A beautiful vintage portrait of a beloved dog.
Pastel on paper.
By renowned animal artist Marjorie Cox (1915 - 2003).
Thomasina a black and white spaniel.
Framed under glass.
Very good vintage condition.
 
'Marjorie Cox was probably the last of the old school of provincial ‘jobbing artists’. A non-driver, she would wait until she had a quantity of commissions in a given area and then take the train to a central point. Once there she was transported around by her clients from one to another.
With an average head study taking about two hours to complete, she was perhaps the most prolific of all the dog artists. During the ‘60s and ‘70s, at the height of her career, she estimated that she was completing some 700 paintings a year. She was still working towards the end of her life when she was averaging some 400 paintings a year.
The majority of her commissions came from the ‘country set’ for pictures of their pets – black Labradors being the breed for which she received the most commissions. For a while from the mid ‘50s she also attended dog shows. She always claimed that her ‘studio’ was her sketch pad and two small boxes of pastels and armed with her ‘studio’ she would walk along the benches until she saw a dog which appealed to her and would then paint it. Although she did not ‘push’ the picture on the dog’s owner, few declined to buy it.
The Miss Dixons with their Rossarden Cairns were the first of the ‘serious’ dog breeders to commission her and they remained close friends.
Marjorie Cox came over as the archetypal ‘Miss Marple’; genteel, quietly spoken, always ‘sensibly dressed’ and to complete the picture lived in an idyllic wing of an Elizabethan alms house.
Anyone who has the remotest interest in the dog in art will be familiar with her pastel head studies, what they will not be familiar with – apart from her love of folk dancing – is that she had a keen, often wicked eye as a caricaturist.
The Kennel Club Library is fortunate to own a number of scrapbooks, probably a joint collaboration between the Miss Dixons and Marjorie Cox. They contain a wealth of Cairn history with their many show reports, press cuttings and photographs, mostly of the Rossarden Cairns, but liberally scattered throughout are countless caricatures by Marjorie Cox.
These she drew when attending shows either with the Miss Dixons or on her own and range from quick pencil sketches that capture the moment to more finished caricatures in pastel and watercolour but all guaranteed to amuse. For many they will add character to names from the past but for the older ones among us they will bring back memories.'
 
Price includes UK mainland delivery.