Meredith Frampton: Portrait of a Young Woman 1935

George Vernon Meredith Frampton (1894-1984), known as Meredith Frampton, was the son of the sculptor Sir George Frampton and the painter Christabel Cockerell. Only a handful of his paintings exist, fewer than by Vermeer: one reason was that his subjects 'had to be prepared to to sit for twelve sessions of a least two hours and to give him about a year to complete the picture' (Sunday Times article 1982), another was that he gave up painting in 1945 because of failing eyesight. He was then completely forgotten and was rediscovered by Richard Morphet of the Tate, who had long been fascinated by Portrait of a Young Woman 1935 (on display at Tate Modern) but knew nothing about the artist until he set about trying to organise a retrospective exhibition.