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John Bulloch Souter
(1890 - 1972)
Still Life of Fishing Nets and Floats by a Wall, c.1930
John Bulloch Souter (1890 - 1972)
£1,500
Size:
Height – 17.8cm
Width – 22.3cm
1 in stock
Literature: Llewellyn, Sacha, and Paul Liss. Portrait of an Artist. Liss Llewellyn, 2021, p.122.
After serving in the Royal Army during WW1, Souter married and set up studio in London where, portraiture now forming the main part of his income, he was able to find patrons. Christian, his wife, is the subject of this sensitive portrait which which was also made as an etching.
She is show dressing her hair to cover her ears (à la poissarde).
Painter, draughtsman, printmaker and restorer, born in Aberdeen, Scotland. Trained at Gray’s School of Art Aberdeen and the Alan Fraser School of Art, Arbroath. A travelling scholarship allowed to him to work extensively on the continent, where he was especially influenced by Velasquez, Chardin, and Vermeer. During World War I he served as non-combatant in Royal Medical Corps, then married and moved to London. By this time he had established himself as an RA exhibitor, and in the period after the war he made a name as a portrait painter, his subjects including stage personalities such as Ivor Novello, Gladys Cooper and Fay Compton as well as notables in public and academic life. In 1926 Souter’s picture The Breakdown caused a stir at RA, depicting a negro jazz musician, a naked white girl dancer and a broken classic statue. Souter consolidated his reputation with exhibits at the Redfern Gallery, Fine Art Society, RSA and elsewhere. In World War II he worked in the Censorship Department, London, as a translator and restored paintings at Windsor Castle. In 1952 he returned to Aberdeen. His work is in public collections in Edinburgh and Manchester.
With thanks to artbiogs.co.uk
