Souter’s The Breakdown

The Breakdown, a painting by the Scottish artist John Bulloch Souter, appeared at the 158th Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition in 1926. It showed a naked white woman dancing, as if entranced, to music played by a black musician (see Pl 1). Commentaries were extensive and international. Some were positive but many more were adverse and the image soon became controversial. The British government intervened quickly, taking the highly unusual step of requiring the Royal Academy to remove the work from public display, which happened on 8 May. Souter subsequently destroyed it but retained preparatory sketches from which he painted a very similar version in 1962. The principle focus here is the 1926 version.