Art Blog – Page 8 – my daily art display

George Benjamin Luks

The artist I am looking at today is an American who was mainly known for his social-realist paintings and illustration. Today’s painter supported several of his contemporaries in their philosophy of painting subjects which challenged the traditional approaches put forward at the time by the National Academy of Design and the established art circles in America. This art renegade is George Benjamin Luks and he became a leading figure in the New York art world in the early part of the 20th century.

Bear by George Luks (1904)

George Luks was born on August 13th, 1867, in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. He was the son of Emil and Bertha Luks who were both amateur painters and both encouraged their son’s inherent artistic talent by providing him with his earliest artistic tutoring. When George was still a young child, the family moved some fifty miles south-east to Pottsville, a town in the heart of Pennsylvania’s coal region. It was here that his father, a physician, tried to help the coal-miners and their families and was a supporter of a group known as the ‘Molly Maguires’, a secret organization of Irish-Americans that tried to improve conditions for the area’s miners. As George grew up, he became aware of the poverty-stricken lives of the miners and their families. This early exposure to the hard lives of the mining community had an effect on Luks and his works of art which often depicted impoverished families in naturalistic surroundings.

Portrait of Miss Ruth Breslin by George Luks (1925)

George Luks’ earliest job was in vaudeville. He and his brother took part in the Pennsylvania and New Jersey vaudeville circuits while still in their teens. However, even as a teenager, he was determined to become a professional artist and so his vaudeville career ended. In 1884, at the age of seventeen, he enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where he was tutored by the painter, Thomas Anshutz, but his rebellious nature resisted the rigors of formal study, and he withdrew after a short stay.

London Bus Driver by George Luks (1889)

Luks then visited Europe and set about visiting Germany, England and France attending several of the city’s art schools. One such school was the Kunstacademie in Dusseldorf, but his stay there as a pupil did not last long for the same reason that he departed the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts – his dislike of the high standards and inflexibility of the rules of the establishment. This mindset would stay with him all his life. He then headed for Paris and London. Throughout his European sojourn he was greatly influenced by European painters such as Velazquez, Manet, Rembrandt but in particular the Dutch painter, Frans Hals.

The Little Madonna by George Luks (1907)

On his return to America in 1890 he began to earn money as a newspaper illustrator and in 1894 he started at the Philadelphia Press and Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, where he produced “at-the-scene sketches” which later became illustrations to go alongside the news stories. This was Luks’ forte as he was both a talented draftsman and had a meticulous eye for recording details of events.

Havana by George Luks (1896)

He and fellow illustrator at the Philadelphia Press newspaper, Everett Shin, moved into a one-room flat in the city. Whilst working at the newspaper Luks became friends with the artists John Sloan and William Glackens. These four painters and illustrators would have weekly get-togethers at the studio of Robert Henri, a renowned artist who was several years their senior, and who emboldened his younger friends to ponder over the necessity for a new style of painting. Henri’s vision was that this new artistic style would express the essentials of their own time and experiences and would counter the limitations imposed by the present conservative art establishment. Henri told his friends that they should be depicting scenes of ordinary life and discard the current trends of portraying life as a genteel existence. Robert Henri and his four new friends with their new ideas regarding the direction of American art, collectively became known as the Philadelphia Five.

In 1896, the Philadelphia Press sent Luks to Cuba to cover the Spanish-American War as a newspaper correspondent/war artist. On his return to America, he re-located to New York and joined the newspaper, New York World, under publisher Joseph Pulitzer. Luks began at the newspaper employed to draw the comic strips, such as The Yellow Kid and Hogan’s Alley. It was during this period that Luks began to devote more time to hone his painting skills, and six years later, in 1902, he abandoned newspaper work to concentrate all his energies to painting.

Street Scene (Hester Street) by George Luks (1905)

One of his most famous paintings was his 1905 work entitled Street Scene (Hester Street). The setting is a push-cart market on Hester Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, an area of the city which was packed with recent Jewish immigrants. From our viewpoint looking down the street we see a crowd of shoppers, both men and women and in the foreground we see children, milling around a toy pedlar, searching for bargains. Many art historians have judged the depiction to be a compassionate pictorial essay of Jewish life. We see the people in profile, and Luks has paid particular attention to skin colour and the physical features of the people in the crowd, while the subject matter relates to a series of caricatures of Jewish peddlers. It is a congested depiction and we only get small glimpse of the blue sky in the middle background. In the middle-ground we see the darkly oppressive inexpensive tenement blocks, in which were apartments that were so designed to house hundreds of these people, maximising the profits of the landlords.

Allen Street by George Luks (1905)

Another of George Luks’ 1905 Lower East Side paintings was entitled Allen Street. Between 1880 and 1920, more than twenty million immigrants came to America, making it the greatest period of mass migration in American history. At the time Luks painted these Lower East Side street scenes it was home to approximately half a million Jewish immigrants, who had fled economic hardship and political violence within the Russian Empire. At the time it was the most densely populated place on earth. Sadly, with this sudden influx of Jews into the area came a rise in nativism, the protection of the interests of native-born or established inhabitants against those of immigrants, and anti-semitism.

