Description

Portrait of Barbara Bloom by Theodore Major

The only portrait ever painted of the daughter of the legendary art collector Monty Bloom, commissioned by Bloom with Theodore Major.

Monty Bloom was best known for his patronage and friendship with L S Lowry.  Their friendship began after Bloom  watched John Read’s 1957 documentary on the artist. Having approached Ted Frape, curator of Salford City Art Gallery, to commission an industrial landscape Bloom went on to meet Lowry and forge a defining friendship.

Having met Lowry, Bloom found that he was drawn to his figure studies rather than his industrial landscapes and went on to amass a collection of more than 100 Lowry works. Lowry and Bloom became great friends, meeting  weekly for meals, and Bloom collected some of Lowry’s less mainstream subjects including solitary figures, grotesques and figure studies.

Through his connection to Lowry, Bloom was introduced to other Northern artists, collecting not only Theodore Major but the likes of Sheila Fell and Gladys Cooper.

This striking portrait of Barbara Bloom by Theodore Major has remained in the Bloom family until now and we are thrilled to bring it to market for the very first time.  Not known for completing private commissions, this is a truly unique Theodore Major painting.

Signed to the reverse.

Provenance: The estate of the late Monty Bloom, thence by descent.