The William Roberts Society

William Roberts:

Captain Robin Buxton

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.
Images scanned from the Sedgwick copy of the 1926 Seven Pillars of Wisdom are used by courtesy of Mrs J. Sedgwick and are not to be further reproduced except by permission.

Captain Robin Buxton, 1922
Pencil

Robert Vere 'Robin' Buxton (1883–1953) was commanding officer of the Imperial Camel Corps, part of General Allenby's British army based in Palestine, when in July 1918 he and 300 men were loaned to T. E. Lawrence's forces supporting the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire. As a director of Martins Bank, he later oversaw financing the publication of Lawrence's The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, in which he was described as 'an old Sudan official, speaking Arabic, and understanding nomadic ways; very patient, good-humoured, sympathetic' (ch. 99). In October 1922 Lawrence wrote to him about Roberts's portrait, ' . . . the result is astonishing: you have become severe, abstracted, slightly sorry: with the laughter gone from your face . . . A wonderful drawing' (27 Oct. 1922).
PROVENANCE: The location of the original is not known.
EXHIBITION HISTORY: Chenil Galleries 1923; Leicester Galleries (1) 1927; annotated proof plate (25.5 cm x 19 cm) from the Bodleian Library, Oxford, exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery 1988