Seated Nude

The legacy left by William Coldstream to the field of twentieth-century British representational art has been understated yet significant. Alongside holding roles such as Principal of the Slade School of Fine Art and Director of the Royal Opera House, the artist produced an impressive oeuvre of figurative work. Seated Nude depicts a Slade model, Catherine Kessler, who was the subject of a number of paintings throughout the 1970s. For this painting, Kessler attended forty-three sittings between 1 January 1971 and 19 May 1973. This was not unusual for Coldstream’s practice. Indeed, Lucian Freud gave twenty-nine sittings for a portrait in 1976, and Coldstream himself commented: ‘Well I reckon that I can’t really produce anything that’s got any sway really under about sixty hours’ work’ (W. Coldstream quoted in D. Sylvester, The Paintings of William Coldstream 1908-1987, London, 1990, p. 25). This meticulous approach affects an inherently sympathetic view of his model, rendered in a delicate palette amid a carefully constructed spatial context, the yellow of the wall complimenting the luminosity of the sitter’s skin.

An accomplished draughtsman, Coldstream’s method involved transferring a parallel line along the edge of a ruler to achieve exact measurements and accurate spatial relationships. Typical of the artist’s hand, these marks are definitively visible in the present work and can be seen as the scaffolding of his pictures. These marks are traces of the artist’s practice, and foreground the materiality of each work, revealing a complex and enigmatic approach to figurative representation.

We are very grateful to Catherine Lampert for her assistance in cataloguing this lot.