Lot 1668
‡WILLIAM ROBERT HAY (1886-1964)
THE GREENGROCER
Signed and dated 1916, oil on canvas laid on board
41.5 x 33cm.
* Hay was Scottish by birth but studied at the Westminster School of Art (where he was awarded the King's Prize for Perspective). He also spent time at art schools in Camberwell and Chelsea and is recorded as living at 12 Lawrence Street in Chelsea in the 1920's. His only Royal Academy exhibit was an engraving in 1923 but the inky greens and purple tones of this atmospheric work link him stylistically with the Camden Town Group. Artists such as Spencer Gore, Robert Bevan and Charles Ginner drew inspiration from anecdotal but mundane urban incidents, executed with sensitivity for colour, mood and composition but without any strained grandeur. Hay's drawings show a fine eye for draughtsmanship which would have led him naturally towards printmaking in the boom era of the 1920's but his oils are very scarce at auction.
