拍品專文
Inspired by Holbein's drawings in the Royal Collection at Windsor, Strang executed nearly 500 portrait heads in this style between 1898 and 1909. All were drawn in red and black chalks on paper tinted beige, lilac or pink. The present lot is amongst the most striking and sensitive of these, being a likeness of Strang's only daughter, Nancy. Her gaze is purposeful and her jaw determined and, in the strongly realistic delineation of her features, her personality is revealed. C.R. Ashbee wrote of these drawings: 'in each of his portraits there is some touch of his sitter's ugliness revealed in the beauty of the draughtsmanship ... those of us who ... have sat for our portraits and prize the results ... are also grimly conscious of an unpleasant something in ourselves that we don't like to mention but that our love of truthfulness would not have us conceal ... they have the quality of Dr. Johnson, they are lexicographical' (C.R. Ashbee, Typescript of Memoirs, National Art Library, Victoria and Albert Museum, volume IV, p. 71).
An exhibition of these portrait drawings was held at Van Wisselingh's Gallery, London, in 1904, and their popularity was such that Strang, previously known for his etchings, visited New York to execute commissions in 1905 and 1906. A similar concern for capturing the pyschological essence of his sitter's personality can be found in his oils, notably in Lady with a Red Hat, a portrait of Vita Sackville-West, now in the Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum.
An exhibition of these portrait drawings was held at Van Wisselingh's Gallery, London, in 1904, and their popularity was such that Strang, previously known for his etchings, visited New York to execute commissions in 1905 and 1906. A similar concern for capturing the pyschological essence of his sitter's personality can be found in his oils, notably in Lady with a Red Hat, a portrait of Vita Sackville-West, now in the Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum.