Description

Description: In this chatty 4-page letter to socialite, and John’s secretary and model, Viva King he admits to barely tolerating his painting commission and the need to be abroad and stay at his sitter’s home. He says in part: “…I have been having a Hellish time here. How mad I was to allow myself to go and stay with this family… I have been working hard in spite of–or because of everything and I do hope I shall shortly have done enough to be able to return to England… My plan here is to retire to my room here immediately after dinner excusing myself on the pretext that I am engaged in writing my memoirs. This ruse not only assures me a certain necessary solitude but, I think, encourages my hosts to behave rather more circumspect than they might otherwise do.”

Augustus John (1878-1961), Welsh painter and printmaker, gained considerable fame as a portrait painter and painted many of his famous contemporaries, including: Dylan Thomas, W. B. Yeats, T. E. Lawrence, Tallulah Bankhead, etc.

Autograph letter signed “Augustus”, written on a folded 7 3/4″ x 11 1/2″ sheet of stationery imprinted: “Runnymede-by-the-Sea Little Boars Head New Hampshire” (Summer estate of Massachusetts Governor and U.S. Congressman Alvin Fuller). Item #A01332

Condition: Mailing fold lines, light soil, generally very good.