John Rothenstein (1901 - 1992)

John Rothenstein was born in London in 1901, the son of Sir William Rothenstein. Rothenstein studied at Worcester College, Oxford, and became friends with T E Lawrence. After serving as Director of Leeds City Art Gallery, he was appointed Director of Sheffield City Art Galleries (1932-38) where he oversaw the establishment and opening of the Graves Art Gallery. From 1938–64 Rothenstein was Director of the Tate Gallery in London. Rothenstein's directorship was one of the most successful. The Tate's annual purchase fund could not compete with those of US institutions, so few works of modern foreign art were added to the collection. However, he wrote, "Picasso is a Proteus, the prodigiously gifted master of all styles and media". According to Richard Cork, one of Rothenstein's errors was failing to purchase Henri Matisse's The Red Studio when it was offered to the Tate Gallery for a few hundred pounds in 1941. Art historian Douglas Cooper began an open campaign to have Rothenstein dismissed by the trustees; which led to an incident in which Rothenstein punched Cooper in the face. Rothenstein documented the lives of all the major British artists in his Modern English Painters, which has earned him the title of 'The Vasari of British Art'.

Size 34cm x 24cm

Medium Pencil on paper

Publication Low's Company

Published 1952