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Alfred Daniels (1924-2015)
Jack’s Snack Bar 1956-8 Oil on board, signed and dated 30×36 in (76.2×91.5 cm) EXHIBITED Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 1957 (no. 544); Alfred Daniels, Zwemmer Gallery, London 1957 (no. 40). LITERATURE Charles Spencer, ‘Alfred Daniels’, The Studio, July 1957, no. 12 and illustrated on the front cover. Alfred Daniels was one of the most perceptive chroniclers of post-war London life. Throughout his career he was drawn to the streets, cafés, markets and public houses of the capital, recording the city not as a backdrop to grand events but as it was experienced by ordinary Londoners. His paintings possess a rare combination of social observation, sympathy and quiet humour, transforming everyday scenes into enduring images of urban life. Jack's Snack Bar is among the finest examples of this achievement. Set before a modest tea stall, the composition gathers together a cast of workers, customers and passers-by whose lives briefly intersect in the course of an ordinary day. Daniels observes them with an unerring eye for character: the man pausing over his mug of tea, the vendor serving his customers, the solitary figure seated at the edge of the composition. Individually observed yet carefully orchestrated, they combine to form a vivid portrait of a community. Painted at a moment when Britain was rebuilding after the war, Jack's Snack Bar records a world of modest pleasures and everyday routines. Daniels avoids sentimentality, finding instead a quiet dignity in ordinary urban experience. Exhibited at both the Royal Academy and Zwemmer Gallery in 1957, and reproduced on the cover of The Studio, it stands among the artist's most memorable achievements. 
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