Ambrose McEvoy

(b Crudwell, Wilts, 12 Aug 1878; d London, 4 Jan 1927). English painter. On the advice of James McNeill Whistler, he attended the Slade School of Fine Art, London, from 1893 to 1896. His important early pictures were atmospheric studies of figures in interiors, for example Interior (1903; London, Pyms Gal., see 1986 exh. cat., p. 85). He exhibited with the New English Art Club from 1900 and is recorded as a member in 1902. In 1906 he bought 107 Grosvenor Road, overlooking the River Thames in Chelsea, where he lived and worked the rest of his life, often painting his portraits there. McEvoy slowly added to the number of his patrons and extended the range of his work to include portraits, cityscapes and landscapes, much in the manner of Walter Sickert, for example Bessborough Street, Pimlico (1900; London, Tate). Portraits became his main interest, not least because of the way he strove to appeal to the imagination in order to suggest more than the mere appearance of his sitters. Not all these were female, but he certainly established a reputation with portraits of fashionable women, such as The Hon. Mrs Cecil Baring (c. 1917; London, Tate). Between 1911 and 1913 he had some success at the New English Art Club with his portraits of Gerald Brockhurst's future wife, Dorette (The Ear-ring; 1911; London, Tate), and by 1916 his work was much in demand. He developed a bravura technique that enhanced his sitters' charms as much as it paid tribute to their social status.

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