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Glyn Philpot 1884-1937
The Threefold Epiphany 1929 Oil on canvas 51 ½ x 61 ½ inches (131 x 156 cm) PROVENANCE Presented to the Newman Association by the Artist’s family; Private Collection. EXHIBITED Royal Academy 1929 (no.50); Carnegie International Exhibition, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh 1930; Brighton Art Gallery and tour of the South of England 1938-40; The Last Romantics, Barbican Art Gallery, London 1989 (no.370); Glyn Philpot: Flesh and Spirit, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, May-October 2022 (no.196 reproduced). LITERATURE The Times, 6 May 1929 p.21 reproduced; Robin Gibson (ed.), Glyn Philpot 1884-1937, exhibition catalogue, National Portrait Gallery 1984 p.25 reproduced; J.G.P. Delaney, Glyn Philpot: His Life and Art, Aldershot 1999, reproduced opp. p.63. Glyn Philpot's The Threefold Epiphany is one of the most ambitious and enigmatic paintings of his mature career. Exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1929 and subsequently selected for the prestigious Carnegie International Exhibition in Pittsburgh, it belongs to a pivotal moment in the artist's development, when traditional religious imagery became increasingly intertwined with personal symbolism and modern ideas of identity, faith and human experience. The painting is particularly significant as the first major work to feature Henry Thomas, Philpot's companion and studio assistant, who served as the model for the figure of Balthazar. Thomas would become the central protagonist of many of Philpot's most celebrated paintings of the 1930s. At a time when Black figures were typically relegated to secondary or decorative roles within European art, Philpot placed Thomas at the heart of his compositions, creating images that challenged conventional attitudes towards race, representation and beauty. Although rooted in the Christian narrative of the Epiphany, the painting transcends a straightforward religious interpretation. Philpot reimagines the subject as a timeless meditation on revelation, acceptance and spiritual transformation. The three principal figures possess a monumental stillness, their simplified forms and carefully regulated colours creating an atmosphere that is both intensely personal and quietly universal. The composition reveals the artist's growing engagement with early Renaissance painting and emerging modernist ideas. The clarity of structure and balanced arrangement of the figures recall quattrocento precedents, while the deliberate simplification of form lends the work a distinctly twentieth-century sensibility. In The Threefold Epiphany, Philpot successfully forged a visual language that was at once spiritual, modern and deeply individual, producing one of the defining masterpieces of his inter-war career. SOLD |