AUGUSTUS JOHN, O.M., R.A. (1878-1961)

Sir Lawrence Gowing (1918-1991) studied under William Coldstream at the Euston Road School, and went on to have a distinguished and diverse career. He held various positions including Keeper of the British Collection and Deputy Director of the Tate Gallery, London, from 1965-1967; Professor of Fine Art at the University of Leeds from 1967-1975; and Slade Professor of Fine Art at University College, London from 1975 until his retirement in 1985. He also wrote extensively on a number of artists including Vermeer, Renoir, Cézanne, Constable, Goya, Turner, Freud and Bacon. For another work from the collection of Sir Lawrence Gowing, please see the Modern British Day sale, 20 November 2018.

Julia Strachey (1901-1979) was a celebrated writer, best-known for her eccentric and witty Cheerful Weather for the Wedding, published by Virginia and Leonard Woolf's Hogarth Press in 1932. Both through the connections of her uncle (Lytton Strachey 1880-1932) and the name she made through her literary career, she became integrated into the Bloomsbury Group. In 1939, she met Lawrence Gowing, and they would spend the next thirty years together.