Private
Collection
Collection
Bernard Fleetwood Walker
(1893 - 1965)
Double Portrait – probably the artist’s wife and her younger sister
Private Collection
Bernard Fleetwood Walker (1893 - 1965)
Signed
Oil on canvas, 36 x 28 in. (91.5 x 71 cm.)
Size:
Height – 91.5cm
Width – 71cm
 Provenance: The Artists Studio Sale, Chrities South Kensington 1983; private collection Canada.
This painting, which pre-dates Fleetwood Walker’s iconic double portrait Amity (Liverpool Walker Art Gallery, 1933) is of a compositional form in which the artist excelled.¬† When the painting featured on the front cover of the 1983 Christies studio sale, (13th December) it was titled, Portrait of the artist’s wife and daughter.¬† Since Fleetwood Walker had no off-spring, from his first marriage, it more likely portrays the artist’s wife and her younger sister.
Painter and draughtsman, mainly of figures and portraits. He was born in Birmingham, where he lived most of his life. Initially he was a modeller and metalworker, then studied painting at Birmingham School of Arts and Crafts, followed by London and Paris. He was wounded and gassed during Word War I (serving in the Artists’ Rifles), but continued to paint and draw. After the war he taught for about ten years at King Edward’s Grammar School, Aston, in 1929 leaving to teach at Birmingham School of Arts and Crafts. He exhibited extensively at the RA, showing over 150 works between 1925 and 1965. In 1946 he was elected ARA, and 1956 RA – and otherwise showed mainly at RWS, NEAC, RBSA and RP. He also had a one-man show at the Ruskin Gallery, Birmingham, 1925, and won a silver medal at the Paris Salon. He moved to London after retirement from teaching in Birmingham in 1951 to give more time to students at Royal Academy Schools, where he had been appointed assistant keeper. The RA, Leeds City Art Gallery, and other provincial and foreign galleries hold his work. In 1966 a memorial exhibition was held by the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists, and in 1981 John Lindsay Fine Art, Solihull, organised a retrospective exhibition in association with the Belgrave Gallery.
