About this artwork

Creme painted Sibylline Figure, which means ‘prophet’, at the age of twenty-one. It shows the influence of Jankel Adler, the Polish refugee artist who had settled in Glasgow in 1941. Adler knew Picasso personally and this link was a vital doorway for Creme. Influenced by Picasso’s recent work, Sibylline Figure is an astonishingly mature and advanced painting for an artist of his age, immediately putting him in the front rank of the Glasgow avant-garde, and on a par with the Two Roberts, Robert Colquhoun and Robert MacBryde. The first work by Creme to enter a British public collection, he regarded it as his most important painting.

Updated 2021

  • artist:
    Benjamin Creme (1922 - 2016) Scottish
  • title:
    Sibylline Figure
  • date created:
    1943
  • materials:
    Oil on canvas
  • measurements:
    92.00 x 71.00 cm; Framed: 110.00 x 89.00 x 6.00 cm
  • object type:
  • credit line:
    Purchased (Knapping Fund) 2019
  • accession number:
    GMA 5636
  • gallery:
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Benjamin Creme

Benjamin Creme