Profile Portraits and Children’s Pictures (Exhibition Catalogue, Barbizon House, London, May 1930)

Catalogue from Ralph Peacock’s first solo exhibition, held at Barbizon House, London, in May 1930. With tipped in portrait frontispiece and 16 further tipped in illustrations of Peacock’s profile portraits. Linen pages. With a brief introduction by William Whitley.  Blue cloth-covered boards.  12mo.  Covers a little faded and marked at edges. Internally a  little age discolouration but not affecting super illustrations.

Peacock was a hugely talented and popular artist, specialising in elegant portraits of contemporary society ladies and his artistic connections. Once one of the most popular draws to the Tate Gallery (then a branch of the National Gallery based at Millbank) with his paintings of Ethel (1897) and The Sisters (1900), he is now undeservedly overlooked. A life long Londoner, Peacock lived for a large part of his life in Wimbledon with his wife and his two sons.  The Sisters is a portrait of two sisters sitting side by side, the older of the two reading a book.  It caused a sensation at the time when an American engineer gazed at the portrait and declared to his brother that he was going to marry the younger of the two sisters. After various twists and turns in his romantic pursuits, he did just that.   The older sister married Peacock himself. The artist presented the portrait to the Tate in 1900.