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Dimensions: 30 by 23 cm.; 11 ¾ by 9 in.
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Provenance: Ernest, Brown & Phillips, London, where purchased by Sir David Scott, 2 January 1964 for £60
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Literature: Sotheby's, Pictures from the Collection of Sir David and Lady Scott, 2008, pp. 174-175.
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Notes: 'This enchanting little minx never fails to please me. Somehow she gains in attraction by her contrast to the figures right down below.' Sir David Scott The friendships formed between artists has often had a crucial impact on the work of one or both. In the case of Henry Lamb and Augustus John, we need to remember just what a powerful position the older painter held in the contemporary art world of the Edwardian period. Lamb had come to London in 1905, having previously studied at Manchester Academy of Fine Art, and in January 1906 enrolled in the Chelsea Art School in Flood Street. Run by John and William Orpen, both celebrated ex-Slade students, the school was short-lived, but the immediate rapport between John and the younger Lamb was evident. When Lamb married Nina Forrest, known as Euphemia, in May 1906, John was one of the witnesses (Euphemia was to be a frequent model for John), and this immersion in the John circle became ever deeper the following year when he travelled to Paris with the John family. As a new figure in the London art world, it was perhaps inevitable that Lamb's icons should be those artists of the previous generation who exemplified everything 'modern'. Of these, Augustus John stood head and shoulders above the rest as the artist and Bohemian par excellence. A former Slade student, John's reputation in the 1907-1912 period was at its apogee. His undeniably superb draughtsmanship was considered by contemporaries to be at a level unmatched since the Old Masters. His exhibition of paintings, Provencal Studies and Other Works at the Chenil Galleries in November 1910, neatly coinciding with Roger Fry's seismic Manet & the Post-Impressionists, and it gave him a reputation as the leading British painter. Coupled with his image, which photographs of the period show to have been a curious combination of aesthete, dandy and gypsy, and his reputation, which was as a bon viveur in whose company no woman was safe, it is easy to see how John would have impressed even the most cynical art student. John's biographer, Michael Holroyd, has commented on how 'Lamb was still taking his apprenticeship to Augustus very seriously...his drawings resembled Augustus's (see Fig 1), and so did his clothes. He had let his hair grow long; he failed to shave; he fastened on gold ear-rings. He was spectacularly handsome...and his entrance into any gathering was almost as striking as that of the maitre.' (Michael Holroyd, Augustus John: The Years of Innocence, 1974, p.265) The connection between their drawing styles is clear, yet in Portrait of a Girl we can see how Lamb was able to catch the essence of John's manner and incorporate it into his own distinctive work. The key to its success is the combination of a fluid and swift handling with an informality of pose that was quite unlike the more posed portrait drawings of the period. The downwards gaze of the young girl, her hair falling simply around her shoulders, is a superb example of the way in which Lamb's very best drawings still amaze with their facility and verve.
