Sir William Russell Flinr RA PRWS 1880-1920. Mannequins

Sir William Russell Flint RA PRWS.  1880-1969
“Mannequins” 

Watercolour and gouache on linen board

68 x 51cm    Framed size 100 x 81cm

Signed. Dated 1920

Titled on Frost and Reed label, verso

 Provenance.  

Frost and Reed.

Estate of the late Frank Foster; Bespoke shirtmaker, 40 Pall Mall. London. “Shirtmaker to the stars”

The work: The painting records the spirit and designs of new Art Deco fashion. It depicts the latest haut couture designs being modelled to elegant clients invited to the show in 1920 at Madame Yvonne, a prominent London couture fashion house in the Jazz Age. She was based at 8 Motcombe Street, Belgrave Square SW1, 21 Piccadilly Arcade and at a  premises in Bond Street. Having an atelier in Motcomb St, provided access to wealthy and influential ladies residing in Wilton Terrace,  Belgravia and Knighstbridge.  Madame Yvonne was described at the time as a Court dressmaker and designer. 

Yvonne’s Racy, open backed 1920 designs contrast in style with the clients’ colder weather attire. Flint captures poise, beauty, status, expressions and thought in model and client.  His use of watercolour to portray sentiment in a face is extraordinary.  At his major retrospective exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1961, Charles Wheeler RA, the then President of the RA, said of Flint’s extraordinary draughtsmanship and exquisite use of watercolour;  “He has a baffling skill”

Russell Flint has included in the painting, the invitation card addressed to him, tucked into the left hand side of the mirror frame. Another card below it has the address “Madame Yvonne, Bond St W1”, the location of this show.

The link describing one of Madame Yvonne’s  outlets is at https://www.jazzageclub.com/the-london-couture-house-of-yvonne/5473/

The artist:   Flint was born in Edinburgh on 4 April 1880 and was educated at Daniel Stewart's College and then Edinburgh Institution. From 1894 to 1900 Flint was apprenticed as a lithographic draughtsman while taking classes at the Royal Institute of Art, Edinburgh. From 1900 to 1902 he worked as a medical illustrator in London while studying part-time at the Heatherley School of Fine Art. He furthered his art education by studying independently at the British Museum. He was an artist for The Illustrated London News from 1903 to 1909, and produced illustrations for editions of several books, including H Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines (1907 edition), W. S. Gilbert's Savoy Operas (1909), Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur (1910–1911) and Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales (1912).

Flint was one of the leading illustrators selected by Percy Bradshaw for inclusion in his The Art of the Illustrator (1917-1918) which presented a separate portfolio for each of twenty illustrators which was accompanied by a plate showing an illustration typical of Flint's work and five other plates showing the work at five earlier stages of its production. Flint's coloured illustration shows one naked and one half naked young woman picking fruit on a sea shore.

Flint was elected president of Britain's Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours (now the Royal Watercolour Society) in 1936 to 1956, and knighted in 1947.

During visits to Spain, Flint was impressed by Spanish dancers, and he depicted them frequently throughout his career. He enjoyed considerable commercial success but little respect from art critics, who were disturbed by a perceived crassness in his eroticized treatment of the female figure, clearly borrowing inspiration from similar works by Lawrence Alma-Tadema.

Flint was also a published author of short stories. In 1965, a collection of his short stories were published as a limited edition of 500 titled Shadows in Arcady; for which Flint designed the graphical layout and the illustrations. Previously, Flint's story "The Angelus" had been published in The Times newspaper.

Flint was active as an artist and a writer until his death in London on 30 December 1969.