Robert Colquhoun, 'The three graces'

Robert Colquhoun (Scottish, 1914 – 1962)

The three graces

Oil on board

Signed ‘Colquhoun’ (lower right)

Executed circa 1942 / 43

10 x 14 in. (25.4 x 35.6 cm.)

This work has been expertised and we would like to thank Davy Brown for expertising this work

According to Davy Brown, this work is typical of Colpuhoun’s ‘transition period’ from the time he arrived in London in 1941 until his meeting with the painter Jankel Adler at 77 Bedford Gardens in 1943, resulting in his 1944 show at the Lefevre Gallery. Colquhoun suffered a creative block after leaving the army and arriving in London. However, shortly after their arrival there, he and Robert MacBryd met a young couple, Rollo Hayes, a writer, and his friend, the artist and model, Millie Gomershall, who leant them their cottage near Church Lench in Worcestershire for three weeks in 1941. They returned to London with four canvases each. This painting relates to works from this period which are comparable with style and execution. After meeting Jankel Adler his style changes. The work related most closely to ‘The Spanish sister’s’ of 1943.

Robert Colquhoun was born in 1914 to working class parents from Kilmarnock, Ayrshire. After winning a scholarship to study at the Glasgow school of art he met Robert MacBryde who became his lifelong friend, lover and companion and with whom he set up a professional collaboration, the pair becoming known as "the two Roberts".

Solo exhibitions under the guidance of Duncan MacDonald at the Lefevre Gallery on Bond Street were sell out sensations and the phrase ‘The Golden Boys of Bond Street’ was coined. From the mid-1940s to the early 1950s Robert Colquhoun was considered one of the leading artists of his generation.

Colquhoun was also a prolific printmaker, producing a large number of lithographs and monotypes throughout his career. His work developed into a more austere, Expressionist style over time, heavily influenced by Picasso, and concentrated on the theme of isolated, agonised figures.

At the height of their acclaim the “Roberts” courted a large circle of friends including Michael Ayrton, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud and John Minton as well as the writers Fred Urquhart, George Barker and Dylan Thomas and were renowned for their parties at their studio (77 Bedford Gardens).