Abstract
This article discusses Elizabeth Workman’s collection in the context of the early reception of Impressionism by women artists in Britain and the USA. In the 1920s Elizabeth Russell Workman (1874–1962) was recognized as one of the most enlightened collectors of her generation in Britain; Percy Wyndham Lewis described her as ‘one of the only people in England to understand French painting’. She began collecting French Impressionism well before more prominent collectors such as Samuel Courtauld and in several ways was more adventurous in her tastes. And yet today, not only is her important collection of modern French art all but forgotten, Elizabeth Workman herself remains an invisible, unknown figure, occasionally listed in provenance histories, and more often than not under her husband’s name. Born and brought up in Rhu, Dunbartonshire, Elizabeth lived in London with her husband Robert, a prominent shipowner. Her collection included works not only by Scottish contemporary artists, acquired from the early 1900s onwards, but also by Monet, Degas, Sisley, Renoir, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Vuillard, Matisse, Picasso, and Braque, the bulk of which were bought through the dealers Reid & Lefèvre just after the First World War. However, when Robert’s business ran into financial difficulties in the late 1920s much of the collection was dispersed, with the result that its full extent and importance has never properly been recognized. Drawing on material in the family archive, as well as information from sale catalogues and dealer stock books, this article establishes a more comprehensive overview of the Workman collection. Its aim is to reassess Elizabeth’s importance as a British collector in the interwar period and to identify her individual tastes, taking into consideration the changing economic context. It also draws parallels with earlier patterns of collecting among women collectors of the previous generation, especially those whose contribution has been overshadowed by the activities of a spouse or agent.<br>
Highlights
The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries witnessed the rise of the mercantile classes in Britain and the creation of a new industrial elite
In the sphere of collecting, women became major promoters of modern art, even if they were less in evidence than their female counterparts in the USA or their male equivalents in Britain. It was not until 1951, for example, that the National Museum of Wales was enriched by the Davies sisters’ collection, even though they began collecting before the First World War
More credit has been given to English and Irish male philanthropists, such as Sir Samuel Courtauld and Sir Hugh Lane, than to the women who played a key role in the early accessioning of Impressionism in British museums and galleries
Summary
The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries witnessed the rise of the mercantile classes in Britain and the creation of a new industrial elite. Research for this article, has involved the painstaking identification of works itemized in the Alex Reid & Lefèvre Gallery stock books, housed in the Tate Archive, as well as those listed in the collection sale catalogues Drawing on these sources, and on new material in the family archive, this article aims to create a more rounded picture of this ‘invisible’ woman and her collection, and to reassess her importance as a British collector of the early twentieth century.[5]
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