Glyn Philpot, 1884-1937

Portrait of Henry Thomas, a Jamaican

Oil on canvas, about 1935

We have revised the historic title of this painting, Head of a Negro to make it more accurate as we know the sitter, and to respond to the current debate around the use of the word 'negro'. The historic title to dates from a time when the word was commonly used, but without intending to cause offence. This is no longer the case.

Henry Thomas had met Glyn Philpot's godson n the National Gallery after he had missed his voyage to Jamaica. He became Philpot's companion and was the artist's model in all his paintings and sculptures of black men from 1932.

Philpot was a co-founder of the National Portrait Society. As a gay man he sometimes felt a need to be away from the constraints of British society and travelled widely through the 1920s, in Europe, America and North Africa. In Pittsburgh he met Matisse, a fellow juror on the Carnegie International Exhibition which awarded the prize to Picasso. He developed an overtly Modernist style that led the Scotsman newspaper to declare "Philpot goes Picasso!" His art fuses Symbolist elongated figures with an Expressionist angularity, as seen in this portrait.

Purchased, 1936