About this lot

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Arthur Ambrose McEvoy ARA (1878-1927) Head of a Girlwatercolour31 x 22cmProvenance:With Beaux Arts Gallery, LondonRecognised for his artistic abilities and encouraged to pursue his talents from a young age, it is hardly surprising that Arthur Ambrose McEvoy became an artist. The son of renowned Scottish engineer, Captain Charles Ambrose McEvoy, Arthur McEvoy received early support and tuition from his father’s close friend, James Abbott McNeil Whistler. At fifteen years of age, already a proficient painter and inspired by Whistler, McEvoy enrolled at the Slade School of Fine Art.Whilst studying at the Slade, between 1893 and 1898, McEvoy became closely associated with William Orpen and Augustus John and would later engage in an unhappy affair with John’s elder sister, Gwen. Though the events of the affair remain shrouded by a veil of secrecy, comparisons between the painterly works of McEvoy and Gwen John can be easily drawn. In his early career, no doubt influenced by his period studying in Dieppe under Walter Sickert, McEvoy established himself as a painter of genre scenes and urban landscapes. By the mid-1910s, however, McEvoy’s practice became increasingly inclined towards portraiture, and it is for his depictions of society women that he would ultimately gain recognition and critical success.Praised for his ability to capture the essence and character of his sitters, McEvoy’s technical process, as demonstrated by the present lot, was remarkably radical and innovative. Using damp rags and sponges, occasionally even holding his painted canvases beneath running taps, McEvoy was able create truly modern works, animated by both the spirit of the sitter and the artist.

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