my latest crush

Several of you were asking about my delicious new header image. It's the work of my current artist crush, Meredith Frampton (1894 – 1984), a British painter and etcher. The header above is a cropped version of the Portrait of Marguerite Kelsey (1928). I adore the elegant, yet slightly surreal feel of his work. (Kelsey, by the way, was a celebrated artists' model and one of the last of her kind. She first began posing at the age of 15, in 1924, and so popular did she become that she was often booked months in advance.)

Meredith Frampton was born in London on March 17, 1894, the only son of the noted establishment sculptor Sir George Frampton and the artist Christabel Cockerell. He was educated at St John’s Wood Art School and the at the Royal Academy Schools. Frampton became one of the most sought after portraitists of the inter-war years, but was a painfully slow worker and unsurprisingly, his output was small, but significant.

Portrait of a Young Woman, 1935, Tate

A Game of Patience, 1937

His oil on canvas Portrait of a Young Woman (1935) was presented by the Trustees of the Chantrey Bequest to the Tate. Frampton later said that he painted that picture as "a relaxation from commissions, and to celebrate an assembly of objects… beautiful in their own right". The sitter was Margaret Austin-Jones, then aged 23. Her dress was made up from a Vogue pattern by Frampton’s mother. The vase in the picture made of mahogany, was designed by Frampton himself.

Due to failing eyesight, Frampton retired from the active exercise of his profession in 1953 and fell into obscurity, but his 1982 Tate retrospective somewhat revived his reputation. He wrote of his own work: "I think my principal aim has always been to paint the sort of picture that I would like to own and live with had it been painted by someone else." Frampton died on September 16, 1984.

Frampton's work at the Tate

Ten Dreams