Luks had produced antisemitic caricatures, above is an example, for several publications during the 1890s, and the emphasis on racist stereotypes about Jewish physiognomy can be seen in the painting, Hester Street.

The Spielers by George Luks (1905)

Despite the hardship of life whilst living in the overcrowded tenement block Luks also wanted to depict a modicum of joy displayed by some of the younger residents. His 1905 painting entitled The Spielers (from the German word spielen – to play) was one of his favourites works and when, in 1907, he gave it to his dealer, William Macbeth to sell, he said he wanted $2000 for it. His dealer was dismayed at such a high price. When it was displayed at Luks’ 1910 solo exhibition at the Macbeth Gallery in New York, critics called it an artistic masterpiece. Luks sold it direct to a collector but it is not known whether he achieved his $2000. In an article in the New York Times Magazine on February 6^th, 1916, the art critic James Huneker praised the work in his article George Luks, Versatile Painter of Humanity wrote:

“…The east side is yet to boast its Dickens. And Dickens would have enjoyed the picture of the little tousled Irish girl with her red locks who dances with the pretty flaxen-haired German child, surely a baker’s daughter of Avenue B. Now you might suppose that this vivid art, this painting which has caught and retained the primal jolt and rhythm of the sketch, might be necessary rude and unscientific in technique. It is the reverse. This particular picture is full of delicious tonalities. The head of the blonde girl might be from an English eighteenth century masterpiece…”

This simple painting of two girls dancing together more than any other work by Luks, made his reputation.

The Wrestlers by George Luks (1905)

Some art critics had voiced an opinion on Luks’ figurative work saying that he was not good at depicting human anatomy. It is thought that Luks’ baulked at this sleight on his ability and in 1905 produced a complex painting of two nude wrestlers, so as to counteract their criticism. The painting is now housed in the Museum of Fine Art, Boston, which described the work:

“…The artist’s perspective was radical for the time. Luks’s composition effectively presses the viewer to the edge of the wrestling pit, thereby emphasizing the down-at-heels setting. The jarring vantage point also evokes the sweaty underbelly of modern urban life, a theme for which he and fellow members of the Ashcan School would become known. Luks’s scene of entangled human flesh under duress is reminiscent of the sporting scenes that fellow Philadelphian Thomas Eakins painted, in particular Eakins’s 1899 Wrestlers (Los Angeles County Museum of Art). Whereas Eakins depicted a wrestling hold with the impassive eye of a painter rendering a studio model, Luks conveys the passion exuded by the heaving torsos. Eakins applied carefully blended strokes of pigment, building up solidly modelled forms after the manner of his studio training with the French academic painter Jean-Léon Gérôme. Luks, in contrast, enlivens his figures with energetic brushwork and thick impasto. Luks’s familiarity with the popular press, gained from his work for illustrated periodicals, may have inspired the sense of immediacy he suggested—brilliantly illuminated flesh is thrown into relief against the dark background as though caught in a reporter’s flashbulb. The opponent at the left also recalls the terrifying visages of the early-nineteenth-century Spanish painter Francisco Goya’s so-called Black Paintings (Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid), in which humans are transformed into ghouls. Luks portrays a distinctive type among the multitudes in New York City, in this case an aggressive athlete. Once again, his training as a newspaper illustrator likely honed his astute sensitivity to physiognomy, and here the thickly furrowed brow, devilish eyes, and flushed complexion suggest the bellicose personality befitting a pugnacious wrestler…”

Known originally as The Five, of which Luks became a member. Then it became collectively known as The Eight, which was made up of the original five members with the addition of Arthur B. Davies, Ernest Lawson, and Maurice Prendergast. Then The Eight eventually became known as the Ashcan School. . The name “Ashcan” was originally coined by critics of the movement to deride the surplus of refuse bins in the artists’ pictures and the perceived dirtiness of the subjects at large. Robert Henri, the leader of the movement and its spiritual father was blunt of what he wanted to achieve. He said he wanted art to be akin to journalism… he wanted paint to be as real as mud, as the clods of horse-shit and snow, that froze on Broadway in the winter. Many of this group’s works were rejected when submitted to exhibitions of the powerful, conservative National Academy of Design and this motivated The Eight to form their own exhibiting group. Their exhibition at the Macbeth Galleries in New York in January, 1908 was a significant event in the promotion of twentieth-century American art.

Feeding the Pigs by George Luks

Following the success of the New York exhibition John Sloan organized a traveling exhibition that brought their paintings to Chicago, Indianapolis, Toledo, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Bridgeport, and Newark. These travelling exhibitions had people talking the new realism that the Ashcan School represented. George Luk’s paintings Feeding the Pigs and Mammy Groody were seen as examples of this new ‘earthiness’ that many art lovers were not yet ready to accept. The Ashcan movement threw down the gauntlet and confronted the academic art institutions, and as a result, during the 1910s the authority of the National Academy of Design as a cultural authority began to wane. The Ashcan painters played a an essential role in developing the nation’s sense of what were to be considered suitable subjects for free artistic expression.

