Private Collection

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)

Jacobs Dream, 1960

SKU: 6747
Signed with initials
Oil on canvas
20 x 12 in. (50.8 x 30.5 cm)


Size:
Height – 50.8cm
Width – 30.5cm

DESCRIPTION

Provenance:
Private collection courtesy England & Co Gallery, London
Presentation:
framed
Exhibited: Evelyn Dunbar – The Lost Works, Pallant House Gallery, October 2015 – February 2016, cat 116.
Literature: Evelyn Dunbar – The Lost Works, Sacha Llewellyn & Paul Liss, July 2015, cat 116page 164-165.

Dunbar’s last painting, on her easel when she died. The image is taken from Genesis, chapter 28, in which Jacob, asleep on the ground, dreams of a ladder to heaven, with angels ascending and descending. The angels’ represent one of Dunbar’s very few forays into the abstract. The background landscape is identifiable as the countryside near Wye, Kent, and where she finished this painting a few days before she died in May 1960. Some see in this painting a meditation on her own end.

Post War
“At the end of the war, Dunbar was still only 38 years old. Married in 1942 to Roger Folley, she was able to spend time with him at last, setting up home firstly in Warwickshire, thenin Oxfordshire, finally in Kent. In a manner similar to Stanley Spencer, to whose work her Joseph’s Dream (FIG 21) was not unexpectedly compared, she had worked in a personal and mystical mode as well as in a more objective observational one. Dunbar’s Portrait of a Retired Schoolmistress (CAT 110) is compelling in its directness, with the sitter’s determined gaze, solid figure and floral patterned overall. The black line between the shoulders forms the base for an equilateral triangle to the crown of the head. Her self-portrait (CAT 113) has the quality found in some of Spencer’s of being caught off guard in the act of painting, as the awkward positioning of the legs seems to suggest.
In Flying Applepickers (CAT 107), the theme of levitation, used at Brockley in the
soffits of the balcony, returns. Is it a metaphor of liberation after the years of pre-war
unhappiness in love, followed by the privations and war? No doubt this theme of
weightless bodies emanates from the spiritual seeking of a Christian Scientist, but it
is also delightfully comic, with more tenderness than is found in most of Spencer’s
comparable works of supernatural events in Cookham High Street. Such compositions
were falling out of fashion in the post-war world, but this did not prevent Dunbar from
working on a series of allegorical and deliberately mysterious paintings that continue
the pastoral romantic tradition in which she was trained, as her companion painter at
Brockley, Mildred Eldridge, was to do with her cycle, The Dance of Life, painted for
the Orthopaedic Hospital at Gobowen in the Welsh Marches. They shared a belief that
humans are most complete when close to the rhythms of the natural world, to which
Eldridge brought a more mistrustful view of civilisation’. These are themes of urgent
contemporary relevance and far from sentimental.
Several of Dunbar’s major late works remain to be relocated and revealed. Autumn
and the Poet (CAT 114) has the look of a post-war painting in its brushwork and slightly
distorted drawing (with a hint of John Minton, perhaps), which pulls away from the more
purely classical pre-war works. The iconography of poet and his fecund pin-headed
muse, characterized as a season but more representative of nature as a whole, continues
the celebratory quality of Dunbar’s painting of the numinous landscape as shaped by
man, very different from Minton’s more sinister evocations. Lines in the composition tie
the surface together in a root two rectangle, while leading the eye into the distance by
a double perspective.
Dunbar’s last mural commission, Alpha and Omega (CAT 111), painted for the library
at Bletchley Park Training College, fortunately survives, although not in situ. The many
studies that came with the two paintings to Oxford Brookes University show Dunbar’s
range of experiment in finding an appropriate iconography for a modern dress allegory.
Both panels have the unforced otherworldly quality that Dunbar found early on and
which stayed with her to the sadly early end.”
Alan Powers
Disclaimer:
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THE ARTIST

Evelyn Dunbar
Evelyn
Dunbar
1906 - 1960

Evelyn Dunbar studied at Rochester School of Art, Chelsea School
of Art (1927) and the Royal College of Art (1929’33). She painted
murals from 1933 -36 at Brockley School, a collaboration with her
RCA tutor (and lover) Cyril Mahoney (1903’1968) and in 1937
they wrote and illustrated together Gardeners’ Choice. 

In 1938 she set up the Blue Gallery in Rochester, exhibiting her
own work alongside that of Edward Bawden (1903’1989) and
Barnett Freedman (1901’1958) and others. In 1940 she was
appointed an official war artist, becoming the only woman (amongst
36 men) to be given a full time salaried position by the WAAC. 

