S.J. Peploe
Self Portrait, c.1895
oil on canvas
32 x 23 cm
Peploe made several self-portraits before the First War. Subsequently there are only a few drawings. This is the earliest known and is likely painted around 1893-4. The class photograph from the RSA Life Class session 1892-3 features an image of the artist with some similarities to the painting. The suit, bow tie and pince-nez, high forehead and unruly hair are shared. While not ambitious in scale nor scope the painting has a direct power, perhaps dashed off before he started a more formal studio subject, it has a truth and immediacy and the honesty that is associated with all the best self-portraits. The few other very early works that have survived are painted with the same controlled flourish using an oily vehicle for the pigment and limited colour. The painting was retained by the artist and eventually gifted to his son Willy when his widow Margaret divided the family pictures in 1944. It has thence come to the present owners by descent.
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