The Nosegay

Artist Philip Connard (Southport, England, 1875 - 1958)

Datec.1913

Mediumoil on canvas

ClassificationsPaintings And Drawings

DimensionsOverall: Height: 61.3 cm, Width: 51 cm
Frame: Height: 82.7 cm, Width: 71.4 cm

AcquisitionPresented in 1926 by Sir James Murray.

LocationOn Loan

Object numberABDAG003327

Keywords

About MeIn 1913, this picture was illustrated in 'The Studio' as 'Flowers of Spring'. Later in 1926, when it was gifted to Aberdeen Art Gallery, it had acquired the title 'Nosegay'. The little girl stands at a window in front of which is a large bouquet of flowers. From this bouquet the girl has plucked a mall sprig which she holds up in front of her. The whole scene is bathed in bright sunlight which falls across the figure of the child casting patterns across her dress. A similar little girl appears in other compositions of mother and child by Connard which suggests that the model is probably the artist's own daughter.

Philip Connard received a scholarship to allow him to study first at the Royal College of Art in London, before travelling to Europe to study under Benjamin Constant and Jean Paul Laurens in Paris for six months. He returned to Britain where he took up a teaching position at Lambeth School of Art. From 1906 he exhibited with the New English Art Club which was established in reaction to the conservative Royal Academy.

Connard was a friend of Philip Wilson Steer who, like Walter Richard Sickert was known as a British Impressionist. Connard accompanied Steer on painting trips to capture the English countryside. In their attention to light and atmosphere and in their depiction of everyday subjects, Connard's pictures of figures in interiors and landscapes in oil and watercolour also show a debt to Impressionism.

Connard's work remained largely untouched by later modern art movements and he became a member of the Royal Academy in 1925.
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Collections Wall

Look how vivid and bright the flowers are, you can almost smell their sweet scent. Can you think of any other paintings in the Gallery with flowers?