpot, c.1938-57, p.33;
A.C.Sewter (intro.), Glyn Philpot 1884-1937, B.T. Batsford, London, 1951, p.9, pl.104, illustrated.

Painted in 1936, the subject of this work is probably Henry Thomas, the young Jamaican who worked for Philpot as a houseman and model from 1929 after Oliver Messel had found him wandering the halls of the National Gallery having missed his boat home. He first appeared in Philpot's work in 1929, as Balthazar (private collection), and was Philpot's constant source of inspiration from 1932 until the artist's death in 1937. While a male black sitter had been a popular subject with Philpot since the early and Rembrandt-esque Head of a Negro of 1912, A.C. Sewter comments that it was in the last two years of his life that "Philpot painted a series of half-length sitting negroes which, for variety and certainty of mood, occupy a high position in his oeuvre" (op.cit.) Other works in this series are Melancholy Negro, Negro Sitting and Negro Thinking of Heaven.