Colin Gill:
Allegory, 1920-1921
Framed (ref: 186)
Signed and dated

Oil on canvas 

Tags: Colin Gill oil allegory 1.PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST 2.Knights Monnington Italy Colin Gill Modern British Art at Mercers' Hall True to Life catalogue

Provenance: The British School at Rome, 1989

Literature: Llewellyn, Sacha, and Paul Liss. Portrait of an Artist. Liss Llewellyn, 2021, p.341.

Exhibited: The Carnegie Institute Pittsburgh; Exposition Universelle, Paris, 1925; The Last Romantics, Barbican, 1989 (462); Tate Britain, 1995, as part of New Displays; 'For Real: British Realists from the 20s and 30s', Museum MORE, Gorssel (September 15th, 2019 – January 5th, 2020).

Literature: Studio 84, 1922, p. 828;  The Last Romantics, Barbican, 1989  
British and Italian Art, Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, 1996, cat. 14; 

Patrick Elliot & Sacha Llewellyn; True to Life, British Realist Painting in the 1920s & 1930s, July 2017, ISBN 978 1 911054 05 4, Cat. 41, page 86 and page 87.

Colin Gill was the first artist to win a scholarship to The British School at Rome and Allegory was the major painting produced during his stay at the school. Allegory includes portraits of Gills fellow Rome Scholars, the engraver Job Nixon, the Sculptor Alfred Hardiman (and his wife), and  the Rome Scholar in Painting, J M Benson, (and his future wife Maria Rosa Toppi) and Winifred Knights. Knights - the first woman to win a scholarship to the British School at Rome.  Knights arrived just as Gill was completing the canvas, at the end of 1920.  The two fell in love (love Sonnets by Gill include the line ' You hold my heart like a bird in a cage' ) and Gill painted Knights striking portrait over a Calvary.

Colin Gill and Winifred Knights at The British School at Rome