AN ENGLISH CUBIST

WILLIAM ROBERTS:

The Revolt in the Desert

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The Revolt in the Desert, 1952
Oil on canvas, 240 cm x 145 cm

T. E. Lawrence with a party of Arabs – a return to subject matter of the 1920s associated with Lawrence's account, in Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1926), of his role in the 1916–18 Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire. 'It was notoriety to be the only clean-shaven one, and I doubled it by wearing always the suspect pure silk, of the whitest (at least outside), with a gold and crimson Meccan head-rope, and gold dagger. By so dressing I staked a claim which Feisal's public consideration of me confirmed' – Seven Pillars of Wisdom, ch. 99.
For more about this picture, click here.
PROVENANCE: Purchased from the artist by Ernest Cooper (£250, 1952) > Southampton City Art Gallery (£750, 1958)
EXHIBITION HISTORY: Royal Academy 1952, Tate Gallery 1965, National Portrait Gallery 1988, Newcastle 2004, Imperial War Museum 2005