© The William Roberts Society, London

In Kramer’s bold, modern Portrait of Sam Nagley the artist uses a typically plain black background against which to highlight his sitter’s head giving the work a condensed, graphic quality. The angular modelling of Nagley’s face shows the influence of the Vorticist movement with which Kramer was associated in 1915. Sam Nagley was a doctor and musician in Kramer’s home town of Leeds, where the artist returned after his father’s death in 1916. Nagley’s sister, who married another of the artist’s circle, Dr. Caplan, was also a friend and model of Kramer’s.