Fashion elevated Glyn Philpot, but it also cast him aside. Before and after the first world war, Philpot painted the spirited lovelies – suited or skirted – of London’s high society. He died unexpectedly shortly before the next war. By the time the dust of that conflict settled, his silken party people looked outmoded, remnants of times past.
Philpot had also turned his brush to more personal passions: the male body and portraits of Black men. It is these works that have stimulated the reappraisal of an artist who had long-since slipped out of view.
