Glyn Philpot: Flesh and Spirit

The first major exhibition of British artist Glyn Philpot R.A. (1884-1937) in almost 40 years. Bringing together over 80 paintings, drawings and sculptures, many unseen in public for decades, the exhibition charted the artist’s development from Edwardian society portraits to his shift to a radically modernist style in the 1930s.

The exhibition included his portraits of actors, dancers, poets, society hostesses, male lovers and friends, examining his important contribution to the sensitive representation of Black sitters from the 1910s to 1930s, and his exploration of both queer and religious subjects.

Philpot’s sitters included a Who’s Who of British society, from glamorous duchesses a such as Loelia, Duchess of Westminster, to actors, poets and writers including Siegfried Sassoon. Alongside these portraits, Philpot gained a reputation for his paintings, sculptures and drawings of unknown Black sitters. Central to the exhibition was an exploration of how these relate to wider dialogues about identity and representation in modern art.

★★★★★ “Decades of devotion are writ large in this exhibition, which allows us to rediscover Philpot in all his magpie complexity, and to afford his treatment of homoerotic subjects the honest appreciation they could not have received in his lifetime”.

Hettie Judah, The Guardian

★★★★☆ “Philpot, at his best, presents a behind-the-scenes glimpse of his period. This show sets out to re-establish a reputation that more than deserves to be reclaimed.”

Rachel Campbell-Johnston, The Times

★★★★☆ “It’s that fundamental sense of mystery that gives this intriguing exhibition its particular piquant flavour.”

Mark Hudson, Independent