MWW Artwork of the Day (1/17/21) Wyndham Lewis (Canadian/British, 1882-1957) Portrait of the Artist's Wife, 'Froanna' (1940) Pencil & colored chalks on blue paper, 48.3 x 31 cm. The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham UK
This portrait of the artist’s wife Gladys Hoskins (1990–1979), known as Froanna, was made in America where Lewis spent the war years. The artist bought the distinctive blue paper in a drugstore and the unusual support perhaps inspired his use of coloured chalks. With the exception of the ornate turban, the artist restricts himself to bold lines and a few areas of shading. Nonetheless, he captures a sense of strain and intensity in the sitter, enhanced by the lack of a setting. In a letter to Mrs. John Rothenstein in December 1939, Lewis describes Froanna as 'a very good sort ... she has ridden all over the Atlas on a mule and is a great reader of my books: but you can see she is a wife in a thousand'.
