Description

Oil pastel portrait of a man reclining on a bed. Landscape orientation. He wears blue trousers, pale turquoise shirt and has white hair. Title ‘C L R James’, signature and date ‘P Harber 19 5 82’ in upper right corner. Framed and mounted.

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Portrait of C L R James (1901 – 1989), 1982 Paul D Harber (1949-) Oil pastel Historian, journalist and socialist Cyril Lionel Robert James depicted by figurative painter and associate Paul Harber. C L R James was a pioneering voice of post-colonial literature and political activist. He also famously wrote Beyond a Boundary (1963), which he himself described as "neither cricket reminiscences nor autobiography". Harber painted James in Brixton shortly after the Brixton Riots of April 1981 and recalls how the area was ‘still tense with many buildings still burnt out’. He first saw James lying on his bed reading and that is how he chose to depict him as naturally as possible. When the portrait was finished James also signed it. MCC Collections: Purchased, 2017 M.2017.25