During the early 1900s, images of women and children were a
favourite subject for traditional and more modern artists alike.
In Portrait group (The mother), Lambert contrasted two women:
one wearing the kind of billowing dress worn in feminist and
artistic circles, and the other standing next to her with her
hand placed cavalierly on her shoulder, wearing a fashionable
black satin waisted coat and a high-necked dress. In this way he
contrasted the supple, rounded form of one woman against the
more statuesque figure of the other, and in so doing suggested
the difference between a woman’s role as a mother and that as an
independent woman. As with his other family groups he used his
wife and children as models, together with their artist friend
Thea Proctor. This is one of a number of images of women and
children that Lambert painted, to which he gave objective titles
such as Equestrian portrait of a boy (cat.26) and Holiday in
Essex (cat.44) rather than the subjective ‘The artist’s family’
or ‘Amy, Maurice and