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The Collections | Works on Paper | Highlights
(1882-1957)
A Portrait of the Artist’s Wife, ‘Froanna’
America, 1940
Pencil, coloured chalks on blue paper
This portrait of the artist’s wife Gladys Hoskins (1900–1979), known as Froanna, was made in America where Lewis spent the war years. The artist bought the distinctive blue paper in a drugstore and the unusual support perhaps inspired his use of coloured chalks. With the exception of the ornate turban, the artist restricts himself to bold lines and a few areas of shading. Nonetheless, he captures a sense of strain and intensity in the sitter, enhanced by the lack of a setting.
Lewis was one of the leading British avant-garde artists who explored the lessons of continental modernism.
Purchased 2006 with assistance from the
MLA/V&A Purchase Grant Fund and the Art Fund (NACF)
(No.2006.3)