The Smiling Amazon

Artist Alexander Christie (Aberdeen, Scotland, 1901 - 1946)

Date1933

Mediumoil on canvas

ClassificationsPaintings And Drawings

DimensionsOverall: Height: 82 cm, Width: 61.7 cm
Frame: Height: 99.5 cm, Width: 81.7 cm

AcquisitionPresented in 1996 by Dr James H Anderson.

CopyrightOut of copyright - CC0

LocationOn Loan

Object numberABDAG012051

Keywords

Historic Title

The Laughing Amazon

About MeAlexander Christie was born in Aberdeen in 1901 but moved to London as a young man, where he became a well known portraitist. He painted portraits of several members of the British aristocracy, such as the Duchess of Sutherland and Lady Gloria Vaughan, who was the daughter of the 7th Earl of Lisburne, wife of the conservative M.P. Sir Nigel Thomas Loveridge Fisher and the mother of Mark Fisher M.P.

Christie travelled to Seville and Granada in the late 1920s and in 1929 exhibited a collection of Spanish scenes, Returning to London, where he lived in Holland Park, he came to specialise in depicting London's art world and media celebrities including the famous ballerina Anna Ludmila, the conductor Sir Henry Wood, who is forever associated with the Promenade Concerts (now the "BBC Proms") and Lord Reith, Managing Director of the BBC from 1922 to 1927. He also painted a portrait of the Scottish politician, writer, journalist and adventurer R.B. Cunninghame Graham.

The sitter in this lively portrait was the daughter of the Danish ambassador to London.

More About Me

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Amazons were a fierce group of warrior-women in Classical mythology, a far cry from the smiling woman in this painting, or is it?