Glyn Warren Philpot, R.A. (1884-1937)
Glyn Warren Philpot, R.A. (1884-1937)
1 More
These lots have been imported from outside the EU … Read more PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE AMERICAN COLLECTION
Glyn Warren Philpot, R.A. (1884-1937)

The Three Fates

Details
Glyn Warren Philpot, R.A. (1884-1937)
The Three Fates
signed with initials 'GP' (lower right); with inscription by Gabrielle Cross 'GLYN PHILPOT/THE THREE FATES (1933)/From Lansdowne House, Lansdowne Road' (on a label attached to the frame)
pencil and oil on canvas
44 ¼ x 34 ¼ in. (113 x 87 cm.)
Painted in 1933.
Provenance
The artist, and by descent to Rosemary Smalley, London.
Her sale; Sotheby's, London, 13 December 2007, lot 71, where purchased by the present owner.
Literature
A. Sewter (intro.), Glyn Philpot 1884-1937, London, 1951, pl. 75.
Exhibited
London, Royal Academy, 1933, no. 447.
Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery, The fifty-ninth autumn exhibition, October - December, 1933, no. 440.
London, Tate Gallery, Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture by the late Glyn Philpot R.A., July - August 1938, no. 52.
Brighton, Brighton Art Gallery, Glyn Philpot R.A., April - May 1953, no. 28.
London, Leighton House, Retrospective Exhibition: Drawings, Paintings and Sculpture by Glyn Warren Philpot R.A., February 1959, no. 43. 
Special notice
These lots have been imported from outside the EU or, if the UK has withdrawn from the EU without an agreed transition deal, from outside of the UK for sale and placed under the Temporary Admission regime. Import VAT is payable at 5% on the hammer price. VAT at 20% will be added to the buyer’s premium but will not be shown separately on our invoice.

Brought to you by

Albany Bell
Albany Bell

Lot Essay


'These pictures revealed his consummate mastery of technique, his command of an unusual beauty of surface and colour, and his instinctive grasp of expressive pose and composition … Their rich and sonorous tonality, their strong, unusual, and subtly harmonized colour schemes, pointed clearly to the arrival of a master’ (A.C. Sewter (intro.), G. Philpot 1884-1937, London, 1951, p. 3).

Three Fates is one of the finest works of the 1930s. This time marked a tremendous period of creative activity and signaled a transformation of style for the artist. Philpot moved away form the Edwardian Romantic aesthetic that preoccupied his early work, where literary, religious and symbolical character dominated, reflecting the poetic tendencies of the Pre-Raphaelites and his close friends Charles Rickets and Charles Shannon, to a more Modernist aesthetic, which looked to the examples of the European Modernist artists. As portrayed in Three Fates, there was now an emphasis on a lighter and more harmonious use of tone and colour, a looser and more enlivened brushstroke, and a renewed focus on line and surface. This transition also saw an increased plasticity within his work, shown to marvellous effect here in the sculptural forms of his three figures.

We are very grateful to Charles Beddington for his assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.

More from Modern British Art

View All
View All