Bassett Fitzgerald Wilson (1888-1972) oil on canvas, Chair, signed and dated 1939, 90cm x 58cm, framed

Bassett Fitzgerald Wilson (1888-1972) oil on canvas, Chair, signed and dated 1939, 90cm x 58cm, framed A significant collection of works from this husband and wife team of artists whose work is rarely seen at auction: Bassett Wilson - full title, Brigadier Bassett Fitzgerald Wilson was a highly decorated soldier who served in the King’s Royal Rifle Corps and the 4th American Corps in World War I and on Montgomery’s staff and as provost-marshal of the 21st Army Group in World War II. He was educated at Rugby School, read law at Cambridge, was junior diplomat, then practised law in London before war broke out when. Severely wounded in France, he was advised to take up art for convalescence. In 1917 he held an exhibition of Western Front work at the Walker Galleries. Muriel Gertrude Samuelson Wilson, the daughter of Sir Francis Samuelson, had a privileged upbringing and demonstrated an aptitude for watercolours and flower-pieces from an early age. The Wilson’s married shortly after the Great War and in 1921 showed their work together for the first time at the Walker Galleries. During the 1920s they both firmly established reputations as painters, exhibiting at leading London galleries and they were soon drawn into the modernist movement. They moved to Paris in the 20s and made friends with leading artists such as André Lhote, working in his studio, Muriel also became a highly skilled photography, studying under Man Ray. During a show at Lefevre Gallery in 1929 the Contemporary Art Society bought a flower picture by Muriel (Chrysanthemums) which was presented to Leicester City Art Gallery in 1931. Further successful shows followed with Knoedler in New York and Chicago. Bassett – as he signed his work showed widely in Paris and elsewhere alongside such artists as Dufy, Friesz, Miró, Kisling and Matisse. During WWII Muriel worked with refugees in France, then with the Motor Transport Corps in England. The Wilsons’ pictures were looted or destroyed in Paris and Muriel declined to work for about a decade after the end of the war. Bassett however mounted a large 1946 retrospective at Galerie du Bac, Paris, from which the Musée National d’Art Moderne bought one of his chairs series. In 1981 Patrick Seale Gallery, London held a posthumous show of both artists’ pictures