Theodore Howard Somervell (1890 - 1975) Oil on board, signed lower left, measures 7.5 x 6 and 10.5 x 9 inches w/frame. Theodore Howard Somervell OBE FRCS was an English surgeon, mountaineer, painter and missionary who was a member of two expeditions to Mount Everest in the 1920s. He was born in Kendal, Westmorland, and was a member of The British Mount Everest Expeditions in 1922 and 1924. He formed a close friendship with George Mallory and the two famously read Shakespeare to one another in their tent at night. During the 1924 expedition Somervell along with Edward Norton reached an altitude of 8,570 meters, a record which would not be broken with certainty until 1952. He is believed to have painted 126 pictures relating to the 1922 and 1924 Everest expeditions. There was an exhibition at The Abbot Hall Gallery in April 1979 of Somervell's paintings of the Himalayas and Westmorland.

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