Lot 28: Singer at a music hall

Spencer Frederick Gore (1878-1914)
Singer at a music hall
signed and inscribed 'S.F.Gore 19 Fitzroy Street, Fitzroy Square/London' (on the stretcher)
oil on canvas
14 x 12 in. (35.6 x 30.5 cm.)
Painted circa 1909.

Paris, Salon des Indépendants, March-May 1910, no. 2185, as 'Chanteur'.

Gore shared, with his friend and colleague Sickert, a love of music hall. Both not only responded to the painterly possibilities of such a vibrant subject, but also relished the performance itself. While they often went together to the Bedford Theatre in Camden Town, Sickert's favourite music hall, there is little evidence that Sickert returned the compliment and accompanied Gore to his favourite, the Alhambra Theatre in Leicester Square. Unlike Sickert's shabbier haunts, the Alhambra mounted spectaculars, specialising in ballets and acrobatic turns rather than bawdy songs. Turns by individual performers, a solo singer, a xylophone player or the duo - Inez and Taki - playing on outdated lyre guitars, interspersed longer features such as extravagant ballets. Gore revelled in the opulent backdrops, the ornate costumes and the uninhibited animation of the artistes.

The luscious backdrop in Singer at a music hall, identifies the setting as the Alhambra. The same backdrop, with its chequered marble floor, its gilt and basalt pillars, its urns overflowing with pink flowers leading to an avenue flanked by cypress trees, is seen in Inez and Taki of 1910 (exhibited London, Tate Britain, Modern Painters. The Camden Town Group, February - May 2008, no. 17) which is known to be an Alhambra scene. The present work was probably painted in 1909. It approaches the subject from a more conventional viewpoint in the stalls, just behind the orchestra pit, rather than looking down on the stage at an oblique angle from the circle as in Inez and Taki. The head-on composition of the present work echoes the formula used by Sickert in his music halls of the 1880s which Gore adopted in nearly all his music halls before 1910. In composition it is especially close to Lady with a Dulcimer (Private Collection). Several members of the orchestra feature in both paintings, thus confirming that Gore, like Sickert, painted in the studio from swift sketches made on the spot; thereafter these sketches served as a repository from which Gore could select at will to suit the needs of paintings in hand.

The back of the painting yields its own unique secrets. Both stretcher and frame are inscribed in pencil, the former certainly, the latter probably, in Gore's hand with his name and the address 19, Fitzroy Street, Fitzroy Square, London. This was not Gore's personal address. It was the headquarters of the group of artists who, spurred on by Sickert, decided in spring 1907 to rent the first floor at 19 Fitzroy Street as a base for their professional careers. The eight founder-members (who included Sickert, Gore and Harold Gilman) of what came to be known as the Fitzroy Street Group were soon joined by others. Over the next seven years, under the formula 'Mr Sickert At Home,' they met together with disciples, pupils and colleagues on Saturday afternoons to display their work to each other and to a small band of patrons, while discussing art and its politics in London. 19 Fitzroy Street was also used by its members for storing pictures, as a place to arrange viewings for potential clients, and as a semi-official address when sending pictures for exhibition. This explains the address on the frame and stretcher of the present work. The back of the picture yields another secret. A torn, and only just legible, label reads '..dants Chanteur 2185', proving that this is the painting exhibited by Gore at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris in 1910 (no. 2185), as Chanteur.

The painting is not signed. Gore seldom signed his pictures unless asked to by buyers. Nor does it bear the stamp with which, following his sudden death from pneumonia in 1914, his widow and Harold Gilman marked all the paintings in his studio. The lack of a studio stamp indicates that the painting was sold within Gore's lifetime; the lack of a signature that whoever bought the painting did not approach Gore to sign it retrospectively. This supports the suggestion that the painting was sold in France, presumably at the exhibition of the Indépendants in spring 1910. Hitherto unknown and unpublished, it has now returned to England after nearly a century, still in the frame selected for it by Gore. The survival of the original frame, complete with label and inscriptions, is of rare and valuable historical importance.
We are grateful to Wendy Baron for providing the catalogue entry for this lot.