Robin (full name Robert Arthur) Bartlett was a talented painter, designer and illustrator who suffered a little through his versatility. Educated at Shrewsbury School and Oxford University, he went on in 1922 to the Slade School of Fine Art studying under Henry Tonks. Bartlett won several prizes, including a first for figure drawing and an Open Bursary, and did some teaching. In 1925 he married Eileen Agar, who was to become the most prominent British female surrealist artist, but they divorced in 1929. In the 1930s Bartlett, a member of the National Society of Painters, Sculptors and Gravers/Printmakers, travelled widely abroad including to the Southern United States. There he painted D.H. Lawrence’s widow Frieda, which she said was “the best portrait ever made” of her. On his return to Britain, however, he joined an advertising agency and became a “poster artist of the first rank”. He remained in the commercial world – apart from a period in Naval Intelligence during the war - until retirement in 1967. His wide-ranging work probably prevented him being taken up by a major gallery. Even so, Bartlett showed at the Royal Academy and was given a solo exhibition at Selfridges just after the war.
