Nude on couch

The setting of the present work is Sickert's rooms at the corner of Granby Street and 247 Hampstead Road, the studio that he called 'Wellington House Academy', this being the name of the school in the building which had in earlier times numbered Charles Dickens among its pupils. The room, with its distinctive chintz-covered chaise-longue, is that in which Sickert had painted the Ennui series, circa 1913-16, the artist's most famous subject, and the familiar chest of drawers and stone fireplace are also featured in the present work. The model from Ennui, Hubby, smokes his cigar opposite Miss Ison, a model who Sickert used frequently at this period and who is distinguishable by the sharp central parting of her hair. Miss Ison also appears in Nude seated on a Couch (Manchester City Art Gallery).

The present work, and other related paintings and drawings from this period are exercises on a theme culminating in Ennui: the mundane relationship between a man and a woman in a mundane world. Sickert juggled with the figures and the incidental furniture in his studio as would a stage director, using the material to hand to create the psychological as well as the compositional tensions of his pictures
(see Dr. Wendy Baron, private correspondence, April 2000).

We are very grateful to Dr. Wendy Baron for her assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.