Perspectives
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Important Vuillard painting acquired through the Acceptance in Lieu scheme
[ News )
A significant oil painting by Édouard Vuillard has been allocated to Pallant House Gallery via HM Government’s Acceptance in Lieu (AIL) scheme, run by the Arts Council.
Édouard Vuillard’s ‘Modèle assise dans un fauteuil, se coiffant’ (c.1903), translated as ‘Model seated in a chair, combing her hair’, is a remarkable addition to our permanent collection of British and international modern art from 1900 to now.
The painting joins our existing collection of continental artworks by artists including Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, André Derain, Pablo Picasso and Gino Severini. Until now, Vuillard has only been represented in the collection by a lithograph left to the Gallery in the Kearley Bequest through the Art Fund in 1989.
Édouard Vuillard, Modèle assise dans un fauteuil, se coiffant, c.1903, oil on board, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester (Accepted by HM Government in Lieu of Inheritance Tax from the estate of Lord Hutchinson and allocated to Pallant House Gallery 2019)
Vuillard was an important influence on the development of Modern British art, in particular the artists Walter Sickert and Harold Gilman, the focus of our main spring 2019 exhibition, Harold Gilman: Beyond Camden Town.
The subject of the painting – the figure in an interior – has a strong resonance with works in the Gallery’s collection such as Jack Ashore (1912-13) by Walter Sickert as well as later works such as Granchester Road (1975) by Howard Hodgkin, who described himself as a ‘fanatical admirer’ of Vuillard, amongst numerous other artists.
The previous owner of the painting was Jeremy Hutchinson, Lord Hutchinson of Lullington (1915-2017). A fascinating figure in 20th century British cultural life, Lord Hutchinson was a lawyer who had a role in landmark trials such as the Lady Chatterley trial in 1960 and his defence of the art thief Kemton Bunton, Christine Keeler, the Great Train robber Charles Wilson and the Soviet spy George Blake.
Lord Hutchinson had connections to the Chichester area as his mother Mary Hutchinson, who was closely involved with the Bloomsbury Group, owned a house at Ella Nore in West Wittering. We are delighted to have been chosen by the recipient of Lord Hutchinson’s estate to receive the work in lieu of Inheritance Tax through the AIL scheme.