Lot 48: Woman by a Fireplace, No 2 105 x 79 cm. (41 5/16 x 31 1/8 in.)

Woman by a Fireplace, No 2 signed 'MacBryde' (upper left) oil on canvas 105 x 79 cm. (41 5/16 x 31 1/8 in.)

105 x 79 cm

London, The Lefevre Gallery, Robert Colquhoun, Robert MacBryde and Winifred Nicholson, May 1949, cat.no.15 London, The Kaplan Gallery, Recent Paintings by Robert MacBryde, Recent Drawings by Robert Colquhoun, April 1960, cat.no.12

R. Bristow, The Last Bohemians, Sansom and Co, Bristol, 2010, pp.365, 385

Ayrshire-born artists Robert MacBryde and Robert Colquhoun were known as the Darlings of Bond Street during their London heyday, with a series of successful and well-received shows at the Lefevre and then the Redfern Galleries during the 1940s. Their shared studio in Bedford Gardens, Kensington was a celebrated gathering place for major figures including John Minton (who lodged with them), Bacon, Freud, Ayrton, Clough, Finlay, Hugh MacDiarmid and Dylan Thomas. Close neighbours Jankel Adler, an old friend from Glasgow with direct experience of avant garde advances on the Continent, and Wyndham Lewis offered invaluable encouragement and guidance to the Roberts during this period. When they were eventually evicted from the studio in 1949, the year this work was painted, MacBryde's talent and fame were peaking. The MOMA in New York had pre-purchased pictures by MacBryde, Colquhoun, Burra, Bacon and Freud from the Lefevre Gallery's Modern British Painting exhibition in 1948, and Patrick Heron's subsequent review of the show, which also included Hepworth, Nicholson and Lewis, placed MacBryde in pole position on this occasion. He was said to be "building stealthily and calmly" (Bristow, p.221). Colquhoun and MacBryde were further inspired to pursue figure subjects in the 1940s due to their friendship with Adler and a major Picasso retrospective at the V & A in 1945. While the former continued in this vein, MacBryde gradually came to focus on the still life themes (see lot 49) for which he became best-known.