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Sir Osbert Sitwell

1 of 61 portraits of Sir Osbert Sitwell

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Sir Osbert Sitwell

by Nina Hamnett
oil on canvas, circa 1918
19 7/8 in. x 16 in. (505 mm x 406 mm)
Purchased, 1987
Primary Collection
NPG 5916

Images

This delightful painted frame, with a stipple…

Sitterback to top

Artistback to top

  • Nina Hamnett (1890-1956), Painter. Artist or producer of 2 portraits, Sitter in 1 portrait.

This portraitback to top

Sitwell and the artist Nina Hamnett were friends, and collaborated on a book of London statues. It is not certain whether the unusual painted frame with its stippled finish was the work of Hamnett or was added by Sitwell.

Linked publicationsback to top

  • Bakewell, Michael, Character Sketches: Fitzrovia: London's Bohemia, 1999, p. 54
  • Clerk, Honor, The Sitwells, 1994 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 14 October - 22 January 1995), p. 44
  • Crane, David; Judd, Alan, First World War Poets, 2014, p. 45
  • Judd, Alan; Crane, David, Character Sketches: First World War Poets, 1997, p. 27
  • Robin Muir, Cecil Beaton's Bright Young Things, 2020 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 12 March to 7 June 2020), p. 59
  • Simon, Jacob, The Art of the Picture Frame: Artists, Patrons and the Framing of Portraits in Britain, 1997 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 8 November 1996 - 9 February 1997), p. 80, 184 Read entry

    Painted pine, mitred with triangular corner plates, the gessoed ground coated in a white metal powder (clearly visible on the frame reverse) and an umber-coloured wash (visible on the back edge), broken by spattering with a solvent to create a pooled effect, and then stippled in pale grey and light and dark pink paint; the rear of the frame painted green. 5 1⁄ 8 inches wide.

    This delightful painted frame, with a stippled finish and a step in the otherwise flat profile next to the sloping sight edge, is old and perhaps original to the picture. Although Nina Hamnett worked for the Omega Workshops, the frame seems too pretty to be hers, however, and may possibly have been chosen by Osbert Sitwell himself in view of the fairly eclectic way the Sitwells' modern things were presented.1

    1 I have benefited from the advice of Honor Clerk, Judy Coffins and Charles Booth-Clibborn in considering this unusual frame.

Events of 1918back to top

Current affairs

Despite the suspension of the Suffrage movement during the war, the Government finally agrees to grant women the right to vote as recognition of their vital role in the war effort. However, The Representation of the People Act only extended the franchise to female householders and university graduates over 30. Equal rights to men were not granted until 1928.

Art and science

War Poet, Wilfred Owen, is killed in action just a week before the end of the war. His poems, including Dulce et Decorum Est and Anthem for Doomed Youth, tell of the horror of war in the trenches and the tragic loss of a generation of young men who enthusiastically signed up to fight in a war that became seen as futile rather than glorious.

International

British representative, Admiral Rosslyn Wemyss, signs the Armistice calling a ceasefire on the 11th November 1918 and ending the war. Germany and Austria loose their empires and become republics. Around the same time a global flu pandemic brakes out - known in England as Spanish Flu - killing 50-100 million people within a year compared to 15 million fatalities from the four years of war.

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