The Red Beret – SOLD

This exquisite pastel by Hugh Ramsay is an exceptionally rare and highly collectable piece, given the rarity of Hugh Ramsay’s work due to his short life.

Hugh Ramsay is regarded as one of Australia’s greatest portrait painters. He possessed a huge talent, receiving important recognition and  accolades for his brilliant work in Australia, London and Paris. His promising career and life were tragically cut short when he contracted tuberculosis and died in 1906 at just 28 years old.

This beautiful pastel is illustrated and catalogued on page 218 of the definitive text and biography of Ramsay’s life, “Hugh Ramsay His Life and Work” published in 1988 and written by Ramsay’s great-niece, Patricia Fullerton, an authority on the life and art of Hugh Ramsay.

This pastel holds an important provenance having once been in the private collection of the well regarded artist Miss A.M.E. Bale (1875-1955) who had taken private art lessons from Hugh Ramsay, and who had also been a fellow student, like Ramsay, at the National Gallery of Victoria School, beginning studies there in 1895, the year after Ramsay also began studies at the NGV School.