Henry Lamb

Private Collection, Oxford
Sale, Christie's London, 11th March 1994, lot 109, where acquired by David Bowie

The sheet is affixed to the mount with one tab at each of the upper corners. There are two old tabs visible to the reverse of the sheet at the upper edge. The sheet undulates very slightly but otherwise appears sound. There is a diagonal crease visible in the upper right corner. There is discolouration to the sheet, most apparent around the edges, and most visible when viewed unframed, and also some staining along the upper edge, including to the aforementioned tabs. There are also some small spots of staining elsewhere, and some scattered spots of foxing. There are some specks of white in the lower portion of the work, thought to be studio detritus. Subject to the above, the work appears to be in good overall condition, with strong, fresh passages of charcoal throughout. The work is window mounted and presented in a painted wooden frame, held under glass. Please telephone the department on +44 (0) 207 293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Luminaries from law to literature came together in the London drawing room of two young sisters, Vanessa and Virginia Stephen, in the early years of the 20th century. Hence known as the Bloomsbury group, a nod to the leafy Georgian Squares of central London where they lived, their erstwhile friends were famous as much for their ground-breaking ideas as for their liberal approach to relationships. Giles Lytton Strachey (1880-1932), biographer and writer, was a core member of the so-called Bloomsbury set – he had been at Cambridge with Thoby Stephen, Vanessa and Virginia’s brother, together with the economist John Maynard Keynes, the art critic Clive Bell, who later married Vanessa, and the publisher and civil servant Leonard Woolf, who married Virginia.

Henry Lamb was introduced to the group by his older brother Walter. Strachey rather fell in love with him, first sitting for a portrait in 1908. Lamb wrote to him: ‘I should very much like to make a more adequate presentation of you than that sketch.. your posing is exemplary’ (the Artist, quoted in Henry Lamb (exh. cat.), Manchester City Art Gallery, 1984, p.38). By the time the present work was drawn in 1913, Lamb had brought Strachey to meet the great bohemian artist of the period Augustus John who had inspired him to wear an earring and grow his hair and beard longer. Strachey wrote to his mother on 9th May 1911: ‘The chief news is that I have grown a beard! Its colour is very much admired, and it is generally considered extremely effective, though some ill-bred persons have been observed to laugh. It is a red-brown of the most approved tint, and makes me look like a French decadent poet - or something equally distinguished…’ (the Artist, quoted in Paul Levy (ed.), The Letters of Lytton Strachey, Viking, London, 2005).

Bowie’s drawing captures Strachey at his most pensive, with a bravura handling of charcoal sculpting Strachey’s features on paper. The compositional arrangement is clearly related to Lamb’s larger painting of Strachey (1913-1914, Tate, London) undoubtedly his greatest portrait but whereas the oil version feels somewhat static and frozen in time (indeed Roger Fry called it ‘that horrid vulgar picture by Henry’ (Fry, quoted in The Art of Bloomsbury (exh. cat.), Tate, London, 1999, p.113)), Lamb’s command and facility with charcoal enlivens Strachey’s features and it is hard to believe that it was executed more than 100 years ago.