Walter Sickert The Old Bedford (study for etching) ca. 1890 drawing British Museum |
Walter Sickert Little Dot Hetherington at the Bedford Music Hall (performing "The Boy I Love Is Up In The Gallery") ca. 1894 lithograph British Museum |
"Unlike the majority of the Camden Town Group, Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942) was recognised during his own lifetime as an important artist, and in the years since his death has increasingly gained a reputation as one of the most influential figures in twentieth-century British art. He was universally acknowledged throughout his life as a colourful, charming and fascinating character, a catalyst for progress and modernity, yet someone who remained independent of groups, cliques and categories. . . . By 1887 he had fixed upon the theme which would occupy him intermittently for most of his career, the world of the British music hall . . ."
Walter Sickert The Old Mogul Tavern, Drury Lane 1908 etching, aquatint British Museum |
Walter Sickert Noctes Ambrosianae (Gallery of Middlesex Music Hall) ca. 1908 etching, aquatint British Museum |
Walter Sickert The Old Bedford 1908 etching, engraving, drypoint British Museum |
Walter Sickert The Old Bedford 1910 etching British Museum |
Walter Sickert The Old Middlesex (Orchestra-pit and Stalls of Middlesex Music Hall) 1910 etching British Museum |
Walter Sickert The New Bedford 1915 etching, drypoint British Museum |
Walter Sickert Gaité Montparnasse ca. 1919 etching, engraving British Museum |
Walter Sickert The London Shoreditch ca. 1920 etching British Museum |
Walter Sickert The Orchestra of the London Shoreditch ca. 1920 etching British Museum |
The London Music Hall in Shoreditch High Street, site of the two images directly above and one of Sickert's favorite haunts, had in fact been destroyed in 1915 during a zeppelin raid.
Walter Sickert T.W. Barrett (Collins's Music Hall, Islington Geen) ca. 1922 etching British Museum |
Walter Sickert In Memoriam, T.W. Barrett ca. 1922 etching British Museum |
Sickert's inscription on the plate reads – "To T.W. Barrett, in grateful and affectionate homage for countless hours between 1885 and 1922, cheered and sweetened by his gentle and reticent wit, his exquisite and lovable personality – his sincere admirer, Walter Sickert"
Walter Sickert "That Old-Fashioned Mother of Mine" (the singer is "traditionally identified" as Talbot O'Farrell) ca. 1928-29 etching, engraving British Museum |