Diana Forbes-Robertson

Details

Walter Richard Sickert, A.R.A. (1860-1942)
Diana Forbes-Robertson
signed 'Sickert' (lower left)
oil on canvas
41 x 25½ in. (104 x 64.8 cm.)
Painted circa 1933.

Provenance

R.E.A. Wilson (formerly the Savile Gallery), from whom purchased by the present owner's grandfather in 1935.

Literature

Exhibition catalogue, Late Sickert Paintings 1927 - 1942, London, Arts Council, 1981, p. 95.
W. Baron, Sickert Paintings and Drawings, New Haven and London, 2006, no. 795.1, p. 531.

Exhibited

London, Royal Academy, 1933, no. 242.
British Institute of Adult Education, 1939.
London, Arts Council of Great Britain, Hayward Gallery, Late Sickert Paintings 1927 to 1942, November 1981 - January 1982, no. 17: this exhibition travelled to Norwich, Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts, University of East Anglia, March - April 1982; and Wolverhampton, Art Gallery, April - May 1982.

Special notice

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Lot Essay

The sitter is the youngest of the four daughters of the actor, Sir Johnstone Forbes-Robertson (1853-1937) and the American actress Gertrude Elliott (1874-1950). Diana Forbes-Robertson married the American writer, Vincent Sheen.

Sickert painted Sir Johnstone, a friend since his youth, in his most famous role, as Hamlet, by 1932, probably based on an old photograph as a testimony of friendship and admiration. Forbes-Robertson who was knighted in 1913 played Hamlet at the Lyceum in 1897 to wide acclaim and his final appearance on stage at Drury Lane was in this role. (See W. Baron, loc. cit.).

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