Discovery of final oil painting by Rex Whistler (1905 – 1944)

Rex Whistler (1905-1944) Binderton House, West Sussex, 1944 oil on Rowney canvas board. 30.4cm x 40.3cm. Estimate: £2,500 - £3,000.

We take a further look at a previously unseen work by Reginald John ‘Rex’ Whistler discovered in Earls Court that is offered in the auction of British & European Fine Art with Portrait Miniatures on 12th December.  Dr. Nikki Frater, Whistler expert and advisor to the Salisbury Museum, believes this painting is “his last painting in England, and indeed probably his last oil ever.”

Contemporary view of Binderton House. Courtesy of Rightmove, 2015.

A Farewell to an Era

The painting depicts Binderton House, the private West Sussex residence of Sir Anthony Eden, then Foreign Secretary and future Prime Minister. Whistler was a frequent guest at Binderton, having moved comfortably within the circle of Britain’s aristocratic intelligentsia. He painted the house in early July 1944, just days before departing for Normandy with the Welsh Guards. He was killed in action near Caen on 18 July 1944, during Operation Goodwood — his first day of active servic

“Now his potentials were all unfulfilled, and Rex the person, suffused with effortless charm… would never grow old.”
— Cecil Beaton

By the age of just 22, Whistler had been commissioned to paint murals for the restaurant at the Tate Gallery — a space so admired it was dubbed “the most amusing room in Europe”. Today it remains a beloved landmark known as The Rex Whistler Restaurant.

He quickly became a fixture in the company of the ‘Bright Young Things’, alongside Nancy Mitford, Cecil Beaton, Oliver Messel, Stephen Tennant, and Evelyn Waugh — who is thought to have partly based Charles Ryder in Brideshead Revisited on Whistler himself. Whistler’s delicate style and decorative romanticism embodied the atmosphere of an England still clinging to its interwar illusions of glamour, even as war approached.

A self-portrait from 1940, now held by the National Army Museum, shows Whistler in Welsh Guards uniform, standing on a balcony overlooking Regent’s Park. Though too old for conscription, he had volunteered for active duty.

Rex Whistler, self-portrait in Welsh Guards uniform, 1940. Courtesy of the National Army Museum, London.

Whistler’s Final View

Binderton House stands as an unintentional elegy, not only for Whistler, but for a fading era of country house grandeur and aristocratic elegance, soon to be swept away by the post-war world. In this modest oil on board, he captures not just a structure, but a way of life soon to disappear.

Now Inviting Entries: Modern British & Irish Art

Do you have a Modern British or Irish painting? We are currently accepting entries for upcoming auctions featuring artists such as Rex Whistler, John Nash, Vanessa Bell, Paul Nash, Duncan Grant, William Nicholson, and others.

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