Henry Lamb

Lytton Strachey
Noel Carrington, and thence by descent

The board has bowed slightly. There are artist's pin holes in all four corners and in the centre of the lower section of the board. The paint surface is in very good condition. Examination under ultra-violet light reveals a few tiny scattered spots of retouching in the upper left corner. There are further scattered spots in the upper left quadrant. Held in a simple wooden frame and protected by a perspex sheet on the reverse.
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Henry Lamb enrolled at the Chelsea School of Art, founded by Augustus John and William Orpen, in 1906. Lamb greatly admired John and in 1907, accepted his invitation to join him in Paris with his wife Euphemia. After visiting the 1910 Post-Impressionist exhibition in London, Lamb returned to France, spending the summers of 1910 and 1911 in Brittany. The impact of Lamb's time in France, and his experience of the work of Gauguin, can be seen in the present work, where the paint is applied to form thick areas of flat colour. 

Lamb was originally introduced to Lytton Strachey, who owned the present painting, by his older brother, Walter, who studied at Cambridge with Strachey and Clive Bell. Even as Lamb became tired of the social and critical claustrophobia of the Bloomsbury set, he remained firm friends with Strachey. One of Lamb's most accomplished paintings is a portrait of Lytton Strachey which hangs in Tate.  

We are grateful to Dr Wendy Baron for dating this work to circa 1910-1913.