William Henry Margetson

A New Day is a particularly elegant painting by Margetson, who specialised in sophisticated images of beautiful young women dressed in fine fabrics and residing in sumptuous interiors. The title is suggestive of rebirth and of optimism and in many ways A New Day relates to the pictures that were painted in the years immediately preceding the turn of the century, when artists painted the hope of the future in allegorical terms. Often the subjects were taken from mythology, such as Eos the Dawn Goddess and her lover Tithonos. The theme that linked these varied images at the Royal Academy exhibitions of the 1890s and early 1900s, was the idea of sun worship suggesting a new and more hopeful age. Whether artists depicted the classical Persephone or a modern day woman gazing out of a window at a new dawn, the idea of rejuvenation and rebirth is paramount. Margetson's vision of the theme of 'rebirth' shown in A New Day, is that of the Post-War period, after World War I had ravaged the people of Europe, leaving deep emotional scars. The artists of the 1930s sought to depict a new and better epoch after the hardship of the war. Margetson, like many of his contemporaries, chose to work in an established style which had its roots in the Renaissance, to retrace a lost innocence and idealism. Far from old-fashioned, his colour schemes were always vibrant and his depictions of women were perceptive and glamorous.