gallery

Kenneth Green 1916 - 1973
Portrait of the artist Colum Gore-Booth 1913-1959
Portrait of Colum Gore-Booth

signed lower left

oil on canvas
76.20 x 60.96 cm. (30 x 24 in.)
Notes

Colum Robert Gore-Booth (1913-1959)
Born into the famous Anglo-Irish family centred at Lisadell House, Co. Sligo, his grandfather being the famous Arctic Explorer Henry Williamson Gore-Booth, 5th Baronet and his aunt Constance Countess Marklewicz, artist and political rebel who became the first woman M.P. to be elected to the House of Commons. Colum was born in Doncaster but throughout he life was much involved with Sandhall Hall in East Yorkshire, his mother’s ancestral home.Colum was an artist who painted landscapes in the Fauvist style and was the subject of a biography, “The Life and Paintings of Colum Gore-Booth", by A.J. Blytheway. Traditionally, the Gore-Booths had always appreciated the arts and the poet W.B. Yeats often stayed at Lissadell House, the guest of “a very pleasant, kindly, ‘inflammable’ family”. Colum’s Aunt Constance, known as Countess Markievicz after marrying a Polish Count, studied art in Paris and she and her sister Eva became Suffragettes. Both sisters were fiercely political and fought for Irish Independence, when Constance became an M.P. 
Colum married Mary Gore-Booth Barker (born Scholfield) in 1947, at age 33. Mary was born in 1921. Colum was  trained at St John's Wood School of Art but moved to  France in the 1930's, where his work  was influenced by the  Fauvist/Expressionist movement. He exhibited  his work in Paris and  London, but for various reasons stopped painting in the 1950's, and made no effort to sell his work. 

In 1959, aged forty-five, Colum died at their Kensington home. He left his wife Mary to bring up three young children; Peter, (who later called himself Krishna after studying Eastern philosophy), Susan, Justin and another daughter, Tessa Mary Watt.  "The Life and Paintings of Colum R Gore-Booth by Alan J Bytheway (2010) 

 

Artist biography

Kenneth Green 1905-1986 Suffolk artist. Green studied at the Slade School of Fine Art 1922-1924, receiving a Slade Scholarship in 1923, under Henry Tonks. During his period of study Green was commissioned to paint a portrait at Cambridge University following this commission Green received further portrait commissions for works including subjects such as Benjamin Britten, and Cecil Day Lewis.

Works by Green have been exhibited widely in many prestigious galleries including The Royal Society of Portrait Painters, Royal Academy 1925-1957, and Royal Society of British Artists. Colum was a lifelong friend of the artist  Kenneth Green. There are photos of Colum in the book.