Scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream

The subject of this is probably the mechanicals playing Pyramus and Thisbe in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream.' The reverse has pages from a Sandon Society catalogue stuck to it, listing exhibition dates and drawings by members of the Society, the majority by Augustus John. In 1907 Maxwell Lightfoot moved to London to study at the Slade School of Fine Art. He clearly shone amongst his student colleagues and in 1909 was awarded first prizes in figure painting, head painting, painting from the cast and the summer composition composition. He was highly thought of and he had a promising future. He left The Slade School in 1910 and began to establish his reputation, exhibiting work in the black and white section of the Liverpool Autumn Exhibition and three landscapes at the Winter Exhibition of the New English Art Club in London. He was invited to become one of the original sixteen members of the Camden Town group when it formed in 1911 and showed four works in their first exhibition in 1911. His work was stylistically and thematically quite distinct from the main Camden Town direction and he resigned from the group after the exhibition. His place was taken by Duncan Grant.