MARK GERTLER | PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST'S SISTER SOPHIE

The Artist's Family

L J Morris Esquire

Sale, Sotheby's London, 9th November 1988, lot 53, where acquired by the present owner

John Woodeson, Mark Gertler, Biographer of a Painter, Sidgwick & Jackson, London, 1972, p.360.

London, Ben Uri, Adler, Gertler, Meninsky, 1957. cat. no.4 (where lent by Mrs A. Napier);

London, Ben Uri Art Gallery and Museum, Mark Gertler - The Early and the Late Years, 20th March - 27th May 1982, cat. no.10, illustrated p.9, as Portrait of Sophie.

We are grateful to Sarah McDougall for her kind assistance with the cataloguing of the present work and the below note. 

Sophie was Mark Gertler's second sister (there is a strong family likeness) and one of his most frequent sitters in his early years, c. 1909-12, probably because of her availability and willingness to sit. She appears in both single and group portraits including Portrait of the Artist's Sister, Sophie, c. 1909 (on long-term loan to Ben Uri Gallery and Museum), where she is painted in Rembrandtesque tones in a typically Edwardian manner, and Portrait of the Artist's Family (1909-11, Birmingham) - a Slade competition piece - through to her more modern depiction in The Artist's Sister Sophie (1912, Tate), dressed in a turban and loose gown. She also modelled for compositions including Fruit Sorters (1914, Leicester New Walk Art Gallery). This work is somewhere between the earlier depictions with Sophie dressed in Edwardian attire and appears partly unfinished (in the painting of the face and lacking a firm line around the shoulders). The presence of a black line at the edges is consistent with Gertler's early work and was probably intended as a framing device at a time when money was scarce.