SIR MATTHEW SMITH (1879-1959) Portrait of Dudley Wallis  signed with initials 'MS' (lower left) oil on canvas  30 1/2 x 25 in. (77.5 x 63.5 cm.) Painted circa 1936.  Provenance: Dudley Wallis, 1936 [?]. with Arthur Tooth & Sons, London, where purchased by  Sir David Scott, 13 September 1960 for £550.  A great British collection: the pictures collected by Sir David and Lady Scott, Sotheby's, London, 19 November 2008, lot 172.  Private collection, London.  Private collection, North Yorkshire.  Literature:  J. Glendhill, Catalogue Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings of Matthew Smith with a Critical Introduction of his Work, Farnham, 2009, p. 189, no 471, illustrated.  Artist's Resale Right may apply on this lot. In November 1936, the year Portrait of Dudley Wallis was completed, the Telegraph reviewer of Smith’s exhibition at the Tooth’s defined him as ‘the most exciting of British post-war painters.’ (quoted in M. Yorke, Matthew Smith: His life and Reputation, London, 1997, p. 155.) Smith’s fame and reputation had been growing over the 20s, securing him his dealer and a retrospective exhibition in 1929. Smith spent most of the 30s in France, travelling to London to see friends and arrange exhibitions. The present work was probably finished at the same visit as the Tooth’s exhibition in 1936. It was a particularly successful one with the Tate buying Model Turning on this occasion and Kenneth Clark, then a rising star in the art establishment, also acquiring two paintings for his personal collection. Dudley Wallis had been an ardent admirer and collector of Smith’s work since the late 1920s and amassed a considerable collection. (ibid, p. 136. ). He was the curator at the Holburne Museum in Bath from November 1913-1917, where he oversaw the moving of the museum to its purpose built current home on Great Pulteney Street. In the 20s he went on to be the Director of the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester. Portrait of Dudley Wallis is a great example of Smith’s mature style marked by masterful use of bold colours. The pigments are wonderfully luminous, creating a strong composition where one can hardly separate the idea of the colour from the feel of the paint or either from the subject painted. The figure is almost sculpturally moulded with thick contours defining the suit. The delicate rendering of the facial features is directly contrasted by the rapid brushstrokes in the blue background or the almost abstracted areas of impasto defining the curtain and chair. The figure emerges through confident brushstrokes, where colour equals light and light equals space - the picture possesses particular rhythm that pulls the viewer in.