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Miss Barbara Graham Cowie

Artist: Cowie, James, RSA LLD · 1886-1956

Miss Barbara Graham Cowie

The work was exhibited under the title 'Portrait of a Child' at the RSA Annual Exhibition in 1939, and under the title 'Miss Barbara Graham Cowie' at…

The work was exhibited under the title 'Portrait of a Child' at the RSA Annual Exhibition in 1939, and under the title 'Miss Barbara Graham Cowie' at the RGI Annual Exhibition later the same year.

There is a later version of the Diploma Work in the collection of Dundee Art Gallery 'Portrait of a Child' (1948) 47 x 30 1/2 inches which was begun at Hospitalfield and finished in Edinburgh in 1950. It was lent by Dundee Art Galleries and Museums to the "James Cowie Memorial Exhibition" mounted by the Scottish Committee of the Arts Council of Great Britain and which toured to six Scottish venues in 1957, cat.36. It has an almost identical composition and placement of objects but lighter palette and flesh tones also different decorative details. This version has two bird motifs to either side of the top of the oval trompe l'oeil slip unlike the Diploma Work version. A postcard of the later painting from the McManus Galleries collection is in Cowie's file.

The Diploma Work was painted at Hospitalfield House, Arbroath directly from sitter when Cowie was the warden here and the later version in Edinburgh without the sitter.

Cowie's pencil preparatory drawing for this work was exhibited at the 1950 RSA Annual Exhibition, cat 605 "Study for a Portrait", £10.00, from which exhibition purchased by Dr Ivor R C Batchelor, on the PV night (21 April). Dr and Mrs Batchelor subsequently lent the drawing to the "James Cowie Memorial Exhibition" mounted by the Scottish Committee of the Arts Council of Great Britain and which toured to six Scottish venues in 1957, cat.79; "Study for a Portrait (Barbara Graham Cowie), Hospitalfield 1938 23 1/2 x 17 inches, pencil and chalk on grey paper, preparatory drawing for the oil painting No.24, Exhibited RSA 1950, Lent by Dr and Mrs I R C Batchelor."

This drawing is now in the collection of the Fitzwilliam in Cambridge, who contacted the RSA Collections Department by e-mail 2018-09-19 about it. The drawing is part of a larger collection of works assembled by Sir Ivor Batchelor (1916-2005), which was acquired with Art Fund assistance by the Fitzwilliam in 2015.

A second preparatory study is known [present location unknown], this is a black chalk drawing heightened with white, 15 5/8 x 7 inches which was lent by Dr Ian Fleming RSA to the Scottish Arts Council exhibition "James Cowie, An Artist at Work," in 1981 (cat.73).

© The Artist's Estate