Lot 141: GERALD WILDE

GERALD WILDE 1905-1986 STANDING FIGURES signed and dated 41. pencil, ink, watercolour and wax crayon, squared for transfer 34 by 47cm.; 13½ by 18½in.

London, The Home of Wilfrid A. Evill, Contemporary Art Society, Catalogue of Part of a Collection of Oil Paintings, Water Colours, Drawings and Sculpture Belonging to W. A. Evill, Esq., December 1947 - February 1948, cat. no.38 (as Abstract Scene);
London, The Home of Wilfrid A. Evill, Contemporary Art Society, Pictures, Drawings, Water Colours and Sculpture, April - May 1961, (part IV- section 4), cat. no.34;
Brighton, Brighton Art Gallery, The Wilfrid Evill Memorial Exhibition, June - August 1965, cat. no.279.

Acquired by Wilfrid A. Evill January 1947 for £10.0.0, by whom bequeathed to Honor Frost in 1963

Although well-known in the 1940s and 1950s, Wilde has almost entirely dropped out of view, yet he represents a very particular type and moment in British art. Trained at Chelsea School of Art, he was shown by The Hanover Gallery in 1948, was the subject of an I.C.A. retrospective in 1955, and was championed by critics as influential as John Berger and David Sylvester.

However, as part of the hard-drinking, hard-living Soho set of the post-war period, his life grew increasingly erratic and with a wider change of taste away from his bold expressionistic style, he became passed by, most often remembered as the basis for the character of Gully Jimson in Joyce Cary's 1944 novel The Horse's Mouth, in the later film of which Jimson would be played by Alec Guinness.

Perhaps the most telling mark of the neglect of Wilde was that whilst he was commissioned to design the cover for the Arts Council's 1951 Festival of Britain exhibition, he was not invited to exhibit.