Girl and a Birdcage Oil on paper (14" x 10": 35.2 x 26.2cm) c.1924 Tullie House
Museum and Art Gallery Trust, Carlisle
Girl and a Birdcage is set in the scullery at 244, High Street, Rochester, Kent, the house in which the Dunbars lived before they moved across the Medway to Strood to a house called The Cedars in 1924. Like the previous post, the subject is Evelyn's older sister Jessie, who has just brought in an armful of tulips, daffodils and forsythia. A pale spring sunshine is flooding the room. Jessie is perched on the edge of the large glazed earthenware sink, filling a jug with water for the flowers. There are more bowls and pots beneath the sink. The surround sound, often hinted at in Evelyn's work, is almost as important as what is seen. The spring sunshine has encouraged the canary in the cage in the top right-hand corner to sing: this canary, or one of its friends, we've seen already: it appeared, more clearly defined, in Study for Decoration - Flight.) The water will be gurgling into the jug and maybe overflowing if Jessie does not pay attention, because Evelyn's brush has caught her sister when she too is singing. What she is singing remains a mystery: Tiptoe Through the Tulips, or even I Lift up My Finger and I Say Tweet-tweet, both of which came out in the 1920s, need not necessarily be taken as serious suggestions.
Girl and a Birdcage was the earliest of Evelyn's paintings to be thought of sufficient stature to be bought by a gallery, admittedly a few years after it was painted. In 1934 Sir William Rothenstein, Principal of the Royal College of Art, from which Evelyn had graduated the previous year, bought it for the Carlisle City Art Gallery. Rothenstein, always ready to promote his former students, had instituted a fund at Carlisle for the acquisition of works by up-and-coming artists, with himself as Honorary Advisor. He arranged for Evelyn to be paid £5 for Girl and a Birdcage, £425 at 2023 values.
Text ©Christopher Campbell-Howes 2023
Girl and a Birdcage was the earliest of Evelyn's paintings to be thought of sufficient stature to be bought by a gallery, admittedly a few years after it was painted. In 1934 Sir William Rothenstein, Principal of the Royal College of Art, from which Evelyn had graduated the previous year, bought it for the Carlisle City Art Gallery. Rothenstein, always ready to promote his former students, had instituted a fund at Carlisle for the acquisition of works by up-and-coming artists, with himself as Honorary Advisor. He arranged for Evelyn to be paid £5 for Girl and a Birdcage, £425 at 2023 values.
Text ©Christopher Campbell-Howes 2023
Further reading...
EVELYN DUNBAR : A
LIFE IN PAINTING
by Christopher Campbell-Howes
is available to order online from:
by Christopher Campbell-Howes
is available to order online from:
Casemate Publishing | Amazon UK | Amazon US
448 pages, 301 illustrations. RRP £30
448 pages, 301 illustrations. RRP £30
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