Gramercy Street by George Luks (1905)

As a member of The Eight, George Luks created works in vivid bravura manner that captured the spirited energy of the tenement districts of New York and their occupants. The American Art historian, Milton Brown wrote about George Luks’ works in his 1955 book, American Painting from the Armory Show to the Depression:

“…In his art and in his character, he symbolized the spirit of American dynamism; as aggressive as a tycoon, as brash and boastful as a ‘drummer’. . . he was a swashbuckler in paint. This was not, of course, the cultured tradition of American life; it was rather the expression of a cruder side of America, an echo of the frontier…”

Hannaford.s Cove by George Luks (1922)

George Luks is best known for his depictions of New York City life, but he also painted many landscapes.

Old Gristmill, The Berkshires by George Luks (1925)

There are several landscapes of the Berkshire Mountains in Massachusetts that follow the Impressionist tradition. One such work is his painting Old Gristmill, The Berkshires which he completed in 1925. However, Luks was far happier living a city life.

Foggy Night by George Luks (c.1925)

Luks’ painting Foggy Night which he completed around 1925 captures his urban vision during his many walks around the city. He was fascinated by what he saw. In this depiction of an overcast night in New York, there is an eerie stillness about the scene. We see a lone cab driver who has stopped his horse-drawn carriage on an otherwise empty bridge. In the distance we can just make out shadowy buildings and the spire of a church. The city has been overwhelmed by the misty atmosphere and darkened by the nocturnal setting.

Spring Morning Houston and Division Streets by George Luks (1922)

George Luks was married twice but had no children. He was as famous for his paintings as he was with his mood. He was said to be loud, boastful of his boxing prowess but a good-humoured man, and was a notoriously heavy drinker. On October 29th, 1933, he was found dead in a Manhattan doorway at 6th Avenue and 52nd Street, a casualty of a bar-room brawl. He was 66. Luks was buried at Fernwood Cemetery in Royersford, Pennsylvania. He was dressed in an 18th-century embroidered waistcoat, which was one of his most valued possessions. His death was reported in the New York Times and the reporter wrote:

“…His canvasses were invariably virile; his versatility was astonishing, and he painted as he lived, contemptuous of conventionalities, impatient with snobbishness and full of joy of life that so many of his paintings reflected…”

Clara Klinghoffer. Part 3.

Marriage and travels.

Lucien Pissarro by Clara Klinghoffer (1928)

Clara continued to paint and produce beautiful works of art. She worked constantly at her easel from daybreak till sunset. She was awarded a bursary by the Slade allowing her to attend classes three days a week for a year and receive tuition from the Slade Professors of Art, Frederick Brown, and Henry Tonks. However, Clara only continued with this tuition for a few weeks, preferring to paint on her own at home. In 1921, the excessive workload she had given herself and her innate perfectionism finally took a toll on her health and she suffered a breakdown and suddenly the desire to paint had left her. She was suffering badly both mentally and physically, losing weight and becoming gaunt. She talked to nobody about her struggle and her parents could not understand why she spent little time painting. Clara recognised that she was ill and tried self-help but with little success. It was almost a year later when something strange happened to arrest this decline. At the rear of their large house, beyond their garden, there was a low border wall, on the other side of which was a set of newly constructed tennis courts. Clara and her sisters were fascinated and loved to watch the tennis players in action. The courts were owned by a good-looking young man in his early twenties, Julius Abrahams. A close friendship developed and Julius had strong feelings for Clara. Clara painted a full sized portrait of him but as Julius was engaged to another woman, Clara decided that a friendship was all she could offer Julius.

Upon Reflection by Clara Klinghoffer (1919)

Clara continued to build up a portfolio of her work and a number of her drawings were due to be exhibited at the Leicester Galleries in Central London in June 1923. Her drawings caught the attention of a certain Mr Smith who had contacted her and asked to see more of her work. Clara was requested to visit his house in Gordon Square in Central London’s Bloomsbury. Despite disliking trudging across London in wintry weather to visit a possible patron, she needed to sell work to fund her artistic materials and so on January 10th 1924, a Sunday afternoon, she headed towards Gordon Square and to her meeting with Mr Smith – a meeting which would change the course of her life.

