Portrait of Miss Ethel Warwick

Portrait of Miss Ethel Warwick, painted in 1901 and now in the South African National Gallery, Cape Town, is one of Steer's most formally resolved formal portraits, combining the figure-in-interior mode of late Victorian portraiture with his developed Impressionist sensitivity to light and atmosphere. Miss Ethel Warwick was a socialite and figure in Edwardian cultural life, and the commission placed Steer in the tradition of Edwardian society portraiture then dominated by John Singer Sargent. Steer's approach was less dramatically posed and more quietly atmospheric than Sargent's virtuoso performances, drawing instead on the gentler tradition of Whistlerian tonal portraiture. The South African National Gallery's acquisition reflects the dissemination of British art through colonial and Commonwealth networks in the early twentieth century, a process that gave Cape Town access to significant examples of the British Impressionist movement.

Formal portraiture required Steer to resolve the tension between likeness — the sitter's specific features rendered recognisably — and the looser, more atmospheric Impressionist touch that was his natural mode. He typically meets this by tightening his handling in the face while allowing backgrounds, garments, and incidental elements to be treated with greater freedom. The result is a face that achieves portrait resemblance while the surrounding areas maintain Impressionist freshness.