Maurice Feild, (British, 1905-1988)

Portrait of W. H. Auden

Portrait of W. H. Auden
signed, titled and dated 'W.H. AUDEN/MAURICE FEILD/1937' (on canvas verso)
oil on canvas
56 x 38cm (22 1/16 x 14 15/16in).

Provenance
The Artist, and thence by family descent
Private Collection, U.K.

Maurice Feild and W. H. Auden were both colleagues and friends, during their time teaching at the Downs School, Colwall during the early 1930s. Feild, an associate of the Euston Road School, later went on to teach at the Slade School of Fine Art in 1954. This portrait was painted in 1937, the same year W. H. Auden visited Spain and took in the horrors of the Spanish Civil War, which provided inspiration for his poem Spain (1937), written and published in the same year.