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Lot 26AR

Helen Bradley
(British, 1900-1979)
Votes for Women 45.7 x 60.9 cm. (18 x 24 in.)

28 May 2014, 14:00 BST
London, New Bond Street

Sold for £62,500 inc. premium

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Helen Bradley (British, 1900-1979)

Votes for Women
signed 'HELEN BRADLEY' and with fly insignia (lower right); further signed and inscribed '"Please mother don't let us/leave aunt Mary, aunt Frances/ and Miss Carter (who wore pink)"/but mother said that she wasn't/going to take George and I and/the dogs Gyp and Barney amongst/all those woman who had/followed Annie Kenney to the/Town Hall to meet Winston/Churchill. They were going to/tell him that they wanted/'Votes for Women' and the year/was 1908' (on a label verso)
oil on board
45.7 x 60.9 cm. (18 x 24 in.)

Footnotes

Provenance
With W.H. Patterson, London, 1979, where acquired by the family of the present owner
Private Collection, U.K.

Literature
Helen Bradley, The Queen Who Came to Tea, Jonathan Cape, London, 1978

On 13 October 1905 suffragette militancy was launched in a historic moment. Annie Kenney and Christabel Pankhurst interrupted a political meeting in Manchester to repeatedly ask Sir Edward Grey and Winston Churchill whether they would, if elected, make women's suffrage a government measure. Receiving no answer, they unfurled a flag inscribed with the now notorious slogan 'Votes for Women'.

It is surely the aftermath of this moment, transported to Oldham town hall and viewed through rose tinted spectacles, that Helen Bradley has here placed her childhood alter ego and familiar cast of accomplices in. Throughout her work the strong female characters of Grandmother, Mother, the four Aunts and of course Mrs. Carter (who wore Pink) and their modern behaviour are clear indicators of Bradley's sympathies to the suffragette cause.

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