Mother and Daughter: Lou Lou I Love you

Details

Walter Richard Sickert, A.R.A. (1860-1942)
Mother and Daughter: Lou Lou I Love you
signed 'Sickert' (lower right)
oil on canvas
11¼ x 7 in. (28.5 x 17.8 cm.)
Painted in 1911.

Provenance

Mrs Philippa St John-Cooper, London.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 28 July 1955, lot 282 as 'Two Women seated on a Bed', where purchased by the present owner.

Literature

W. Browse, Sickert, London, 1960, pl. 64.
W. Baron, Sickert, London, 1973, p. 358, no. 315.
W. Baron, The Camden Town Group, London, 1979, p. 279.
W. Baron, Perfect Moderns A History of the Camden Town Group, Aldershot, 2000, p. 202.
W. Baron, Sickert Paintings and Drawings, New Haven and London, 2006, p. 380, no. 368.

Exhibited

London, Carfax Gallery, The Camden Town Group, December 1911, no. 12 as 'Mother and Daughter'.
Brighton, The Work of English Post-Impressionist and Cubist Painters arranged by the Camden Town Group, November 1913 - January 1914, no. 59 as 'Mother and Daughter'.
London, Carfax Gallery, Paintings by Walter Sickert, November, 1916, no. 3 as 'Mother and Daughter'.
London, Arts Council, Tate Gallery, Sickert Paintings and Drawings, May - June 1960, no. 120: this exhibition travelled to Southampton, Art Gallery, July 1960 and Bradford, City Art Gallery, July - August 1960.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

The description in The Evening Standard (6 December 1911) of Mother and Daughter exhibited at the Camden Town Group as representing women 'of the coster type' strongly supports the identification of the painting catalogued here as Mother and Daughter, as does the Carfax Gallery label [previously] on the back of the painting. Moreover, Mother and Daughter is the title of the etching of this subject from 1915 [see Bromberg 171] (see W. Baron, 2006, loc. cit.).

Wendy Baron points out that the present work, 'two coster-women wearing boater hats and coats with fur shawl collars, sitting opposite sides of a bed apparently oblivious to each other's existence', was the only recent painting out of a total of four pictures that Sickert exhibited at the December 1911 Camden Town Group exhibition. The other works were Louie from circa 1906 (private collection), The Old Hôtel Royal (demolished in 1900) of which there are several paintings and Carolina dell'Acqua, one of his favourite models in Venice in 1903-4. Apart from the etching, Sickert also drew this subject in a pen and ink drawing of 1911 (published in New Age, 6 July 1911 under the title Lou! Lou! I Love You; reproduced in Baron 2006, no. 368.1, illustrated). (See W. Baron, 2000, loc. cit.).

More from 20th Century British Art Including Good Friday, Daisy Nook and Five Important Paintings by L.S. Lowry

View All