Sold....portrait of a Young Lady C.1910; by Ambrose Mcevoy.

Oil on canvas in replica cassetta frame.

A beautiful portrait of an attractive young woman; lost in thought, her gaze passes the viewer.

The image has a great sense of calm and peace.

McEvoy's treatment of the face is sensitive and insightful, painted with great care, whereas in the drapery he indulges in a painterly delight in manipulating the medium...the lace is depicted in a free and almost impressionistic manner.

Ambrose McEvoy was one of the most successful British portraitists of the early twentieth century

and one of the most adventurous British artists of his time. He frequently experimented with composition and technique, and was one of the first artists to focus on mixing artificial and natural light in his portraits. As a result, the sitter here is illuminated with a gentle, golden glow.

This portrait is a fine example of McEvoy’s noted ability to combine classical painting with modernism.

AMBROSE MCEVOY (1878-1927) was born in Crudwell, Wiltshire. Encouraged by Whistler, who spotted his talent early on, McEvoy enrolled at the Slade School of Fine Art in London when he was fifteen. At the Slade he was part of the group around Augustus John and William Orpen. McEvoy had the reputation for a fine technical skill in oils, learnt from study with Whistler. He later worked with Walter Sickert in Dieppe. While at the Slade he was fellow pupil of Gwen John, with whom he had an unhappy affair.

From 1900 he exhibited at the New English Art Club (NEAC), and became a member in 1902. In the same year he married the painter Mary Edwards (1870–1941). In 1907 he held a one-person exhibition at the Carfax Gallery. In 1911 he was a founder-member of the National Portrait Society, and in 1913 he became a member of the International Society.

At NEAC he exhibited landscapes and interiors. After about 1915 he established a reputation as a portrait painter of fashionable society beauties.

During World War I he was attached to the Royal Naval Division from 1916–18, and painted a number of distinguished sailors and soldiers, now in the Imperial War Museum and the National Maritime Museum.

McEvoy visited New York and exhibited there at the Duveen Galleries in 1920. In 1924 he was made an Associate of the Royal Academy and of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, and of the Royal Watercolour Society in 1926. He also exhibited at the Grosvenor, Grafton and Leicester Galleries.

McEvoy died in Pimlico, London, on 4 January 1927. In 1928 he was represented in the Royal Academy Late Members Exhibition. In 1933 he was memorialized together with Orpen and Charles Ricketts in an exhibition in Manchester.