
Penny Day
Head of UK and Ireland
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Sold for £62,500 inc. premium
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Head of UK and Ireland

Head of Department

Director
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.