Provenance:
Phillips, London, 9 May 1989, lot 222, titled “The Black Dress”
Christopher Wood Gallery, London
Private collection, USA
Phillips, London, 9 May 1989, lot 222, titled “The Black Dress”
Christopher Wood Gallery, London
Private collection, USA
Literature:
Philip Kelleway, Highly Desirable: The Zinkeisen Sisters and Their Legacy, 2008, p. 63, fig 43, p. 187
Philip Kelleway, Highly Desirable: The Zinkeisen Sisters and Their Legacy, 2008, p. 63, fig 43, p. 187
Born in Scotland, Zinkeisen studied at the Harrow School of Art and at the Royal Academy Schools. Active as a painter as well as a stage and costume designer, she was a familiar figure on the artistic scene from the 1920s. Best known for her society portraits, horse paintings and murals for the RMS Queen Mary, she was also an official war artist for the St John Ambulance Brigade, and her drawings of Belsen are held in the Imperial War Museum. Her works are in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery.
Doris Zinkeisen’s portraits express the alluring chic and glamourous ambience of the stage and the cinema, even when her sitters do not belong to that world, which is the case of Miss Sanders Watney. Helen Marjorie Watney, née Guthrie, was the wife of a director at the brewers Watneys, Coombe and Reed.