Rose with a Mortar and Pestle by Clara Klinghoffer (1919)

Unbeknown to Clara her meeting with Mr Smith was not a one-to-one meeting but she was heading to his house where he was hosting one of his artistic soiree. One of the regulars to these “parties” was an Italian journalist who lived in Hampstead with his fellow lodger, a Dutch freelance journalist, Joseph (Joop) Stoppleman. Joop was invited by his flatmate to come along to the party and reluctantly agreed, on the pretext that the experience might even make good copy for an article. On entering the drawing room of the opulent house the two journalists were greeted by raucous singing led by their host, Mr Smith. Midway through the party the doors to the Salon opened and Stoopleman in his biography, Clara Klinghoffer, The Life and Career of a Traditional Artist described what happened next:

“…the Study door was opened and a small girl with beautiful auburn hair, entered, carrying a portfolio much too large for her to hold with any comfort…”

The revellers were bemused by the sight of this small girl. Mr Smith, who was halfway through giving his rousing speech to his guests, stopped and rushed towards Clara, taking her portfolio from her and raising it in the air, whilst acclaiming:

“…”Now my young friends you will have the privilege to see art that is on a par with the work of the great Masters. And who has created it? This little girl–Clara Klinghoffer. Mark that name well, for one day it will be famous…”

The portfolio of Clara’s work was then placed on the large table at the centre of the Salon and Clara showed each of her paintings and drawings to the guests. They were all amazed by what she had created. When the party came to an end Joop Stoopleman offered to carry the heavy portfolio for Clara until she reached the trolleybus which would take her home. He wanted to see her again and was both surprised and delighted when Clara asked if he wanted to visit her at home and see more of her work. He avidly agreed and they exchanged telephone numbers and a date was set for the next meeting. This was the start of a long friendship which resulted in a love affair and which would eventually result in marriage. Joop was well received by the family but as a freelance journalist he knew he could not boast a regular steady income. As for Clara, she relied on the sale of her work so that their combined income was somewhat irregular.

Harriet Cohen by Clara Klinghoffer (1925)

The new year, 1925, was a very busy time for both Clara and Joop. Clara worked steadily on her drawings and paintings. One of her sitters was Harriet Cohen, the celebrated British concert pianist. At the same time, she was organising her work for a large-scale exhibition in the Redfern Gallery, in Old Bond Street, which was to begin in March of 1926. Clara had collected together twenty new paintings and some thirty new drawings. By the time she had put together sufficient work for the exhibition she was both exhausted and deflated. Her spirits were lifted when she was invited to accompany her friend Mabel Greenberg on a month-long holiday in the Pyrenees. Clara, on her return home at the end of April, was refreshed and was filled with ideas that could be used as depictions for her future paintings. In parallel to Clara’s busy schedule, Joop had to go on a trip to Holland visiting chief editors, to see if he could find new outlets for his writing.

Portrait of a Girl in a Fur Hat by Clara Klinghoffer

During the New year celebrations of 1926, Joop and Clara decided that they would marry once the Redfern Gallery exhibition had run its course. The exhibition which opened on March 9^th was a great success and her paintings received much praise from the art critics. The art critic of The Times wrote:

“…It is perhaps being wise after the event to say that “work has feminine characteristics when an artist is known to be a woman. But this is certainly the case with Clara Klinghoffer’ s exhibition of paintings and dnawings at the Redfern Gallery. That is to say she has the power to imitate with great skill the manner of another painter and yet of toning it down and adapting it to her own less emphatic means of expression, as Berthe Morisot did with Manet. Her drawings and small pictures, rather than her larger oils, show that she has real talent. Her drawings are by far her best work and please at once, though, while they are reminiscent of Leonardo da Vinci, they leave out his emphasis and thus their correctness becomes apparent only after close examination. As is the modern custom, they are intended to be works of art in themselves, not studies of works of art, and they do not show the curiosity of an artist who draws to find something out, not to produce a finished effect. They are sensitive, but not profoundly sensitive. Mims Klinghoffer’s paintings are more under the influence of Renoir than of Leonardo, and in her biggest pictures she has tried to be more forcible than is in keeping with the character shown in her drawings…”

Portrait of the Artist’s Husband, aged 25 by Clara Klinghoffer

Once the Redfern Gallery Exhibition had completed, Clara felt utterly drained and Joop persuaded her to take a rest from painting and visit his homeland, Holland. She agreed to the change of scene despite Joop not being able to accompany her from the start as he was committed to leading a tour party to Europe. Joop arranged for her to stay with a family in the village of Voorthuizen and when, after six weeks, Joop finally arrived, the pair travelled north to his home town, Groningen and there she met Joop’s family. Clara and Joop finally returned to London in June 1926 and their marriage took place on July 29^th at the Duke Street Great Synagogue of London. At the time of the wedding Clara’s youngest sister, Hilda had been very unwell. Joop and Clara decided that as they were going to the warm weather of Southern France for their honeymoon, Hilda should accompany them so as to help restore her health. All was agreed with the family and the three of them took the ferry to Calais and then the train south to Avignon for a short stay before arriving at their ultimate destination, the Côte d’Azur seaside town of Menton.

