Percy Shakespeare
(1906 - 1943)
The Rasp Grinders, 1930
Private Collection
Percy Shakespeare (1906 - 1943)
Size:
Height – 76.2cm
Width – 63.5cm
Literature: Llewellyn, Sacha, and Paul Liss. Portrait of an Artist. Liss Llewellyn, 2021, p.313.
Having achieved success at the 1933 Royal Academy Percy Shakespeare again set his sights on the Summer Exhibition, painting a dramatic self-portrait entitled Morning Exercise. Accepted for the Summer Show in 1934 Shakespeare must been disappointed when it was crowded out in the hang. The Express and Star however reviewed it favourably stating that it was, ‘His best work…..a finely painted and lively portrait of a young man in underclothes performing his daily dozen .
The setting was the artists bedroom at, Wren’s Nest, Dudley, which also doubled as his studio.
Shakespeare trained at Dudley Art School and later studied and then taught at Birmingham School of Art. His carefully organised, flatly painted compositions in oils, in which great attention was paid to the outline silhouette of each individual figure, were exhibited at the RA between 1934 and his death in an air raid. He also exhibited at the Paris Salon and the RBSA. In spite of his early demise his oeuvre has undeniable charm – his essentially suburban, and peculiarly English, compositions are drenched with colour and light and despite sometimes appearing to verge on caricature are usually carried off with great panache.
Selected Literature
Robin Shaw, Percy Shakespeare: Dudley’s Painter of the Thirties, published by Robin Shaw (ISBN 0953912604), 2000.
With thanks to artbiogs.co.uk
