Signed l.r.: J.Bateman

Oil on canvas, 38 by 60.5 cm (15 by 23 ¾ ins)

Provenance: Sotheby’s London, Modern British Art, July 1990, lot 186

Exhibited: London, Royal Academy, 1950, no.44

The bout between the British boxers Freddie Mills and Bruce Woodcock was one of the most anticipated of the immediate post-war era. It was to be their second major meeting and saw Woodcock putting his Commonwealth, British and European light-heavyweight titles on the line. The event grew a remarkable crowd of 46,000 people at White City Stadium on 2^nd June 1949 with Woodcock knocking out Mills in the Fourteenth Round. It was widely listened to across the country on the radio.

Bateman ingeniously captures the tension of the event, second hand, through a gathering of working men in a pub. The son of a Lake District blacksmith, closely observed, working class (usually rural) scenes like this were the primary subjects of much of Bateman’s most successful work. These included horse fairs, country markets and cattle auctions (including his Commotion in the Cattle Ring of 1935, now in the Tate collection). Such records, amongst them this scene of everyday life in an English pub, are an important record of a traditional lifestyle that was in many respects in decline by the mid-1930s. Bateman taught at Cheltenham School of Art, also serving on the Advisory Council of the left leaning AIA (Artist's International Association) and was appointed a full member of the Royal Academy in 1942.