The Old Troubador by Clara Klinghoffer (1926)

The Menton pension they stayed in was very comfortable but quite expensive. In fact, it was too expensive for them as they planned to stay in Menton for six or seven weeks. Clara approached the pension owner and because they intended to stay a long time in Menton, he agreed to lease them a large house, Villa Aggridito, situated on the Boulevard de Garavan, on the outskirts of the town, and only charged them just four hundred francs a month. They took him up on his generous offer. One day whilst out walking they came across a man carrying a guitar. In Joops biography of his wife he recalls the moment:

“…we saw a little man with grey hair standing in the middle of the right-hand lane. He was neatly dressed in black linen trousers and jacket and carried a large guitar on a leather strap across his shoulders. He had a long egg-shaped face, burnt a red brown by the summer sun. His straight nose had wide, sensitive nostrils; his large eyes were of a melancholy brown. His forehead, wide and furrowed, blended into his high bald dome; and above both ears were thick tufts of snow-white hair. On his open shirt collar a neat dress tie had somehow found a foothold. All in all, he made the impression of a musician on the way to an appointment, transporting his instrument in a somewhat unorthodox way. As we approached, he quickly placed the guitar in position, and began to play. First a gay melody, then the popular ‘Valencia’ tune, of which he sang the words in a small, tremulous voice. We stopped and listened. There was nothing about him of the street singer. Rather, he seemed to be amusing himself and, accidentally, allowing us to share his enjoyment…”

The musician was Torquato Simoncelli and he came to their villa the next day and sat for Clara. It took half a dozen sittings for Clara to complete the portrait. On February 16th 1958, Clara wrote about that visit:

“…My husband and I spent the summer and autumn of 1926 in Menton-Garavan, close to the Italian border. It was there, at the border, that we met old Torquato Simoncelli, singing and playing on his guitar. This gentle and lovable old man came to sit for me on the terrace of our Villa, after his day’s work as a Troubadour was over (generally in the late afternoon). He sang, reminisced and played while I painted…. I did paint a second picture of him in another pose (this picture I still have)…”

………to be continued.

The information I used for this blog came from a variety of sources but the two main ones which would be of interest to you if you want a more in-depth look at Clara’s life are:

Clara Klinghoffer- 20^th century English artist

and

Clara Klinghoffer: the girl who drew like Raphael and Leonardo

Evelyn Dunbar

Detail from Self portrait by Evelyn Dunbar (1930)

Evelyn Dunbar was born in Reading on December 18^th, 1906. She was the fifth and youngest child of William Dunbar and Florence Dunbar (née Murgatroyd). William Dunbar was a Scotsman who originally came from Cromdale, Morayshire. In 1913, when Evelyn was seven-years-old the family moved to Rochester in Kent where her father established himself as a draper and bespoke tailor. Evelyn’s mother Florence was a keen gardener and amateur still-life artist and a Christian Scientist and soon Evelyn became one and remained one throughout her life.

Portrait of the artists mother, Florence, on a bentwood rocking chair, by Evelyn Dunbar (c.1930)

Evelyn Dunbar won a scholarship to attend the Rochester Grammar School for Girls. From there she enrolled on a two-year art course at the Rochester School of Art, in 1925 and in 1927 attended the Chelsea School of Art remaining there until 1929. That year, she won a scholarship to attend the Royal College of Art where she studied until 1933 at which time she graduated as an ARCA (Associate of the Royal College of Art). Students at the Royal College of Art were encouraged by Sir William Rothenstein, College Principal and Professor of Painting, to find commissions for their work and engage socially with influential art world figures.

Compositional Study for The Pleasures of Life at Morley College by Charles Mahoney (1930)

Cyril Mahoney, known as Charles Mahoney, had been Visiting Painting Tutor at the RCA since 1928 and had carried out a commission to paint a thirty-foot long mural, entitled The Pleasures of Life, at the Morley College for Working Men which he and colleagues completed two years later. In his memoir Since 50, Men & Memories 1922-1938, the first two names that appear on William Rothenstein list of top Royal College of Art students were Henry Moore and Charles Mahoney – the list continues with the names of other leading lights such as Eric Ravilious, Edward Bawden, Barnett Freedman Edward Le Bas, and Evelyn Dunbar.

Mural by Evelyn Dunbar at Brockley County School for Boys

In 1932, Mahoney was offered a commission to decorate Brockley County School for Boys (which is now the Prendergast School for Girls) in South London, and following an appeal from Rothenstein for students to experiment further with mural painting, Mahoney chose three of his senior students to assist in the project, Evelyn Dunbar, Mildred Eldridge and Violet Martin. The subjects of these proposed five arched-top panel murals were to illustrate tales from Aesop’s Fables. The painting of this set of murals was not completed until 1936.

An English Calendar by Evelyn Dunbar (1938)

During Mahoney’s work with Evelyn on the mural their relationship intensified and he became her lover. Mahoney and Evelyn shared a studio in South End Road, at the southern end of Hampstead Heath. Besides painting and sketching, they had another shared interest, that of plants and horticulture. Mahoney’s love of horticulture resulted in an amusing warning from Evelyn who wrote to him:

“…Don’t ever have too big a garden, or with your avidity for making the names in the catalogue come true, you’ll never touch a brush or a pencil…”

Whilst working on the Brockley murals Evelyn accepted another commission. Near neighbours to Evelyn Dunbar and Charles Mahoney were Catherine and Donald Carswell, authors and journalists. Donald Carswell had put together a series of short travel stories, to be published by Routledge & Sons, under the title, The Scots Week-End and Caledonian Vade-Mecum for Host, Guest and Wayfarer and needed an illustrator to produce accompanying illustrations.

Evelyn Dunbar: Pen and ink vignettes from The Scots Week-End and Caledonian Vade-Mecum for Host, Guest and Wayfarer (1936)

They approached Charles Mahoney who recommended Evelyn. She agreed to the commission and produced twenty-five pen and ink vignettes, the frontispiece and dust jacket for the miscellany.

Evelyn Dunbar: Pen and Ink frontispiece to The Scots Week-End and Caledonian Vade Mecum for Host, Guest and Wayfarer (1936)

For Evelyn, it was not a labour of love and she wrote to Mahoney about her struggle to complete the commission asking for some moral support:

“…can you tell me why it is that whenever I get going on these blooming Scotch illustrations with vigour and spontaneity all my spontaneous and lively feelings completely desert me, and I am left clutching an unwilling, unwieldy pen, scratching at laborious and second-rate expressions of stereotyped and 5th rate (so it seems to me) ideas? I’m trying my best and I mean to get over it, but jobs of that kind seem to mesmerise me into a kind of stupidity and inability. Write me a few comforting and inspiring lines…”

With the success of the travel book more commissions came from the Routledge publishing house. One of them was for the book, Gardeners’ Choice which comprised of the history, characteristics and cultivation advice for forty garden plants. The book was illustrated in pen and ink, and was jointly written and illustrated by Dunbar and Mahoney.

Design for June for the Country Life 1938 Gardeners Diary by Evelyn Dunbar

More work came their way when the magazine, Country Life, commissioned Dunbar to compose their Gardener’s Diary 1938, a monthly journal and appointments book which contained literary texts chosen by Evelyn and illustrated with her pen and ink drawings.

In 1941 Dunbar collaborated with author, Michael Greenhill by providing pen-and-ink illustrations for his book, A Book of Farmcraft. It was a basic primer of husbandry for those who had little or no knowledge of farming. Michael Greenhill was an instructor of recruits to the Women’s Land Army at Sparsholt Farm Institute, near Winchester, Hampshire. Many of Evelyn’s illustrations, differentiated between the right way of undertaking some agricultural task and the wrong way. For the illustrations, Evelyn used Sparsholt recruits as her models.

Putting on Anti-gas Protective Clothing by Evelyn Dunbar (1940) Composite image of a woman being assisted into an anti-gas suit by another woman

Having looked at Evelyn Dunbar’s mural work and her interest in horticulture, floral paintings and illustrations, one has to remember that she is best known for her depictions of the activities of the Women’s Voluntary Service and the Women’s Land Army during the Second World War. In April 1940 Evelyn was appointed by the War Artists’ Advisory Committee, (WAAC), as an official war artist and later was the only woman artist to receive successive and continuous salaried commissions throughout the war. The WAAC tasked her with pictorially documenting civilian contributions to the war effort on the home front.

Milking Practice with Artificial Udders by Evelyn Dunbar

Land Army Girls going to Bed by Evelyn Dunbar

One of the most important tasks for women besides working in munitions factory was tending the land as so many male farm workers had gone to fight in the war. The first harvest which the Women’s Land Army was largely responsible for bringing in during the summer/autumn of 1940 led to Evelyn’s painting entitled Men Stooking and Girls Learning to Stook.

Men Stooking and Girls Learning to Stook by Evelyn Dunbar (1940)

One of Evelyn’s paintings, A Canning Demonstration, depicted some members of the Women’s Voluntary Service learning how to can and preserve the fruit which had been harvested that summer.

A Canning Demonstration by Evelyn Dunbar

A Knitting Party by Evelyn Dunbar (1940)

Another important task for the women, who volunteered their services, was to organise knitting “gatherings” at which the women would make blankets and comforters which could be sent to the troops. In her 1940 work entitled, A Knitting Party we see one such gathering. The setting is the drawing room of the Dunbar family home in Rochester, Kent, and it depicts some fifteen women, one of whom is Evelyn’s mother, Florence.

Portrait of Flying Officer Roger Folley in Flying Kit by Evelyn Dunbar

Whilst working for the War Artists’ Advisory Committee she encountered Roger Folley, who came from Lancashire and who had graduated from Leeds University. Roger was an “outdoor person” and spent his holidays and time after university working on farms and enjoying life outdoors hiking around the countryside. Having gained some experience working on farms combined with his two university degrees (B.Sc and B.Comm.) it qualified him to work as an agricultural economist and his first job was as Costing Officer at Sparsholt Farm Institute, near Winchester, where he first met Evelyn who had been posted there in 1940 to paint Women’s Land Army recruits at work.

