Charles Haslewood Shannon

Inscriptionback to top

Inscr. in plate lower left: ‘C.S. 1918’.
Inscr. in pencil lower left, below print: ‘No 25 of 50’;
and lower right: ‘Charles Shannon 1918’.
Inscr. in pencil (another hand) lower left edge of sheet: ‘R.89 / Portrait of the Artist’;
and lower right edge: ‘S.5316’.

This portraitback to top

This is a late lithograph showing Shannon apparently working at an easel but with sheets of paper in his left hand; the pose is similar but not identical to that in the 1917 self-portrait in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (see ‘All known portraits’). It is described as an edition of 50, printed in black or sanguine. [1] A sanguine version is in the British Museum, London (1925,1109.1).

Two decades earlier, Shannon’s printmaking had already been highly praised: ‘[His] command of the stone renders him, so far as we know by a great deal the most skilful, sympathetic and poetic lithographer at work in this country.’ [2]

NPG 3081 was acquired following the artist’s retrospective exhibition held in 1938 and a subsequent show at F.R. Meatyard’s in 1940. The central area is discoloured where previously exposed to light through a window mount.

Dr Jan Marsh

Footnotesback to top

1) No.2 S89 in Delaney 1978.
2) MA, 1897, p.105.

Physical descriptionback to top

Half-length, half-profile to right, looking to front, leaning forward with brush in right hand and another in mouth.

Conservationback to top

Conserved, 2009.

Provenanceback to top

Purchased 1940 following the exhibition ‘Original lithographs by the late Charles Hazelwood’ [sic] Shannon.

Exhibitionsback to top

Lithographs of the late Charles Shannon RA, P.&D. Colnaghi, London, 1938 (4).

Original Lithographs by the Late Charles Hazelwood [sic] Shannon, RA, F.R. Meatyard, London, 1940.

Reproductionsback to top

Meatyard 1940, p.1.

Portraits of Artists, Writers and Musicians, exh. cat., P.&D. Colnaghi, London, 1976, p.49.

View all known portraits for Charles Haslewood Shannon