The Green Man

Details

Henry Lamb, R.A. (1883-1960)
The Green Man
oil on canvas
20 x 16 in. (50.8 x 40.6 cm.)
Painted circa 1911.

Provenance

Lady Ottoline Morrell.
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 19 March 1980, lot 112.
with Anthony d'Offay, London, where purchased by the present owners in 1986.

Literature

Exhibition catalogue, Henry Lamb 1883-1960, Manchester, 1984, p. 34, no. 34.

Exhibited

Manchester, Arts Council of Great Britain, Henry Lamb 1883-1960, May - June 1984, no. 34; this exhibition toured to Bristol, Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, June - August 1984; Birmingham, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, August - September 1984; York, York City Art Gallery, September - October 1984.

Special notice

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Lot Essay

The present work, also known as 'The Traveller' was owned by Lady Ottoline Morrell with whom Lamb had a passionate affair and later kept up correspondence for many years. The subject of the painting is unknown, but at the time Morrell inspired Lamb to create allegorical pictures possibly influenced by the Ballet Russes and Picasso. Lamb would have come across Picasso's work when he was in Paris in 1911. 'Ottoline also went to Paris the same year and wrote to Lamb of the Picassos' exhibited at Vollard's. She sent him postcards which he thought 'divine', asking for more, 'particularly Picasso and Greco.' (Exhibition catalogue, Henry Lamb 1883-1960, Manchester, 1984, p. 35).

We are very grateful to Henrietta Phipps for her assistance in cataloguing lots 14-16.

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