[ Peter Wardle, British portrait painter. ] Notebook containing original drawings and autograph text.

Wardle studied at Leicester School of Art and the Ruskin School of Art, Oxford. He began as a professional portrait painter and sculptor in the 1970s, and has work in institutions including the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Ten of his works in the National Portrait Gallery include portraits of Athol Fugard, H. J. Eysenck and Edmund Blunden. Among his other sitters was Sir Geoffrey Keynes. The present item comprises 35 pages of sketches in pen and pencil, and 21 pages of text, making a total of 56pp in a 20 x 13 cm French notebook with spiral binding. In fair condition, lightly aged and worn. The cover of the notebook carries a pen drawing of a pierrot, somewhat in the style of Mervyn Peake, and the sketches it contains range from hurried outlines to finished drawings. Among the more finished sketches are: a pencil head of a young girl with necklace; a pen drawing of a female artist's doll; a pen drawing of a domestic interior with table, and door open into street; a desk with table lamp and glass of flowers; a conch; and the only drawing in coloured pencil, a striking stylized profile portrait – showing the influence of surrealism – depicting a young woman in front of a window, with face striped in yellow and pink, multi-coloured bathing hat, pine-cone earrings, a plaited arm-bracelet, pink singlet showing nipples. The cruder drawings include a couple of jokey items – one of a spoof coat of arms featuring a 'teddy bear rampant' – and a few simple floor plans and diagrams. The notebook was clearly filled during a stay in France, with miscellaneous pages of text including French language lessons, addresses, and even a game of hangman.