JAMES FERRIER PRYDE (1866-1941)

A FIGURE STUDY
Signed l.l. Pryde, dedicated on mount To Phil Scott / in friendship and gratitude / from James Pryde
Gouache on paper
11.5 x 8 cm 
 
PROVENANCE:
Given by the artist to a previous owner
 
 
 
 
 
The present work is absolutely typical of James Pryde's somber figures, the best-known of which are his depictions of famous London criminals from bygone times, based on their profiles in The Newgate Calendar of 1828. This study does not appear to relate to any of the so-called 'rascals' from that series, but it does bear a passing resemblance to The Mendicant, a larger oil painting sold at Christie's, South Kensington, 26.11.2014, lot 26. 
 
 
 
James Pryde was one of the most distinctive and utterly idiosyncratic artists of the early 20th century, whose work was highly regarded in his lifetime but then received surprisingly little attention until a major retrospective was held in Edinburgh in 1992, reestablishing his reputation for modern collectors. He is chiefly remembered as one half of the 'Beggarstaffs', together with Sir William Nicholson (his brother-in-law): their poster designs and various graphic works created in the 1890s influenced graphic design for years to come, with an exhibition of the fruits of their partnership held recently at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge in 2019. 
 
 
Pryde was born in Edinburgh, the son of a local headmaster and grandson (on his maternal side) of the famous Scottish painters Robert Scott Lauder and James Eckford Lauder. His artistic studies began at the Royal Scottish Academy in 1888, though he had already exhibited a work there four years earlier. He was encouraged towards painting by James Guthrie and Edward Walton, and soon after this beginning he moved to Paris to attend the Académie Julien. He strongly disliked the French school, and returned home after just three months, moving then to London a few months afterwards. 
 
His sister Mabel married William Nicholson in 1893, having met the rising star of the London art world at Herkomer's school of art several years earlier. Pryde and Nicholson swiftly became close friends and collaborators, and their Beggarstaff partnership continued for six years from the date of Mabel and William's marriage. 
 
Pryde briefly entertained a career as an actor, playing various small roles in a touring company with Edward Gordon Craig (an artist whose work may well have been influenced by Pryde or vice-versa), and Craig regarded Pryde as one of the finest artists who had lived but a woeful actor: he saw that Pryde instead drew much inspiration from the theatre and its atmosphere for his art, but was not at all an actor at heart. 
 
Despite his rather Bohemian life (Pryde and Nicholson were described in a review of the Fitzwilliam exhibition as '...clubbable dandies, keeping company with writers, actors and theatre managers for most of their lives' (1)), Pryde was very much part of the artistic establishment and attracted much interest from collectors.  He was elected an associate of the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers in 1901, becoming their vice-president in 1921. His first one-man exhibition was held at the Baillie Gallery in 1911, and he went on to exhibit at all of the fashionable venues, including the Goupil Gallery, the Leicester Galleries, the Grosvenor Gallery, London Salon, New English Art Club, Royal Hibernian Academy, Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts and Royal Scottish Academy. In 1934 he was elected an honorary member of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters.