The Camden Town Murder

[1][2] The title of the group refers to the Camden Town Murder case of 1907.

[3] On 11 September Emily Dimmock, a part-time prostitute cheating on her partner, was murdered in her home at Agar Grove (then St Paul's Road), Camden, having gone there from The Eagle public house, Royal College Street.

After sex, the man had cut her throat while she was asleep, then left in the morning.

[1] For several years Sickert had been painting lugubrious female nudes on beds, and continued to do so, challenging the conventional approach to life painting—"The modern flood of representations of vacuous images dignified by the name of 'the nude' represents an artistic and intellectual bankruptcy"—giving four of them, which included a male figure, the title, The Camden Town Murder, and causing a controversy which ensured attention for his work.

[1][4] The paintings do not show violence, but a sad thoughtfulness, explained by the fact that three of them were originally exhibited with completely different titles, one more appropriately being What Shall We Do for the Rent?,[4] and the first in the series, Summer Afternoon.