Robert Bevan

Robert Polhill Bevan (Aug 5, 1865 - Jul 8, 1925) was an English painter, draughtsman and lithographer. He was a founding member of the Camden Town Group, the London Group, and the Cumberland Market Group.

Despite memorial shows in 1926 and an Arts Council exhibition in 1956, his unique contribution to British art was not widely recognized until 1965, the centenary of his birth. In that year the artist's son published his memoir and organised a series of exhibitions.

Bevan’s modesty and reticence and his “almost complete inability to put himself forward” ensured that most of his works were unsold and a considerable number were left to his wife on his death. Stanislawa Bevan left her estate equally between her son R.A. Bevan and daughter Mrs Charles Baty. In 1961 they presented the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford with The Bevan Gift in honour of their parents’ work. As well as a number of paintings, drawings and lithographs this included the 27 surviving Bevan sketchbooks. Further works were added subsequently.

He was one of nine out of the 17-strong Camden Town Group to be shown in a major retrospective of the group at Tate Britain in London in 2008.

Works by Bevan can be found in many public collections in the United Kingdom. He is also represented in public collections in Australia; France; New Zealand; South Africa and the USA.

Robert Bevan was the great grandfather of the historian of architectural paint and colour, Patrick Baty.

An exhibition entitled A Countryman in Town: Robert Bevan and the Cumberland Market Group was held at the Southampton City Art Gallery from 26 September – 14 December 2008 and it moved to Abbot Hall Art Gallery from 13 January – 21 March 2009.

More works were seen in an exhibition held at Gainsborough’s House, Sudbury, in Suffolk from 4 October to 13 December 2008. The show was entitled From Sickert to Gertler: Modern British Art from Boxted House.
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