AN ENGLISH CUBIST

WILLIAM ROBERTS:

Across the Counter

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Across the Counter, c.1958
Pencil and watercolour, 35.6 cm x 22.9 cm

This watercolour shows shoppers and sales staff at the counter of a branch of Ernest Cooper's London Health Centre Ltd. Despite the extraordinarily good business that is taking place, Cooper can be seen looking on anxiously from the back doorway. This may have been intended as a gentle satire by Roberts, as Cooper regularly claimed that he could not afford the asking price for Roberts's paintings and tended to pay by instalments.
PROVENANCE: Ernest Cooper > Sotheby's 3 Dec. 1998 (£2,645)
EXHIBITION HISTORY: Southampton 1967, Worthing 1972
Cf. Ernest Cooper, Esq. c.1949