A 'theatre goer' by Roy Ashton

A pastel drawing of a 'theatre-goer', created by Roy Ashton (1909-1995) in about 1955. In pastel on blue paper, the drawing, no.6 in a series, is sketched 'after Degas' as a proposal for an `Innoxa' advertising campaign.

Roy Ashton (1909–95) and Phil Leakey (1908–92) were master make-up artists who worked on many of the British cult horror films of the mid-20th century. A trained artist, Australia-born Ashton began his career at Gaumont-British Film Corporation in 1932 as a means of supplementing his passion for opera singing. In 1955, Ashton became the assistant to Hammer Films’ Phil Leakey, the first makeup artist to receive on-screen credit for ‘Special Make-up Effects’.