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Evelyn Dunbar:
Nude self-portrait, 1928
Framed (ref: 10188)

Pencil and watercolour on paper

Tags: Evelyn Dunbar watercolour portraits study women 1.PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST 2.dunbar 2022

Provenance: The Artist's Estate

Literature: Llewellyn, Sacha, and Paul Liss. Portrait of an Artist. Liss Llewellyn, 2021, p.299.

'Female nude self-portraits of the period are not common. We assume that this delicate water-colour is indeed a mirror-image self-portrait because the inscription is in Evelyn's handwriting at that period, because she kept it all her life and because the provenance is impeccable. (The modest rondeurs and texture of the buttocks are echoed in several mid-1930s letters to Charles Mahoney, who compared this feature to a peach, and vice versa.) […] Why did she paint it? In the summer of 1928 she was living at home, writing and illustrating children's books, not having found much satisfaction in the art college courses she had abandoned. In the absence of life classes, and no doubt conscious of the sometimes louche reputation attaching itself to models, did Evelyn try to explore one of the great imperatives of figure drawing unofficially, in the comfort of her own bedroom? Perhaps we should ask no further questions, but simply enjoy this delicate water-colour essay into the nude with the subtly tinted flesh of an attractive 21-year-old woman.'

Christopher Campbell-Howes: Evelyn Dunbar: A Life in Painting p73