The Art Collection of Peter Watson (1908-1956)

Originally printed in The British Art Journal, Volume XVI, No 2 (Autumn 2015).

From early in the 1930s through to his death in 1956, Peter Watson collected, and occasionally sold, a wide variety of modern English and foreign art.

The contrasting fortunes of Watson’s collections in Paris and in London, followed by the nature of their dispersal after his death, and the absence of any personal files, makes it difficult to recreate the extent of his collections in precise detail. This study begins the process of analysing Watson’s significant art collection, both in London and in Paris before the War, the details of which have not previously been assembled.

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The Reputation and Achievement of Robert Colquhoun: A Reassessment

Originally printed in The British Art Journal, Volume III, No 3 (Autumn 2002).

Published in 2002, 40 years after the artist’s death, this article was prompted partly by the appearance of paintings by Coquhoun at recent exhibitions at the Tate in St Ives,at the Tate in Liverpool, and at the Barbican exhibition called `Transition’, about the London art scene in the Fifties. This brief resurfacing of an artist who once had a far greater reputation than many now better-known contemporaries merited attention.

Two British Art Patrons of the 1940s and 1950s: Sir Colin Anderson and Peter Watson

Originally published British Art Journal V, 2 (Autumn 2004).

A long-overdue study of the support given by Sir Colin Anderson and Peter Watson to British art and artists in the 1940s and 1950s. They are not known to have been friends, but the similarities in their background circumstances and in the use to which they put their artistic energies may be thought to he remarkable. Details of their efforts demonstrate the breadth and importance of their activities.

Francis Bacon’s Correspondence with Sir Colin Anderson

Originally published British Art Journal VIII, 1 (Summer 2007).

One person to whom Bacon wrote and who took care to preserve his letters was that great patron of 20th-century British art, Sir Colin Anderson. These twelve letters were published in full for the first time in this article in the British Art Journal in 2007.