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Montigny Farm

Sir William Rothenstein (1872-1945)

Price
£4,500
Signed
Signed, inscribed with title and dated 'Dec 1917'
Also signed 'passed by censor A N Lee' and dated 29/3/18 by Major Arthur Neale Lee, the Chief Censor for France
Medium
Pencil and pastel on tinted paper
Dimensions
14 ¼ x 20 ¾ inches
Exhibited
'The Long Nineteenth Century: Treasures and Pleasures', Chris Beetles Gallery, London, March-April 2014, No 179;
'A Century of British Art: 1900-1945', Chris Beetles Gallery, London, June-July 2021, No 38

‘[Rothenstein] and Kennington were both stationed at Montigny farm, near Roisel, about ten miles from Peronne and twenty from Cambrai, only three to three and a half miles behind the front lines. The troops and their transport were too difficult to draw, so William concentrated on the ruined villages and the landscape under snow. It was often so cold that his brush froze between water-flask and paper, but his energy could still leave a mess-room limp with exhaustion; and Kennington – who was ostensibly in charge of him – found him a law unto himself, refusing the precaution of a gas mask and dealing with superior officers according to his own ideas of their superiority ... William insisted on sketching under fire, and roamed as widely as he could to discover the ruins that so vividly excited his imagination.’ (Robert Speaight, William Rothenstein: The Portrait of an Artist in His Time, London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1962, page 292-293)

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