George Bernard Shaw, 1926, Paul Troubetzkoy, Presented by Mrs George Bernard Shaw, © Photo: Tate

George Bernard Shaw

Medium:

Sculptures

Material:

bronze, black patina

Signature:

1926 / Paul Troubetzkoy

Current location:

Tate Britain, N04274

Description Provenance Bibliography

The present bronze depicts the famous playwright George Bernard Shaw. Troubetzkoy made his first bust of Shaw in 1908 in three hours’ reckless work in Sargent’s Studio in London. Although Shaw rather liked it, he thought: “it is not to be compared with the bust in the Tate Gallery, the life-size statue, and the statuette, all of which he made of me years later from unlimited sittings in his own studio at the Villa Cabianca on Lago Maggiore” (quoted in Pearson, loc. cit.). The early bust is in the foyer of the Theatre Guild in New York and the statuette, which shows Shaw seated and is dated 1926, is in Shaw’s house ” Shaw’s Corner” at Ayot St. Lawrence. A cast of the life-size statue, depicting Shaw full-length in his pose as an orator, belongs to the Natioal Gallery of Ireland in Dublin, dated 1927.

Presented by Mrs George Bernard Shaw, 1927

Hesketh Pearson, Bernard Shaw: his Life and Personality (London 1943) pp. 305-8