AN ENGLISH CUBIST

WILLIAM ROBERTS:

The Gypsies

Illustration © The Estate of John David Roberts. Reproduced with the permission of the William Roberts Society. Catalogue information based on the catalogue raisonné by David Cleall. For this and full details of the exhibitions cited, see the links below. Any auction prices quoted may not include all fees and taxes, such as VAT and Artist's Resale Right charges.

The Gypsies, 1946–7
Pen, ink and watercolour, 36.5 cm x 25.7 cm

The Tate Gallery 1965 catalogue says that this work is inscribed 'The Gypsies'. No such inscription is visible on the work as mounted in the Tate store, although this does bear a label for the 1965 Tate exhibition on the back of it. The Reading 1983 catalogue gives the size as '370 x 365 mm' and the date as c.1950 (after the Roberts family's return to London from Oxford, where there had been gypsy encampments near their home). The Cambridge 1985 catalogue says it is signed 'William / Roberts', presumably indicating that the signature is on two lines – though that is not the case for the picture in the Tate store – and does not give a date. Despite these anomalies, it has been assumed that the same work, now in the Tate store, was shown in all three exhibitions as well as at the Leicester Galleries in 1949 as listed in the 1965 Tate catalogue.
PROVENANCE: Estate of John David Roberts (held in Tate store, 2014)
EXHIBITION HISTORY: Leicester Galleries (3) 1949, Tate Gallery 1965, Reading 1983, Cambridge 1985, Gillian Jason Gallery 1993 (where dated c.1940)