Pen and Ink and Watercolor Self-Portrait of Tim Bobbin

NA. Very Good. This is presumed to be a self-portrait of Bobbin, whose real name was John Collier. The work is unsigned, but there can be no question that the person portrayed is Bobbin, and it is done with the unsparing caricaturial sharpness and economy that characterized his artwork. Bobbin as a caricaturist captured the vulgarity and coarseness of his subjects, no matter how lofty their social status, and he treated himself to no special indulgence. The face is a isobar map of furrows, with an absurdly clownish smile. Besides being unctuous, the smile contorts the facial outline to something simian, while the large eyes glint with a vaguely sinister manner. The style of the artwork could be described as naive and a bit folk art-y, but there can be question that the artist was also very much in control of his artistic faculties. The image is not a pretty one, yet it is visually arresting, and with the colored penwork ornamentation, quite lovely. Bobbin, or Collier, was the self-professed Lancashire Hogarth, and was both celebrated in his day for his illustrations and his writings, which included light verse as well as an important work on the Lancashire dialect. The picture comes in a gilt frame of some age but not contemporary with it. With the frame, the dimensions are 36 by 26 cm, and the image is about 29 by 19 cm. It has not been examind out of the frame. Some minor soiling to the paper.