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Lot Essay
'She was small, with black-brown hair and large brooding eyes, their upper lids curiously straight giving them a strange rectangular shape. Her mouth was rather prominent, curving downwards, and her expression sardonic yet vulnerable - an index of her life to come' (Michael Holroyd describing Edie McNeill in Augustus John The New Biography, London, 1996, pp. 366-367).
In the summer of 1911 Edie McNeill stayed at Alderney Manor in Dorset, the home of Augustus John and her sister Dorelia. When John's wife Ida died in 1907, Edie had helped to look after the children, and at Alderney Manor she took charge of the kitchen, allowing Dorelia to tend to the extensive gardens. Henry Lamb visited the house that summer as well, describing it as 'an amazing place' (ibid., p. 360). Lamb's earlier affair with Dorelia inevitably meant he thought of Dorelia as 'superior as ever' (ibid., p. 361), and his feelings for her overshadowed those towards Edie. On leaving Alderney however, he took Edie with him to France, where he painted the present work and a larger portrait of her, now in the Collection of Southampton City Art Gallery. In a letter to Lytton Strachey in August, he wrote about the present work, 'A smaller one is already finished - rather successfully in a modest style' (see W. Baron, op. cit., p. 208).
Southampton's portrait of Edie is arguably the most iconic and well-known image of her, in which she poses with one hand on her hip against a backdrop of the French coastline. The image of the female figure in the landscape shown in these two paintings demonstrates the influence of Augustus John upon Lamb's work. It also shows his interpretation of the work of Puvis de Chavannes, whose paintings he would have seen in Paris, with their muted palette and use of flattened perspective.
Lamb dedicated and gifted the present work 'to J.B.', his friend and patron John Louis Behrend (1881-1972). Behrend and his wife Mary provided great support and encouragement to Lamb, who had been one of the first to benefit from their patronage. Lamb introduced them to his friend, Stanley Spencer, and their support of Spencer would culminate in their commission of the Sandham Memorial Chapel.
In the summer of 1911 Edie McNeill stayed at Alderney Manor in Dorset, the home of Augustus John and her sister Dorelia. When John's wife Ida died in 1907, Edie had helped to look after the children, and at Alderney Manor she took charge of the kitchen, allowing Dorelia to tend to the extensive gardens. Henry Lamb visited the house that summer as well, describing it as 'an amazing place' (ibid., p. 360). Lamb's earlier affair with Dorelia inevitably meant he thought of Dorelia as 'superior as ever' (ibid., p. 361), and his feelings for her overshadowed those towards Edie. On leaving Alderney however, he took Edie with him to France, where he painted the present work and a larger portrait of her, now in the Collection of Southampton City Art Gallery. In a letter to Lytton Strachey in August, he wrote about the present work, 'A smaller one is already finished - rather successfully in a modest style' (see W. Baron, op. cit., p. 208).
Southampton's portrait of Edie is arguably the most iconic and well-known image of her, in which she poses with one hand on her hip against a backdrop of the French coastline. The image of the female figure in the landscape shown in these two paintings demonstrates the influence of Augustus John upon Lamb's work. It also shows his interpretation of the work of Puvis de Chavannes, whose paintings he would have seen in Paris, with their muted palette and use of flattened perspective.
Lamb dedicated and gifted the present work 'to J.B.', his friend and patron John Louis Behrend (1881-1972). Behrend and his wife Mary provided great support and encouragement to Lamb, who had been one of the first to benefit from their patronage. Lamb introduced them to his friend, Stanley Spencer, and their support of Spencer would culminate in their commission of the Sandham Memorial Chapel.