Beschreibung:

JOYCE, James--Frank Spencer Curtis BUDGEN (1882-1971). 'James Joyce', charcoal drawing, signed [later] 'Budgen', 126 x 192mm, tipped onto a larger sheet (creased and lightly spotted, two skilful marginal repairs, one touching image). F. BUDGEN. Autograph note signed ('Frank Budgen') [n.p., dated in pencil by Quentin Keynes 'June 1970'], 1 page, 4to , stating that Budgen began to work on a portrait of Joyce in early 1919 at August Suter's studio; because of Joyce's fear of an 'eye-attack', the venue for the sitting had to be changed to the living room of the Joyces' flat at Universitätsstrasse 29: 'The change involved painting in a partially darkened room a sitter sprawling in an armchair. This little sketch is, I think, the first I made in the changed circumstance'. The drawing and manuscript are both in a common mount, framed and glazed. Provenance : Frank Budgen -- Quentin Keynes (1921-2003). A REMARKABLE DRAWING OF JOYCE BY BUDGEN, EXECUTED DURING THE WRITING OF ULYSSES . Budgen and Joyce had first met in 1918, when Budgen was working for the British Consulate's Ministry of Information in order to subsidise his career as an artist; the two men swiftly became close friends, frequently discussing Ulysses at length, and a portrait of Joyce was proposed, as Budgen relates in the present manuscript. This is one of a series of preparatory drawings that Budgen made (another, from the collection of Miss Joan Budgen, is reproduced on the endpapers of Budgen's James Joyce and the Making of "Ulysses" and Other Writings (London: 1972)). The painted portrait is one of the most celebrated of Joyce, and was reproduced as the frontispiece of Budgen's James Joyce and the Making of Ulysses (London: 1934); the present drawing is reproduced opposite p.183 in Budgen's Myselves when Young (London: 1970).