WILLIAM ROBERTS, R.A. | The Barber's Shop

The Leicester Galleries, London, where acquired by David Carr and thence by descent to the previous owner
Their sale, Sotheby's London, 15th November 2011, lot 21, where acquired by the present owner

London, The Leicester Galleries, Artists of Fame and Promise, July 1946 (details untraced).

The canvas is original. The canvas undulates very slightly in places. There is some very minor frame abrasion to the extreme upper corners, to the extreme upper edge, to the left of the extreme lower edge and to the extreme lower right corner, all of which is not visible in the current frame. There are a small number of scattered extremely fine lines of craquluere, only visible upon close inspection. There are one or two flecks of studio detritus in places. Subject to the above, the work appears to be in excellent overall condition. Inspection under ultra violet light reveals no obvious signs of fluorescence or retouching. The work is held behind glass in a painted wooden frame. Please telephone the department on +44 (0) 207 293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
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From his earliest days at the Slade, through the heady Bohemian scene of Post-WWI Soho, William Roberts had always remained fascinated by the hustle and bustle of everyday life. His love of the everyday – both in terms of subjects and settings – resulted in some of the most visually engaging popular scenes of the period. And whilst close contemporaries such as Stanley Spencer elevated the position of working class pursuits, Roberts revelled in their humble and unabashed honesty in much the same way as perhaps the greatest social documenter of the past century did, L.S. Lowry. Whether in revellers at a tea party (The Tea Garden, 1928, sold in these rooms, 12^th June 2017 for £848,750), errand boys on their bicycles (Bicycle Boys, 1939, sold in these rooms, 17^th November 2015 for £485,000) or card players gathered around a game (The Chess Players, 1929, sold in these rooms, 10^th May 2012 for £1,161,250) Roberts captured with ease the unfolding drama and narratives, as can be seen so eloquently in the present work, depicting the familiar scene of men at the barber shop.

Painted in 1946, after six years of the bloodiest conflict the world had ever seen there is a sense of the beginnings of a return to normality in this everyday scene. But there is still the strong reminder of the period, with a softer, more muted palette than one might have seen in his paintings of a decade earlier. The clothes– with the khaki green cuffs and trousers of the central seated figure – reminiscent of what these men had lived through. Yet this is a painting that abounds with hope and optimism through a return to what for many would have been an everyday life. This return was met with great relief by Roberts who had, as a result of tense relations with the War Artists' Advisory Committee, produced only sporadic wartime subjects.

For Roberts, as for many, the end of the war meant a return to the normalities that he had, for so long, drawn inspiration from in his drawings and paintings. In his typically crowded scenes he weaves a narrative that reflects his working-class roots, and depicts a scene of everyday life that viewers at the Leicester Galleries exhibition of July 1946 would have easily related to. It was certainly a subject that attracted the original purchaser of the work, the artist David Carr. A pupil at Cedric Morris’s East Anglian School of Painting, where he studied alongside Lucian Freud, Carr built up a collection of works by many of his close contemporaries, including L.S. Lowry, Prunella Clough and Freud, and one is able to trace the influence that these artists were to have on his own work, which centred around industrial street scenes and factory workers.