Oil paint on canvas
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/philip-wilson-steer-1990" aria-label="More by Philip Wilson Steer" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Philip Wilson Steer</a>
What War
Purchased 1945
actions: postures and motions
adults
beard
Bick
body
history
individuals: male
leisure and pastimes
looking down
man, old
military
named individuals
newspaper - non-specific
objects
people
portraits
reading
reading, writing, printed matter
recreational activities
Sudan War, 1881
painting oil paint canvas
What of the War?
support: 915 × 677 × 19 mm
Purchased 1945
<p><b>N05618</b> WHAT OF THE WAR? <i>c.</i> 1881</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Inscr. ‘P. Wilson Steer 1883’ b.r.
<br/>Canvas, 36×27 3/4 (91·5×70).
<br/>Purchased from Barbizon House (Knapping Fund) 1945.
<br/><i>Coll:</i> Mrs Frances E. Thorne; anon., sold Christie's, 13 March 1925 (3), bt. Holdsworth; anon., sold Christie's, 3 February 1928 (90), bt. Brockbank; Owen Smith by 1929; anon., sold Christie's, 20 July 1945 (124), bt. Lockett Thomson of Barbizon House.
<br/><i>Exh:</i> R.A., 1883 (206); Tate Gallery, April–July 1929 (73); Tate Gallery, November–December 1960 (3).
<br/><i>Lit:</i> MacColl, 1945, pp.26, 188, repr. pl.13a.
<br/><i>Repr:</i>
<i>The Times</i>, 19 April 1929.</p>
<p>This, Steer's first exhibited work, is a <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/portrait" title="Glossary definition for 'Portrait'"><span>portrait</span></a> of Mr Bick, brother-in-law of John Kemp, the master of the Gloucester School of Art where Steer first attended, and where this portrait was in fact painted, probably in 1881. The date 1883 must be a later addition, perhaps for the Royal <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/a/academy" title="Glossary definition for 'Academy'"><span>Academy</span></a>, as Steer was in Paris that year. The ‘war’ must have been the Sudan War which began in 1881 after the revolt of the Mahdi and dragged on for ten years.</p>
<p><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, <i>The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture</i>, London 1964, II
<br/>
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-10-08T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
actions: postures and motions adults beard Bick body history individuals: male leisure and pastimes looking down man, old military named individuals newspaper - non-specific objects people portraits reading reading, writing, printed matter recreational activities Sudan War, 1881