Lot 195: Robin Ironside , 1912-1965 a satyr offering an apple to a spaniel pen, ink and watercolour

pen, ink and watercolour

21.5 by 28 cm.; 8 ½ by 11 in.

Redfern Gallery, London, where purchased by Sir David Scott, 4 May 1948

'This is an amusing little work of fancy delicately executed.' Sir David Scott The focus of Ironside's work as a painter was in theatre design. His work including designs for Sylvia at Covent Garden in 1952 and A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Edinburgh Festival in 1957. Yet he was also a distinguished writer on art, writing a good introduction to the Neo-Romantic movement in his Painting Since 1939 and biographies of the painters Philip Wilson Steer (1944) and David Jones (1949), and collaborating with John Gere on the book Pre-Raphaelite Painters (1948). In this work his penchant for surrealist fantasy is predominant as in The Somnambulist of 1943 which was presented by the Contemporary Art Society to the Tate, whilst Ironside was an assistant keeper. His first solo show was at the Redfern Gallery in 1944, where four years later Sir David Scott bought this watercolour.