Frank Bowling, R.A. (b. 1934)
Lot 129 PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF DAVID METHUEN CAMPBELL

Frank Bowling, R.A. (b. 1934)

Beggar No. 3

Closed18 June 2019

Price Realised

GBP 695,250

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Frank Bowling, R.A. (b. 1934)
Beggar No. 3
signed, inscribed and dated 'Frank Bowling/May 17th/1963/BEGGAR NO. 3/OWNED BY:/DAVID METHUEN/CAMPBELL' (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
58 x 40 in. (147.3 x 101.6 cm.)
Painted in 1963.

Acquired directly from the artist by David Methuen Campbell in the 1960s.

Specialist note


Beggar No. 3 features, for the first time, and the only time to my knowledge, a painted image of his mother’s house, rather than the haunting silkscreened images in later paintings like Cover Girl (1966). One of Bowling’s most significant recurrent motifs, an emblematic acknowledgment of T.S. Eliot’s psychologically fraught line: ‘Home is where one starts from.’ It was the house to which Bowling brought the beggar children on the streets of New Amsterdam to be fed by his imperious and charitable mother.’
- Mel Gooding