Auctions in your inbox!

Get notified about the latest local and online auctions.

We value your privacy! Click here to read our policies.

Learn how to bid
  • Add this artist to my Artfact Advisor™ Alerts

Robert Bevan (1865-1925)

Aliases: Robert Polhill Bevan

Professions: Painter; Lithographer

  • Click to See Larger Size Click to See Lot Detail
    Robert Polhill Bevan (1865-1925)

    Robert Polhill Bevan (1865-1925)

  • Click to See Larger Size Click to See Lot Detail
    ROBERT BEVAN 1865-1925

    ROBERT BEVAN 1865-1925

  • Click to See Larger Size Click to See Lot Detail
    Robert Polhill Bevan (1865-1925)

    Robert Polhill Bevan (1865-1925)

  • Click to See Larger Size Click to See Lot Detail
    Robert Polhill Bevan (British, 1865-1925)

    Robert Polhill Bevan (British, 1865-1925)

Robert Bevan Biography

(b Hove, 5 Aug 1865; d London, 8 July 1925). English painter and lithographer. He studied at the Westminster School of Art and in Paris. In 1890–91, having encountered Paul Sérusier at the Académie Julian in Paris, he made his first visit to Brittany, where he worked with the Pont-Aven group; he also developed an interest in lithography. After contact with Renoir, Bevan made a second visit to Brittany in 1893–4, when he met and was influenced by Gauguin. From the early 1900s Bevan adopted a divisionist or pointillist style in paintings that often depicted London street scenes and horse trading, as in Horse Sale at the Barbican (1913; London, Tate; see ENGLAND, fig. 22), and landscapes painted on summer holidays in Devon and Cornwall, of which Green Devon (1919; Plymouth, City Mus. & A.G.) is a striking example. In the last years of his life his style changed, the paint becoming thicker and more textural, with a new attention to the juxtaposition of masses. At times he approached a Cubist geometry of form, for example in rural scenes such as Hay Harvest (1916; see Bevan, pl. 58), while retaining the use of clear, pure colour, and luminous coloured shadows. His lithographs, which he made again from 1919, show a fluent and expressive line, with formal massing expressed through graduations of tints, as in London Church (1924; edition of 45), giving them a tonal delicacy equivalent to his oil paintings. Bevan was a founder-member of the CAMDEN TOWN GROUP. Having contributed to the formation of the London Group he broke away in 1914 to form the CUMBERLAND MARKET GROUP with Charles Ginner and Harold Gilman. Always keen to retain links with the French art scene, he and Ginner organized the exhibition Peintres modernes anglais at the Galerie Druet in Paris in 1921. In 1922 he was elected to the NEW ENGLISH ART CLUB.

Grove Art excerpts - Electronic ©2003, Oxford Art Online

Back to the Top

Robert Bevan Sold at AuctionView all Robert Bevan Sold at Auction

Back to the Top

Need Full Access to Our Artist Database?

Log in or subscribe for access to: artist alerts, price estimate, auction house name, auction title, location & date, and more...

Subscribe Now