Head of James Joyce

When Augustus John and James Joyce met in Paris in 1930, John had been commissioned to draw a portrait of Joyce for the frontispiece of The Joyce Book (1933). Recalling the sittings, John wrote, ‘Joyce posed well and frequently. I did a number of drawings of him. He has a precise and buttoned-up appearance, but would un-stiffen perceptibly during the course of dinner’. He added, ’Joyce, although almost blind, took a great interest in my drawings, examining them microscopically through his powerful double-lenses’ (A. John, Chiaroscuro: Fragments of Autobiography, London, 1952, pp. 216-217).

We are very grateful to Rebecca John for her assistance in cataloguing this lot.