Percy Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957)

A portrait of the artist's wife, Froanna, whom he married in 1929. Another portrait from the same year, Froanna - Portrait of the Artist's Wife, (Glasgow Museum and Art Gallery) is also painted almost exclusively in the red-brown tones that gives the present work its title. Walter Michel (op. cit., p. 129) comments that 'Red Portrait is the superb culmination of the tendency we have noted in the drawings. The monochrome colour, which extends to the moon (!) landscape in the background, the sitter's formality, air of remoteness and declamatory way of holding the cigarette, constitute a climax which, surprisingly, may be called mannerist'.