The William Roberts Society

William Roberts:

The Art Critic, P. G. Konody

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.

The Art Critic, P. G. Konody, 1920
Oil on canvas, 50 cm x 40 cm

Paul Konody was an art critic for The Observer and the Daily Mail before the First World War, and was one of three critics to be 'blessed' by Wyndham Lewis in Blast! No. 1. He played an important role in Roberts being commissioned by the Canadian War Memorial Fund to paint the large-scale The First German Gas Attack at Ypres in 1918. This portrait was presumably painted after Roberts's war-artist work, and when exhibited at the Chenil Gallery in 1923 it was priced at £35. The painting has been in the Konody family since that date, although until recently art historians believed it to have been lost.

PROVENANCE: P. G. Konody > private owner (PGK's grandson)
EXHIBITION HISTORY: Chenil Galleries 1923