Portrait of Natasha Wilkes Standing Full Length in an Interior
Original Oil Painting on Canvas
by Alfred Reginald Thomson (1894-1979)
- Signed lower right. Signed again lower left. Inscribed with the identity of the sitter on the stretcher verso.
- Auction record £73,250 GBP.
- There are 49 paintings by this artist in the British National Art Collection. For a comparable example see Mrs Vivienne Hilliard in Brighton Museum & Art Gallery.
- Painting - 122cm (48") x 91.5cm (36")
- Frame - 129.5cm (51") x 99cm (39")
Lot Notes
A very fine large oil painting depicting a young lady standing full length in an interior by important 20th century English artist Alfred Reginald Thomson. Signed lower right.
Condition
In very fine condition. The canvas not lined, torn, patched or repaired. There are several pinhole punctures to the canvas visible on close inspection and the odd tiny area of paint loss. Generally very good. Clean, most attractive and ready to hang. Presented in a later giltwood frame.
Artist Information
Alfred Reginald Thomson was an English artist, most notable for being an official War Artist to the Royal Air Force during World War Two. Thomson was born in Bangalore in India where his father was a British civil servant. Thomson was deaf and dumb from birth and when the family returned to Britain from India he attended the Royal School for Deaf Children at Margate. Later in life he was known, in the press, as the "deaf and dumb" artist. Although Thomson attended the London Art School in Kensington for a time, he was largely self-taught as an artist and his first paid work was designing posters for a whisky company. He also created a series of posters for Daimler Cars. At the end of the First World War Thomson established himself as a commercial artist and figure painter. In the 1930s he created a series of murals for the Duncannon Hotel in London. Thomson also had a talent as a caricaturist and he drew his fellow artists and friends. Thomson completed a number of commissions for the War Artists' Advisory Committee during World War Two and in September 1942 became a full time salaried artist attached to the Air Ministry, taking over the post that Eric Kennington had resigned from. Thomson painted several portraits of RAF air crews and also medical and civil defence subjects. In 1945 Thomson was elected to the Royal Academy and soon became a highly respected society portrait painter. He also continued to paint murals, most notably for the Science Museum and the London Dental School. In the 1948 Olympic Games in London, Thomson became the last person to win a Gold Medal for painting as medals for art were abandoned in subsequent Olympic games.
General Information
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Art has long been regarded as a strong and safe investment. Ellen Kelleher a personal finance reporter for The Financial Times recently wrote an article recommending art, particularly in the $500 - $50,000 range as a sound long term investment with an impressive current average annual increase of 9.7 percent. See Hang your investments on the wall by Ellen Kelleher Published October 22 2010 by the Financial Times.
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- where the bold coloured text which forms the listing's heading reads 'by' and is followed by the artist's full name (or the artist's initials, if his full name is unrecorded), the work is in our opinion by the artist;
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- where the term "after" is used, the work is in our opinion a copy or pastiche (of any date) of a work by the artist. Where the term 'signed...' is used in our opinion the work has been signed by the artist, where the term 'with signature...' or 'bears signature...' is used in our opinion the signature is by a hand other than that of the artist.
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