Man holding a stick, and study of a hand (recto); man wearing a hat (verso) (study for Commotion in the Cattle Ring), c. 1935

James Bateman RA (1893 - 1959)

RA Collection: Art

On the the recto of the sheet is a detailed full-length pencil study of a man in a long coat leaning over slightly with his left arm raised and his right arm holding a stick pointed downwards. There are two further studies of the right hand in close-up, one of which is very detailed. On the verso of the sheet is an unfinished study of the head and shoulders of the same man.

This is a preparatory study for James Bateman's Commotion in the Cattle Ring (Tate N04834). It is a study for the figure in the centre of the finished painting who is wearing a white coat and blue trousers and pointing a stick down at the escaped bull. The study is very similar to the finished composition, except that the face in the painting is not as defined and seems older than the man in the drawing. Also, the man in the painting is wearing boots, but in the drawing the man wears shoes.

The artist's widow wrote to the Tate Gallery on 9 September 1959 about this painting: 'The original idea was just a sale-ring. But one day my husband saw a bull escape with its lead and the dealers scramble for safety.'

The work was painted in the cattle ring at Banbury, Oxfordshire (see Tate catalogue entry). The Cattle Market was held on Merton Street in Grimsbury at the eastern end of Banbury from 1925 until its closure in 1998. Midland Marts Ltd organised auction sales there, which is most likely what is depicted in Bateman's painting.

The study is one of 47 preparatory drawings for Commotion in the Cattle Ring that are in the Royal Academy's collection. These preparatory drawings as well as studies for Cattle Market (Tate N04958) and Pastoral (Tate N04471) were given to the Royal Academy by the artist's family in 1977.

James Bateman RA was a painter and wood engraver of pastoral and farmyard scenes. He was born in 1893 in Kendal, Cumbria. He studied sculpture at Leeds School of Art (1910-14) and won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art. Following serious injury in the First World War, Bateman turned from sculpture to painting and trained at the Slade School of Fine Art (1919-21). He taught at Cheltenham School of Art (1922-28) and Hammersmith School of Art and designed camouflage in the Second World War. He died in London in 1959.

Bateman first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1924. His paintings Pastoral (1928), Commotion in the Cattle Ring (1935) and Cattle Market (1937) were purchased by the Chantrey Bequest for the Tate Gallery. Bateman was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1935 and a Member in 1942.