Lot 55: SIR WILLIAM COLDSTREAM 1908-1987

oil on canvas

91.5 by 61cm., 36 by 24in.

London, Tate Gallery and toured by the South Bank Centre to Newport Art Gallery and Museum; Norwich, Castle Museum and Manchester, Whitworth Art Gallery, The Paintings of William Coldstream 1908-1987, 1990-91, no.44, illustrated in the exhibition catalogue, p.94.

Bruce Laughton, William Coldstream, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2004, p.340, WMC 163.

Commissioned from the Artist by the present owner

Painted between 1962 and 63, the present work portrays Walter Augustus Brandt, the merchant banker brother of photographer Bill (see lot 105).

Despite the relatively limited nature of his oeuvre, and the fact that during a career spanning seventy years his output was less than 250 recorded works, Coldstream is nevertheless remembered as one of the most influential forces in British art of the 20th century. His influence derived both from his painting and his teaching, firstly at the Euston Road School and subsequently as head of Camberwell and the Slade. In fact Coldstream's impact was so great that David Sylvester later claimed that he and Francis Bacon were the two giants of post-war London.

Despite the characteristic nature of this portrait it is nonetheless notable for its format - this is the first time that Coldsteam painted his sitter in a full-frontal pose with legs uncrossed. Though the sitter did not share his brother's practical skills, he was nonetheless a keen Modern British collector and supporter of young artists. His patronage was well appreciated. Forty years after Brandt had bought some of Elisabeth Frink's drawings at an early group show in Cambridge, she singled him out as a memorable early supporter: 'There was a nice man in Suffolk, a banker called Brandt... who thought some of these early drawings were interesting and bought a few.' (Edward Lucie-Smith and Elisabeth Frink, Frink: a portrait, Bloomsbury, London, 1994, p.106).