MARK GERTLER (1891-1939)

This work is typical of Gertler’s still lives in the 1920s and was probably painted in Penn Studio in June 1921, shortly after he had returned from a six-month stay at Banchory Sanatorium in Scotland, where he had been confined with tuberculosis. It is one of a series of works centred on Staffordshire portrait figurines, popular ornaments of the period which exerted a strong fascination for him. The central figure of a jockey on horseback is probably based on the champion jockey Fred Archer (1857–1886), a three-time Derby winner (see R. Haggar, Staffordshire Chimney Ornaments, New York, 1955, pl. 89). The figure on the far left, squatting, is probably that of Roger Giles, a Devonshire schoolmaster, who advertised on a signboard to sell his fresh eggs, newly laid by him every day (and hence was often comically depicted as though in the act of laying eggs). Mrs. Gordon Stables in her long piece on Gertler in the International Studio, 22 June 1922, drew attention to ‘those rough china ornaments which Gertler loves to collect’. Between the two Stafford figurines is a small wooden sculpture, probably African, of the type Gertler loved to pick up at markets.

We are very grateful to Sarah MacDougall for preparing this catalogue entry.