Winter Garden by Evelyn Dunbar (1929-37)

Roger was a Royal Auxiliary Air Force volunteer and at the outbreak of war, was called up to serve in the RAF. He received his Flying Officer commission in 1941 and transferred from the Voluntary Reserve and became Flight Lieutenant Roger Folley RAF, serving as a navigator with 488 (NZ) Squadron. Friendship between Evelyn and Roger blossomed into love and the couple were engaged in February 1942 and married the following August

Pastoral, Land Girls Pruning at East Malling by Evelyn Dunbar (1944)

One of Evelyn’s and Roger’s great mutual loves was their commitment to the land and the careful management of its productivity. For Evelyn this premise was in line with her Christian Science beliefs which she continued to follow. She believed in the texts of the Old Testament that talked about a covenant between God and encompassed a covenant, frequently mentioned in the Old Testament, between God the Creator and mankind whereby the creator guaranteed the means of subsistence to mankind in return for mankind’s undertaking to cherish the land with love, intelligence and industry.

Potato Sorting, Berwick by Evelyn Dunbar

Evelyn often followed her husband when he was transferred to another military base and once he was stationed at RAF Charter Hall in Berwick. Whilst staying at the Scottish Borders, Evelyn made a sketch of women from the Women’s Land Army sorting newly dug-up potatoes.

Sprout Picking by Evelyn Dunbar

Much of the Land Girls’ work on the farm was back-breaking as can be seen by Evelyn’s painting entitled Sprout Picking.

Singling Turnips by Evelyn Dunbar

Turnip seeds are minute and they are scattered in ridges by seed-drill. However a few weeks after the seeds have been “mechanically” sowed, the seedlings will shoot up in their masses along with a profusion of weeds. To avoid the turnip shoots being choked by the weeds they have to be thinned out by hand and re-planted, known as “singling” – hence the title of the painting.

A Land Girl and the Bail Bull by Evelyn Dunbar (1945)

One of the last paintings Evelyn completed for the War Artists’ Advisory Committee, depicting the Land Girls was entitled A Land Girl and the Bail Bull. It is a depiction of a Land Girl’s work with an outdoor dairy herd on the Hampshire Downs. The name “bail” in the painting’s title refers to the moveable shed, which can be seen in the centre of the middle-ground and is where the milking is done. The girl has to catch and tether the bull and we see her enticing the animal with a bucket of fodder whilst she hides the chain behind her, ready to snap on to the ring in its nose as soon as it is within her reach. The girl in the painting is modelled by Evelyn’s sister, Jessie .

Once the Second World War had ended Evelyn and her husband went to live in Long Compton, Warwickshire, and they remained there for fifteen months. In 1946 The Oxford School of Art welcomed Evelyn as a part-time tutor and she combined this with her role as a visiting teacher at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art. Having these two teaching posts in Oxford and with her husband, Roger Folley, obtaining a position in the nearby University Agricultural Economics Research Institute, the couple decided to move home from Long Compton and re-locate to Enstone, Oxfordshire, in the spring of 1947. They made the Manor House at Enstone their home for next three years. In 1948, whilst living at Enstone, Evelyn completed a portrait of her thirty-five year-old husband Roger, entitled The Cerebrant. The setting for the work was his study on the top floor of The Manor House. It is a peaceful and relaxed portrait of her husband. He is depicted sitting down at a small table, which has various coloured books on it. One of the books is open and he is holding one of the pages in his right hand. He is looking towards his right, which is the direction the light is coming from. Folley is dressed casually in a green, short-sleeved, collared shirt. The painting was given that title by Roger Folley some fifty-seven years later when he presented it to Manchester Art Gallery in 2005. He had told one of his wife’s biographers that It was a celebration of Thinking.

Bailing Hay by Evelyn Dunbar (1943)

Roger Folley changed jobs in 1950 when he was appointed to the Department of Economics at Wye College, Kent. The new position meant Folley and Eveleyn had to move home and they leased an isolated house, The Elms, four miles from the Kent village of Wye, nestled in the hills of the Kent Downs. Dunbar would run informal art classes but still managed to travel once a year to Oxford to give an annual lecture at the Ruskin School. In 1953 a solo exhibition of her paintings was held at Withersdane Hall on the Wye campus.

Women’s Land Army Hostel by Evelyn Dunbar

Roger Folley was away in the Caribbean working for the government whilst Evelyn remained at The Elms. However their lease on the property was coming to an end and she had to organise a new home for her and her husband. Evelyn chose a more modern property in the village of Wye, which had once been a vicarage. She named it Tan House. It did not prove a good move and the couple were never happy there. It was smaller than they were used to and did not have a studio space for Evelyn. In 1958 Roger and Evelyn, could no longer endure the limitations of Tan House and moved to a farmhouse called Staple Farm, close to the village of Etchinghill, on the North Downs and in this home Evelyn had her own studio.

