Circle of Henry Taylor Lamb MC, RA

1883 - 1960

Henry Lamb was born in Adelaide, South Australia. When his mathematician father, Sir Horace, was appointed to the chair at the University of Manchester in 1885, the family moved with him. Henry studied at Augustus John and William Orpen's Chelsea School of Art, then in Paris. From 1908-11, he worked in Brittany, painting the local people, then was a founder member of the Camden Town Group. His marriage to his first wife, Nina, also known as Euphemia and a model for John, was short-lived, and he fell in love with John's partner Dorelia. After distinguished service in Palestine and on the Western Front in World War I, having been gassed, he moved to Poole to convalesce and to be near Dorelia. Here, he painted a fine series of townscapes in the historic port town, where its people were experiencing the Depression, many of them in muted browns and creams on wooden panels. After meeting and marrying Lady Pansy Packenham and moving to Coombe Bissett, in Wiltshire, his palette lightened greatly, and his work became more decorative. As well as a landscape painter, Lamb was a talented musician and a successful portraitist, who joined the Royal Academy in 1940. In 2018-19, a reappraisal exhibition of Lamb's work was staged at Salisbury and Poole Museums, curated by Harry Moore-Gwyn.