ALFRED R. THOMSON (BRITISH, 1894-1979), A MODERN COCKTAIL BAR 1931

• Lot Sold $15,500 (Hammer Price)
• $18,600 (Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium)

oil on canvas
132 BY 275CM

LITERATURE
Ronald Mayes, 'The Romance of London Theatres: No. 171, The Saville Theatre', The Builder, vol. 138, 1931; F.S., 'London's Most Modern Theatre', Theatre World, London, October 1931, p. 189 (illustrated)
'The Way of a Man With a Bar: Saville Theatre Décor', The Sketch, London, 14 October 1931 (illustrated); Raymond Mander and Joe Mitchenson, The Theatres of London (rev. ed.), New English Library, London, 1975, p. 330.

A member of the Royal Academy (he painted a group portrait of the Academy's selection committee in 1955) and the London Sketch Club, deaf painter Alfred R. Thomson was largely self-taught. He worked as a portraitist and illustrator in the 1930s and as a War Artist for the R.A.F., but is perhaps best known for his striking modernist poster designs for (inter alia) the Ministry of Information, London Transport and Ealing Films. The present work is one of a suite of three mural decorations commissioned in 1931 for the bar of 'the very latest and finest London theatre,'(1) the Saville, in Shaftesbury Avenue.
(1) F.S., 'London's Most Modern Theatre', Theatre World, London, October 1931, p. 189