Cabaret

Copyright

© Estate of Helen Saunders
Image: Courtauld
ⓒ Work in copyright. All rights reserved.

Maker

(artist)
1885-1963

Title

Cabaret

Date of Production

(circa) 1913 - 1914

Medium

graphite, black ink and watercolour on wove paper, irregularly squared in graphite

Dimensions

Height: 14.8 cm
Width: 22.7 cm

Object Number

D.2016.XX.5

Mode of Acquisition

Brigid Peppin, gift, 2016

Credit

Courtauld Gallery, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

Location

Not currently on display

Keywords

Label Text

This witty depiction of cabaret musicians fizzes with energy. Two double bass players, hybrids of human and instrument, play under the baton of a stalk-limbed conductor. Enormous spotlights, their light represented by the bare paper, illuminate the scene. The subject matter and Saunders’s dynamic approach show her strong interest in the rhythms of jazz and the popular dances inspired by it. The drawing may depict a contemporary band, The Versatile Three. This African-American ragtime string band performed in London and across Europe during this period.

Inscriptions

Watermark: Watermark: none.

Inscription: none.

Collector's mark: none.

Provenance

with the artist until her death in 1963; bequeathed to her sister, Ethel Saunders; bequeathed to her first cousin once removed, Helen Peppin, 1971; given to her daughter, Brigid Peppin, 1989; offered by her as a gift and part-purchase to the Samuel Courtauld Trust, 2016

Exhibition History

Praxitella: Wyndham Lewis, Helen Saunders and Iris Barry, Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds, 22/06/2023-05/11/2023
Drawings Gallery Display - Helen Saunders, Courtauld Gallery, London, 14/10/2022-29/01/2023
Radical Women: Jessica Dismorr and her Contemporaries, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, 02/11/2019-23/02/2020
...More
New Rhythms: Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Kettle's Yard, Cambridge, 17/03/2015-21/06/2015
Max Weber: an American cubist in Paris and London, 1905-15, Ben Uri Gallery, London, 24/06/2014-05/10/2014
Helen Saunders (1885-1963), Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 09/01/1996-03/03/1996; Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield, 16/03/1996-20/04/1996
...Less

Literature

Peppin, Brigid, and Cork, Richard, Helen Saunders (1885-1963), exh. cat., Ashmolean Museum, Oxford and Graves Art Gallery ,Sheffield, 1996
pp. 12, 45
ill. on p. 11

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