Private
Edward Halliday
(1902 - 1984)
Self-portrait in the Studio, c. 1920
Sold
Edward Halliday (1902 - 1984)
Oil on canvas
Signed and dated
Size:
Height – 94cm
Width – 78.7cm
Edward Halliday was awarded the Rome Scholarship in Decorative Painting in 1925, and spent three years abroad at the British School. An informal study from this time is typically evocative of life at the School, and shows Edward Halliday’s fiancee, Dorothy Hatswell, alongside fellow student Russell Meiggs (holder of the 1925 Pelham Studentship) reading and napping upon their deck chairs, with a view of the Borghese Gardens behind them.
This portrait dates to the year after Halliday returned to England, and may be based upon an earlier encounter from his time in Italy. He certainly travelled extensively within Italy, as letters to his mother testify that he had visited sits such as Mount Vesuvius and the Island of Capri, amongst other spots.
Halliday would go on to become one of the most prominent portrait painters of his day, taking commissions from an array of distinguished political figures, and foreign heads of state. This list included Sir Winston Churchill, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Kenneth Kaunda, Forbes Burnham, and King Olaf of Norway.
Painter in oil and watercolour mainly of portraits. Born in Liverpool, Halliday studied at the City School of Art there, in Paris at the Atelier Colarossi and at the Royal College of Art. He was awarded the Prix de Rome and worked at the British School there. Exhibited at RA, RBA, Paris Salon and RP, of which for a time he was president. His work is in the collections of HM The Queen, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, the Athenaeum Club, Wolverhampton Royal Hospital and Bootle Dyeworks. His work was reproduced in The Studio, Illustrated London News and The Times and he was interviewed by Stanley Casson for his book Artists at Work, published in 1933. In 1997, the University of Liverpool held an exhibition which concentrated on Halliday’s efforts to popularise art between the wars. Halliday’s daughter Charlotte is also an artist. He lived in London.
