Peter Samuelson, “Self Portrait in the Bird Room”, 1952, Oil on Board, 81.3 x 63.5 cm, Private Collection
British artist Peter Samuelson, born in Salisbury in 1912, studied at Eton College where his artistic aptitude was first noticed. He later studied at the New York School of Fine and Applied Arts in Paris before moving to Holland to work as an illustrator. Following his service in the Second World War, Samuelson returned in 1947 to England again working as an illustrator and, later, as a set designer in the London theater.
In the early 1950s, Peter Samuelson helped his mother run a boarding house in Torquay, Cornwall, on the English Channel. It was here that the majority of his work from the 1950s and 1960s was produced, consisting of brightly colored portraitures and life studies of the boardinghouse’s lodgers. A zen-like calm prevades the romantically colored canvases and drawings, with a line quality that suggests the decorative sensitivity of Jean Cocteau and Christian Bérard.
Samuelson returned to London in 1952, where he opened his own boarding houses, and continued his practice of using lodgers and guests as subjects. The artist, though shy in nature, was able to capture life and movement fluidly in his work, distilling with great skill the essence of his subjects, often merely observed in the public spaces of the boarding houses. Not a social person, Samuelson never actively sought representation or a gallery exhibition; but he did sell pieces to friends and gave some as gifts to friends and models.
Samuelson abandoned painting almost entirely in 1965, spending the latter years of his life in restoring Oriental rugs. In the 1980s, as his health began to decline, his friends placed work in galleries, including an exhibition at Leighton House Museum in London, resulting in some critical acclaim. A book of his work entitled “Post War Friends”, containing paintings and drawings, was published in 1987 by GMP Publishers, London. Peter Samuelson died in 1996.