Pauline

Arthur Ambrose McEvoy entered the Slade School of Art in 1893 on the advice of Whistler, who was a friend of his father. With his connections with Whistler and the Slade he was influenced by Sickert and at the Slade his fellow students and close friends included Augustus John, William Orpen and Albert Rothenstein. McEvoy’s early work tended to be interiors or portraits, very much in the style of Nicholson and Pryde. His style and public reputations changed when he received a commission during World War I to paint the portraits of the naval VC’s. Following the war he established himself as an extremely successful painter of highly individual and dashing society portraits. His reputation became international, holding a one-man show in New York in 1920. He exhibited extensively at the Royal Academy and elsewhere and his work is in the many public collections including those of the Tate Gallery and National Portrait Gallery, London.