Spencer Frederick Gore (1878-1914)

Gore probably looked to Sickert's painting of 1906 La Seine du Balcon (private collection) as inspiration for the composition of From a Window in the Hampstead Road. However, Sickert painted his view from the balcony, but here Gore paints from inside and includes the window pane in the composition. Another view by Sickert called Girl at a Window, Little Rachel, 1907 (private collection) includes the figure of a woman in front of the window, but in the present lot Gore goes further by omitting the figure. The construction of a window pane in front of the window's view appealed to Gore, and it was a motif to which he returned on several occasions.

Gore was intrigued by his Camden Town surroundings and used it as the inspiration for his pictures. From a Window in the Hampstead Road was painted in 1911 from Sickert's third floor school, Rowlandson House. The view shows Hampstead Road and Rutland Street. In the lower right foreground a housemaid is scrubbing the steps leading up to a doctor's surgery. In 1912 Gore moved from Mornington Crescent to the nearby Houghton Place, which he painted from the view from his house (fig. 1).