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Notes
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Noël Coward was an actor, singer, playwright, composer and entertainer of genius. In this portrait we see him smiling and seated at his piano, composing the score for his 1954 musical 'After the Ball'. Unusually we know the date of the picture, from Coward’s diaries in Special Collections: ‘Monday 23rd November 1953… ‘Winnie has started a painting of me sitting at the piano; I hammered out two melodies while Winnie bashed away.’ Winnie was Winifred Ashton, the English novelist and playwright who worked under the pseudonym ‘Clemence Dane’. She and Coward were close friends, with a relationship that can be sensed in the informal and playful feel of the portrait. Coward rather mischievously liked to refer to Dane as ‘a gallant old girl’.
University of Birmingham
Birmingham
Title
Noël Coward (1899–1973)
Date
1930s
Medium
oil on canvas
Measurements
H 76.2 x W 63.5 cm
Accession number
A0952
Acquisition method
gift from the Noel Coward Estate, 2001
Work type
Painting
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston, Birmingham, West Midlands B15 2TT England
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