496. GERALD LESLIE BROCKHURST R.A. (1890-1978). PORTRAIT OF MRS ALEXANDER FRANK STANLEY CLARKE, NÉE VIVIEN ANTONIA BLIGH (ST GEORGE) GRAVES.

A half-length portrait of twenty-two year old Vivien Antonia Bligh St. George (1912-1975) wearing a blue dress trimmed with lace collar, set against a Italianate landscape. The portrait was exhibited under her married name ‘Mrs. Stanley Clarke’. She married Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Frank Stanley Clarke in Kensington, London on 7 June 1932. This commissioned portrait was unveiled at the 1935 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, the same year she gave birth to her first child, Anthony Alexander Stanley Clarke. The finished portrait was photographed in Brockhurst’s Chelsea studio by the celebrated London photographer, Paul Laib. Vivien's husband immigrated to New York in 1936 and died aged 39 in Italy in 1947. She later remarried twice, in 1950 and again in 1966.

Brockhurst painted her elder brother, Ferris St. George, an Officer in the Life Guards the following year, his portrait was subsequently unveiled at the Royal Academy in 1936. The Bligh St. George family were patrons of the arts and as a child and adolescent Vivien Bligh St. George sat for William Orpen and David Jagger.

Oil on canvas, 76.5cm x 63.5cm (93.5cm x 80cm including frame).

Exhibition |

'167th Annual Summer Exhibition’, Royal Academy of Arts, London 1935 (#236)

Literature |

Royal Academy Illustrated 1935 p.76 illustrated [Exhibition Catalogue] ; Town and Country, March 1936 illustrated on front cover [Monthly Society Magazine] ; The Bystander, 8 May 1935 illustrated p.241 [Weekly Society Magazine]

*Contained within the artist's original handcrafted and painted frame.

The artist was a celebrated society portrait painter during the 1930’s and 40’s, greatly regarded by both wealthy English and American patrons.
He painted many famous sitters such as the Duchess of Windsor and the film actresses Marlene Dietrich and Merle Oberon as well as other members of the aristocracy.
He is best known as a wonderful etcher but after winning the gold medal at the Royal Academy schools in 1907 it enabled him to visit Italy and France, whilst there he studied the work of the early Renaissance artists including Piero della Francesca, Botticelli and Leonardo da Vinci.
Within the work we have, one can see the influence that these Italian masters have had on this already great draughtsman.
This truly captivating and most beguiling portrait is a masterpiece of twentieth century painting and surely must have impressed the art critics of the day when it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1935
It was also illustrated in Sketch Magazine, May 22nd 1935, a facsimile copy of which is included in this lot.

The artist moved to New York in 1939 and became a very popular painter with the wealthy and famous, the most notable of his patrons being the Mellon family and John Paul Getty.
He himself became wealthy and lived in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey.

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