Lot 911: Álvaro Guevara, Chilean NEA 1894-1951- "Mrs Lewis

Álvaro Guevara, Chilean NEA 1894-1951- "Mrs Lewis of the Cavendish", 1915; oil on canvas, in a gilt oak frame of plain form, 183x122cm. Provenance: Exhibited P & D Colnaghi & Co Ltd, London "Alvaro Guevara, A Chilean Painter in London and Paris", cat no 2, 3rd December 1974-10th January 1975 according to label attached to the stretcher verso, Note: Álvaro Guevara based in London and loosely associated with the Bloomsbury set. He was born 13 July 1894 in Valparaiso Chile. Guevara left Chile in 1909 and arrived in London in 1910. After failing his technical college exams he went on to the Slade School of Fine Art from 1913 to 1916. He married Meraud Guinness (1904-1993), a painter and member of the Guinness Family, and settled in France. He died in Aix-en-Provence 1951. Member of the Friday Club British group of painters, active 1905-22. Vanessa Bell conceived of and created the Friday Club in the summer of 1905. She was inspired by her experience of Parisian café life and the artists introduced to her in Paris by Clive Bell, and she hoped to create in London a similar group in which artists and friends could meet to exchange ideas. The Club met for lectures and held regular exhibitions in rented rooms, one taking place in Clifford's Inn Hall in 1907, another at the Baillie Gallery in 1908. Its members were oddly assorted: Vanessa Bell drew upon students from the Royal Academy Schools and the Slade School of Fine Art, as well as her own family and family friends. Lecturers included Clive Bell, Basil Creighton, Walter Lamb and Roger Fry. Virginia Woolf remarked that in its early stages the Club was split: 'one half of the committee shriek Whistler and French Impressionists, and the other are stalwart British'. In 1913 Essil Elmslie replaced Vanessa Bell as secretary to the Club, and meetings and discussions outside the annual exhibitions ceased. However, between 1910 and 1914 its exhibitions included young artists of talent, among them J. D. Innes, Derwent Lees (1885-1931), John Currie (c. 1890-1914) and Henry Lamb, and drew much comment from the press. Despite this, the history of the Club remains shadowy because no minutes of its meetings exist and not all its exhibition catalogues can be traced. (reference: Michael Parkin Gallery 1996)