Glyn Warren Philpot

Glyn Warren Philpot was born in London in 1884. From 1900, at the age of 15, he studied at the Lambeth School of Art. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1904 and the following year left for Paris to study under J. P. Laurens. On his return to London, the young artist began to be associated with the 'Edwardian aesthetes' who included authors and writers such as Virginia Woolf, Clive Bell and John Singer Sargent. Philpot subsequently became one of the most financially successful portrait painters of his generation; achieving prominence in both Britain and America. He became a Royal Academician and a trustee for the Tate Gallery, which holds a number of his works in its permanent collection. In 1913, while serving in the First World War, Glyn Philpot met Vivien Forbes (1891-1937), who became his life long partner. When Philpot died suddenly at the age of fifty three, Vivien Forbes took a fatal dose of sleeping tablets the following day. Philpot painted portraits of the politicians Oswald Mosley and Stanley Baldwin, the King of Egypt and the poet Siegfried Sassoon among other great names of the day. A consistent theme throughout his work were his striking depictions of African men in various poses. One of his best-known black models was Henry Thomas, who also became Philpot's manservant for several years. Around 1930 Philpot turned away from portraiture towards genre, mythological, allegorical and religious subjects. He died in 1937.