Signed and dated l.l.: W.Strang/1903 and dedicated l.c.: To L.W.Hodson

Black, white and red chalk with wash, 37 by 24.5 cm

Provenance: Laurence Hodson of Compton Hall, Wolverhampton; acquired by the present owners from Ewan Mundy Fine Art

The present work is the earliest known Strang portrait of John Masefield, who sat for the artist on a number of occasions. A related etching also exists of this drawing, which is identical in expression and pose. As well as a painting of Masefield from 1909 (now in Wolverhampton Art Gallery (acc.OP336)) and another which Strang exhibited at the Royal Glasgow Institute in 1915, there is an etching from 1912 (an example of which is in the National Portrait Gallery (acc.4568)) and a related version (but in reverse) which was used as the frontispiece to an edition of Masefield’s poems published by Heinemann in the same year. Strang’s portrait drawings, frequently executed in a mixed media of pencil and chalk like this picture, are tour-de-forces of their genre, and have prompted comparison to great drawing from earlier European art, including the work of Holbein and Durer.

The drawing bears a dedication from Strang to Laurence Hodson, a brewer who lived at Compton Hall near Wolverhampton. Hodson was a major patron of Strang, commissioning a set of ten paintings on the subject of Adam and Eve for the library at Compton. They are considered to be the artist's most important set of large scale works.