Quiz: Sketches and cartoons by Powys Evans
Past display archive
4 October 2008 - 1 March 2009
Room 31 case display
Free
Jacob Epstein
by Powys Evans
published 1925
NPG 4397
Son of a county judge from Cardiff, Evans was born in London in 1899. He was taught to draw by artists Spencer Gore, Walter Sickert and Sylvia Gosse and studied under Henry Tonks at the Slade School of Art. During the last years of the First World War he served with the Welsh Guards and on returning to London in the early 1920s he settled on a career as an illustrator. He drew for Tatler, but, in his own words, was "thought to be too vulgar".
In 1922 he was employed by the London Mercury, a monthly literary review, initially to provide two portraits for each issue. Also in that year, he achieved immediate acclaim as a caricaturist with the publication of a set of cartoons based on Claude Lovat Fraser's designs for the long-running production of The Beggar's Opera at the Lyric Hammersmith. Following this success, he was appointed house caricaturist for the weekly Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art. Max Beerbohn admired his sense of style and in 1924 proclaimed him as his heir.
The National Portrait Gallery holds Evans's sketchbooks from the 1920s, which contain countless quick-fire pencil drawings of his subjects, and a substantial collection of finished pen and ink portraits and cartoons. Most recently, in 2006, the Gallery purchased a group of nine caricatures that were produced for the Saturday Review. This display includes examples of Evans's original sketches from life as well as finished drawings that appeared under his own name in the London Mercury and cartoons signed by his alter ego Quiz that were published in the Saturday Review.
Related portraits
- Thomas Henry Marlowe (NPG 6800)
- Sir Charles Blake Cochran (NPG 4460)
- Sir Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge (NPG 6794)
- Douglas McGarel Hogg, 1st Viscount Hailsham (NPG 6797)
- James Edward Hubert Gascoyne-Cecil, 4th Marquess of Salisbury (NPG 6801)
- Lilian Mary Baylis (NPG 6793)
- Frederic John Napier Thesiger, 1st Viscount Chelmsford (NPG 6795)
- Howell Arthur Gwynne (NPG 6796)
- Arthur Henderson (NPG 6799)
- Jacob Epstein (NPG 4397)
- Edward Frederick Lindley Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax (NPG 6798)
- Alfred Moritz Mond, 1st Baron Melchett (NPG 5062)
- Sir Charles John Holmes (NPG 3307)
- Walter Greaves (NPG 4394)
- Sir Arnold Bax (NPG 4400)
- Sir Landon Ronald (NPG D1679)
- Sir Edwin Lutyens (NPG D33411)
- Robert Graves (NPG D33412)
- Margaret Ethel ('Storm') Jameson (NPG D33413)
- Compton Mackenzie (NPG D33416)
- Edward Richard Buxton Shanks (NPG D33406)
- Harold Nicolson (NPG D33407)
- Somerset Maugham (NPG D1691)
- George Sheringham (NPG D33405)
- George Younger, 1st Viscount Younger of Leckie (NPG D33408)
- Sir Henry Fielding Dickens (NPG D1682)
- Sir (Clement) Anderson Montague-Barlow (NPG D33420)
- Athene Seyler (NPG D1673)
- Ion Swinley (NPG D1695)
- Sir Max Beerbohm (NPG D33417)
- Henry Tonks (NPG D33418)
- David Lloyd George (NPG D33419)
- James Henry Thomas (NPG D33421)
- Clifford Bax (NPG D33414)
- Clare Leighton (NPG D33409)
- Claud Lovat Fraser (NPG D33469)
- Sir Nigel Playfair (NPG D33470)
Related sitters
- Sir Arnold Bax
- Clifford Bax
- Lilian Mary Baylis
- Sir Henry Maximilian ('Max') Beerbohm
- Sir Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge
- Frederic John Napier Thesiger, 1st Viscount Chelmsford
- Sir Charles Blake Cochran
- Sir Henry Fielding Dickens
- Sir Jacob Epstein
- Claud Lovat Fraser
- Robert Ranke Graves
- Walter Greaves
- Howell Arthur Gwynne
- Douglas McGarel Hogg, 1st Viscount Hailsham
- Edward Frederick Lindley Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax
- Arthur Henderson
- Sir Charles John Holmes
- Margaret Ethel ('Storm') Jameson
- Clare Leighton
- David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George
- Sir Edwin Lutyens
- Sir (Edward Montague Anthony) Compton Mackenzie
- Thomas Henry Marlowe
- William ('W.') Somerset Maugham
- Alfred Moritz Mond, 1st Baron Melchett
- Sir (Clement) Anderson Montague-Barlow
- Sir Harold George Nicolson
- Sir Nigel Playfair
- Sir Landon Ronald
- James Edward Hubert Gascoyne-Cecil, 4th Marquess of Salisbury
- Athene Seyler
- Edward Richard Buxton Shanks
- George Sheringham
- Ion Swinley
- James Henry Thomas
- Henry Tonks
- George Younger, 1st Viscount Younger of Leckie