Bob (Robert Newton as a child)

This small but dynamic painting is a portrait of the actor Robert Newton as a child. It is dated 1912 when Newton would have been about six years old. It comes from the estate of Ella Naper, who was the model in Laura Knight's celebrated work 'Self-portrait with model', which is in the National Portrait Gallery's Primary Collection.

Robert Newton's father was the artist Algernon Newton and just before the outbreak of the First World War, the Knights, the Napers and the Newtons were all close friends and neighbours in the Lamorna Valley. Robert enjoyed an idyllic childhood in Cornwall before becoming a huge film star. In his most famous role as Long John Silver in Disney's Treasure Island, he employed an exaggerated Cornish accent that has now become synonymous with the representation of Pirates the world over.

Newton was the proverbial wild child; hard living and hard drinking. He died when he was only 50 years old. Contemporary accounts indicate that he was quite a force of nature even as a child, which is clearly expressed in this painting. His stance is bold, almost defiant as he faces us, with the sun glinting through his tousled, salty hair. There is nothing remotely sentimental about the painting, yet it perfectly encapsulates a sense of a halcyon Cornish childhood, spent wild, foraging and rock pooling.

Laura Knight is now celebrated as one of the most beloved British artists of the 20th century, and as a female artist, she was ground-breaking. In 1969, Laura wrote to Ella to ask to borrow the painting for her exhibition at The Upper Grosvenor Galleries, '75 Years of Painting'.

"I believe it is one of my best works done at that period," she said of the portrait.