Private
Collection
Collection
Alfred Reginald Thomson
(1894 - 1979)
The Doctor’s Waiting Room, 1959
Private Collection
Alfred Reginald Thomson (1894 - 1979)
Size:
Height – 93cm
Width – 99cm
The Doctor’s Waiting Room, was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1959. A highly evocative image (The National Health Service was just over a decade old). reproductions of Millais Bubbles (1886) and Landseer’s The Monarch of the Glen, can be seen in the background. A variety of fashion, suitable to the various generations depicted include include the ladies’ late 50’s short waved hairstyles and bulky full winter coats, featuring large collars. All the older ladies wear hats, but the young women on the right are bare-headed:
this reflects the rapid decline of traditional sartorial standards by the late-1950s and the emergence of a more youthful teenage’ generation in Britain.
The only patients present are women, children and middle-aged and elderly men, implying that few men of working age would normally be attending the doctor’s surgery at 11am (as per the clock). The school-age boys are dressed according to the strict age/height criteria that still governed boys’ dress, in flannel shorts and longs’ (long trousers). The little girl wears a casual sweater and trousers ‚Äì modern, comfortable garments. The doctor’s white coat expresses the mid-20th century concern for hygiene, health and cleanliness. The older man wears a hat ‚Äì again signifying his advanced years – and a winter muffler. Both men sport moustaches, conservative facial hair that would not have been favoured by younger men at that time.
IN 1959 THE National Museum of Western Art was established in Tokyo – to a design by Le Corbusier, replacing an earlier scheme designed by Brangwyn.
André Breton asks Salvador Dal√≠, Joan Mir√≥, Enrique T√°bara and Eugenio Granell to represent Spain by exhibiting some of their works in the Homage to Surrealism Exhibition celebrating the fortieth anniversary of Surrealism.
John Moores Painting Prize – Patrick Heron for “Black Painting – Red, Brown and Olive : July 1959″[1]
Knighthood Stanley Spencer
ARTWORK produced in 1959
Allan Gwynne-Jones – Lord Beveridge in his 80th year
Barbara Hepworth – Figure (Archaean) (bronze, 7 casts)
Peter Lanyon – Lost Mine
Pablo Picasso ‚Äì Le déjeuner sur l’herbe
Stanley Spencer – Self-portrait
Frank Lloyd Wright, (born 1867), George Grosz, (born 1893), Sir Alfred Munnings, (born 1878), Sir Jacob Epstein, (born 1880) and Sir Stanley Spencer, (born 1891) died in 1959
Painter, commercial artist and illustrator born in Bangalore, India, a mute following a fall as a baby. He attended the Royal School for the Deaf and Dumb, Margate. Artistically he studied at the eponymous John Hassell Art School based in Kensington, subsequently working as a commercial artist. He also painted murals for a number of private and public clients including Birmingham Dental Hospital, the Duncannon Arms and the Science Museum. In 1934, a series of six murals he painted for the Limmer & Trinidad Lake Asphalt Company were first exhibited at the Building Exhibition at Olympia, London. During the 1920’s and 1930’s Thomson designed advertising for Three Nuns tobacco, Horlick’s and the London & North Eastern Railway. Among posters designed by Thomson for the LNER were ‘Then and Now – Over 100 Bathing Resorts’ (c.1931), ‘Take Me by the Flying Scotsman’ (1932) and ‘Travel LNER at a Penny a Mile’ (c.1932). In the 1920’s he worked for J.Walter Thompson, and in the 1930’s he was employed by the Clement Dane Studio. In the early 1940’s and 1950’s Thomson worked on advertising for Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) and the Bowater Paper Corporation. In 1949, he designed an untitled poster usually known as Street Market for London Transport an example of which is held by London Transport Museum. He also showed at the Chenil Gallery and at the ROI.
A member of both the Chelsea Arts Club and the London Sketch Club, he was also responsible for mural decoration on the SS Queen Mary during the 1930’s and examples of his posters are held by the NRM. He was known amongst his friends as Tommy Thomson and an illustrated article by him appeared in Drawing & Design, November 1920. He showed at the RA from 1920 and was elected an Associate of the RA in 1938 and a full member in 1945. Despite his handicap, he was appointed an Official War Artist with the RAF, 1940-44 and he was awarded a Gold Medal at the 1948 London Olympic Games for his depiction of sporting scenes. Examples of his work are in the collections of the ACGB, Bradford Museums and Galleries, Brighton & Hove Art Gallery, City of London Corporation, Darlington Borough Art Collection, Glasgow Museums, IWM, Kirklees Museums and Galleries, NAM, Nottingham City Museums and Galleries, NPG, RAF Museum, Hendon, Russell-Cotes Art Gallery, Science Museum and the Tate Gallery.
With thanks to artbiogs.co.uk
