Girl and Lizard

A portrait painter and sculptor, he was the grandson of the German poet Ferdinand Freiligrath. He was born in Forest Hill, Kent, the son of a naturalised British subject. According to the census return of 1901, both father and son were deaf. Stephen was educated partly in Germany but studied at the Royal Academy Schools from 1893 where he won the Landseer Scholarship, the Creswick Prize and the British Institute Scholarship. He initially made his name as a sculptor but from about 1916 seems to have devoted himself solely to painting. In 1920 he changed his name from Siegfried to Stephen. He exhibited at the Royal Academy, Royal Birmingham Society of Artists and elsewhere. He died in Worthing in 1956. This is the only other known version of Girl and Lizard. The first, dated 1906, was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1907, (no.1780) when it was purchased by the Trustees of the Chantrey Bequest and is now in the collection of the Tate Gallery, London.