With lessons from Spencer Gore, Walter Sickert and Sylvia Gosse, as well as training at the Slade School of Art under his belt, Powys Evans became a successful illustrator in 1920s London. He produced numerous portraits of well-known personalities for the monthly literary review London Mercury and political cartoons and caricatures for the Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art, often under his pseudonym ‘Quiz.’ His work was published as collections in three books: The Beggar’s Opera: Caricatures (1922), Eighty-eight Cartoons (1926), and Fifty Heads (1928). According to the National Portrait Gallery, London, which holds several works by Evans, renowned caricaturist Sir Max Beerbohm proclaimed the younger artist ‘his heir’ in 1927. While still in thirties, however, Evans inexplicably withdrew from the world of London media and retired to north Wales.

This pencil portrait of John Buchan (Perth UK 1875-Montreal QC 1940), 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, is among Evans’s more serious, sensitive portraits, akin to those published in the Mercury. With minimal shading, Evans captures the physiognomy and character of the privileged author and statesman, without the trappings of his position. Heavy-lidded and pensive, Lord Tweesmuir would go on to become Governor General of Canada in 1935 until his death.