PIERPONT

Some of Williamson’s papers are held by Boston College. These two items are each 1p, 4to, on aged and worn paper, the first letter with blotting to signature. The two are held together by strip of paper mount. Written little more than a year before Williamson’s death. ONE: 16 October 1941. Begins: ‘Dear Miss Cruse, / I am delighted to have your letter of October 9th, and so glad that my epistle to you gave you any pleasure.’ He finds her books ‘very delightful’, and names ‘the other two’, of whose existence he was ignorant.

Simpson was a native of Carlisle in Cumbria, and came to London in the early years of the twentieth century, where he was encouraged by Frank Brangwyn to take up etching. In 1918 he was made official artist with the new Royal Air Force. The National Portrait Gallery has eight of Simpson's works, but none of the present six, which are all in the style of the artist's portrait ('ink, irregular') of the Earl of Halsbury, present in the Gallery's collection.Each of the six caricatures is printed in black within a 17 x 12 cm border.