She held her only solo exhibition at Withersdane, Wye, Kent
in 1953, although the WAAC included numerous pieces in touring
exhibitions ranging from Aberdeen Art Gallery to MOMA, New York. 

A posthumous exhibition was held in 2006 at St Barbe
Museum and Art Gallery, and in 2015 Liss Llewellyn mounted a
major retrospective of her recently rediscovered studio at Pallant
House Gallery. 

MORE PICTURES BY ARTIST

Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Allegory of Painting, c. 1935
£12,500
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
August, c. 1937
£25,000
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Mural Roundel, 1933-1936
£12,500
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
The Parlement of Foules, 1933-1936
£14,000
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Gadshill House,1937
£16,500
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Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Study for personification of June for Country Life 1938 Gardener’s Diary, subsequently not used.
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Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Roses From Our Garden, Nov. 3rd 1926′
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Study for Hospital Train
£3,950
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Shall We Gather by the River, c. 1925
£2,950
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Industry and Sloth, c.1932
£5,750
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Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Felbridge, circa 1926
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Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Clara Cowling gardening, circa 1928
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Invitation to the Garden, circa 1938
£14,000
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Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Self-portrait, c.1927
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Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Waternymphomania, circa 1928
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Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
RCA Sketch Club Summer Camp, 1930
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Pencil sketch for Portrait of an Airwoman, 1944
£1,500
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Portrait of an Unidentified Man, c.1925
£1,750
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Sketch for the dust cover for A Farm Dictionary (Derek Chapman, Evans Brothers, London, 1953
£575
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Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
The Conservatory at the Cedars
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
A diagrammatic explanation of trenching or double digging
£1,750
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Seated Model with Hairstyle ‘à la poissarde’, circa 1931
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
An Artist at His Easel (probably Robert Lyon), late 1920s
£2,750
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Studies and sketches for Putting on Anti-Gas Protective Clothing, 1940
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Studies of Leaves, 1930’s
£1,475
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Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
The Artist at Her Drawing Board, mid-1920s
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Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Studies of vignettes for Country Life, 1938
Sold
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
August, 1937
Private
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Joseph’s Dream, 1938
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
The Garden at the Elms, Winter, 1956
Forthcoming
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
December for the Country Life 1938 Gardeners Diary
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Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Design for June for the Country Life 1938 Gardeners Diary
Forthcoming
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Design for unused title page of Gardener’s Choice, circa 1936
Sold
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Study of a figure gardening possibly for Gardener’s Diary
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Study of a young unidentified woman looking into a mirror.
£900
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Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Woman Selling Watermelon Slices, West Indies
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Joseph in Prison, 1949-50
£22,000
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Study for July, Gardeners Diary 1938, 1937
£1,850
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Drawing of Cyclamen neapolitanum and Cyclamen Coüm for Gardeners’ Choice, 1937
£900
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Study II for designs for an embroidered quilt [HMO 689]
£2,500
Private
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Self-portrait, [HMO 766], 1958
Sold
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat, Where Have You Been [HMO 333]
Forthcoming
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Three sketchbooks
Forthcoming
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Study I for designs for an embroidered quilt [HMO 689]
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Studies for Mercatora, an allegorical painting (whereabouts unknown) [HMO 173]
£2,500
Private
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Dorset, 1947-1948
Private
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Jacobs Dream, 1960
Private
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Men Stooking and Girls Learning to Stook. 1940
Private
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Study at Sparsholt Farm Institute for A Land Girl and the Bail Bull, 1944 [HMO 40]
Private
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Singling Turnips, 1943
Private
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Seven Days
Private
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
April,1937
Sold
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
The Woodcutter and the Bees, spring 1933 [HMO 309]
Private
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Sacking Potatoes, 1948
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Colour study for sub-gallery spandrels at Brockley County School for Boys [HMO 551]
£2,350
Sold
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
The Dunbar family in the Garden at The Cedars, Spring (Version 1), c.1928 (HMO 75)
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Portrait of the artists mother, Florence, on a bentwood rocking chair, c.1930 [HMO 797]
Forthcoming
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Go Shell, proposed design for Shell petrol. c.1937 [HMO 751]
Sold
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Land Workers at Strood, c. 1938
Forthcoming
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
The Childrens Shop: mice (recto), birds (verso) [HMO 749]
Sold
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Sleeping Beauty, 10 minute sketch, c.1928 (HMO 786)
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Milking Practice with Artificial Udders, 1940
Sold
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Autumn and the Poet, 1948-1960
Reserved
Evelyn Dunbar (1906 - 1960)
Portrait of the artist Margaret Goodwin
£2,200