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Keir Hardie

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Keir Hardie

by Sylvia Pankhurst
chalk, circa 1910
22 3/4 in. x 16 3/4 in. (578 mm x 425 mm)
Given by Sylvia Pankhurst, 1956
Primary Collection
NPG 3978

Sitterback to top

Artistback to top

  • Sylvia Pankhurst (1882-1960), Political activist, writer and artist; daughter of Emmeline Pankhurst. Artist of 3 portraits, Sitter in 19 portraits.

This portraitback to top

This portrait was given to the Gallery by Sylvia Pankhurst in 1956. Of the portrait she wrote 'I am very conscious that this is only a sketch and was purely a preliminary study to assist me to do a painting ... I should not have ventured to offer it to the National Portrait Gallery save for the fact that I believe you have no other portrait of Keir Hardie, whose place in history is of importance ... I think it does give an idea of the kind of man Keir Hardie was.'

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Subject/Themeback to top

Events of 1910back to top

Current affairs

George V succeeds Edward VII to the throne.
The Liberals win narrow victories after calling two General Elections following escalating tension between the Liberal administration and the Lords reached crisis point with the Lords' unprecedented rejection of Lloyd George's 1909 budget. The budget included tax reform intended to fund social reform and a rearmament programme, but was seen by the Conservative Lords as an assault on property.

Art and science

The critic and Bloomsbury group member Roger Fry curates a ground-breaking and, at the time, shocking exhibition in London's Grafton Galleries, Manet and the Post-Impressionists. The exhibition introduces the work of contemporary European artists to the London art establishment, including Manet, Cezanne, Gaugin and Van Gogh, and Fry became a champion of modern art, coining the term 'Post-Impressionism'.

International

Japan annexes Korea as a colony, an indication of Japan's ambitious imperialist aims and attempts to control trade and influence in East Asia. Japanese occupation of Korea lasted until 1945, after Japan surrendered to the Allied forces at the end of the Second World War and Korea was divided in two by the United States and the Soviet Union.

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