John Piper

1 portrait

John Piper

by Margaret MacGregor ('Peggy') Angus
pencil, crayon and wash, 1937
20 1/2 in. x 24 5/8 in. (521 mm x 625 mm)
Given by Henry Keswick, 1988
Primary Collection
NPG 6545

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Sitterback to top

John Egerton Christmas Piper (1903-1992), Artist and writer. Sitter in 56 portraits, Artist of 1 portrait.

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Margaret MacGregor ('Peggy') Angus (1904-1993), Painter. Artist of 2 portraits, Sitter in 1 portrait.

This portraitback to top

This careful and elegant drawing of the young John Piper is a reminder that in the 1930s he was at the heart of the modern movement in Britain and one of our leading abstract painters. He is seated, with a ginger cat on his lap, on an Alvar Aalto chair (1928) and behind him on the wall hangs his Forms on Dark Blue (1936), one of his largest and most important works of the period. Piper abandoned abstraction in the late 1930s and turned to the romantic depiction of buildings, decorative landscapes, theatre designs and stained glass.