August and the Poet by Evelyn Dunbar (1960)

On the evening of May 12th 1960, whilst out walking in the woods around Staple Farm, Dunbar suddenly collapsed and died. One of Evelyn’s last paintings was Autumn and the Poet which she had started to paint ten years earlier and was still on one of her easels when she died. The figure of the poet, half-seated on the ground, was modelled by her husband. Unfortunately the painting was slightly smoke-damaged in a house fire in 2004, but was restored in time for the 2006 exhibition marking the centenary of Dunbar’s birth.

Roadworks by Evelyn Dunbar (Thought to have been produced while studying at Rochester School of Art in c.1926) sold in 2018 for £19,000.

Her main works were her oil paintings but she also left behind many portfolios of watercolours, drawings, pastels, sketches and other secondary work, most of which were not seen for many years after disappearing shortly after her death. The Times newspaper in its obituary of Evelyn Dunbar wrote:

“…Living a retired life in Kent, absorbed in country pursuits, Miss Dunbar did not often come before the public in mixed exhibitions, but her mural paintings and illustrations, with their peculiar authenticity of work inspired by the ruling passion, appealed strongly to those who knew it…”

Roger Folley remarried in 1961, and Evelyn’s works of art were distributed among family and friends.

I have only scratched the surface of Evelyn Dunbar’s life and the majority of the information was gleaned from a beautifully written series of blogs regarding this wonderful artist written by her nephew, Christopher Campbell-Howes, who has also published a book on her life an art work.

Broncia Koller-Pinell

I was reading an article entitled A Forgotten Fame in the German Arts magazine, Schirn Mag. It was about the life and works of the Austrian artist Bronislawa (Broncia) Pinell, later, Broncia Koller-Pinell and the headline read:

“…Broncia Koller-Pinell is listed as one of Austria’s most important female artists of the turn of the 20th century – but today her name has been almost entirely forgotten…”

She was an Austrian Expressionist painter who specialized in portraits and still-lifes. I was fascinated by what I read and so I decided to feature the young Austrian painter in one of my blogs. It is a strange story as she was listed as one of the most important Austrian artists of the turn of the 20th century – even though her name has by now largely slipped into obscurity.

Had you heard of her ?

Self Portrait by Broncia Koller-Pinell

Bronislawa (Broncia) Pineles was born on February 23rd 1863 in the town of Sanok, which is situated in the extreme south-east of Poland close to both the Polish and Ukrainian borders. She was one of five children brought up by Orthodox Jewish parents, Klara Chaja and Saul Pineles, an architect of military fortifications. She was the fourth-born of five children and had two older brothers, Markus and Stanislaus and an older sister Erika, and younger brother Friedrich. Later in life, Dr. Stanislaus Pineles, became a lawyer and lecturer at the University of Vienna, and Friedrich Pineles, a physician at the Wiener Allgemeine Krankenhaus and later head of the Franz-Josefs Ambulatorium.

Egon Scheile and his wife Edith by Broncia Koller-Pinell (1918)

At the age of seven, Broncia moved with her family to Vienna. Her father had set up a manufacturing business just outside the city. It was also the time when the family name was changed to “Pinell”. Broncia developed a love of art and her father Saul did everything he could to nurture his daughter’s love of painting and sketching. When she was eighteen, he had her receive private lessons from the sculptor Josef Raab and after Raab’s death in 1883, she was tutored by Alois Delug, the Austrian painter and later a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna.

Seated Woman (Marietta) by Broncia Koller-Pinell (1907)

In 1885, Broncia went to Munich and enrolled at the so-called “Ladies Academy” at the Munich Kunstverein and this presented the young painter with the opportunity to further professionalize her skills in a single-sex art class. The Munich Women Artists’ Association was founded in 1882 and according to the statutes, the primary goal was:

“…to give the ladies of the arts and crafts the opportunity for mutual stimulation in their work and mutual support in their endeavours, to raise a sense and taste for beauty and to develop artistic understanding in women’s circles more and more…”

Silvia Koller with Bird Cage by Broncia Koller-Pinell (c.1905)

It was during her five-year stay at the Lady’s Academy that she was able to study in the ateliers of the German artist and educator, Ludwig Heterich and Ludwig Kühn, the German Impressionist and Modernist artist.

The Artist’s Mother by Broncia Koller-Pinell (1907)

Broncia Pinell began exhibiting her work in 1888. However, it was not until 1892 when she achieved her first success with her paintings when they were exhibited at the Künstlerhaus in Vienna. The following year her paintings were well received at the Glaspalast in Munich and in 1894 at the Kunstverein in Leipzig. In 1896 she exhibited her works for the first time at the International Art Exhibition in Vienna.

Sleeping Child (The Artist’s Daughter, Sylvia) by Broncia Koller-Pinell (1903)

The year 1896 was also an important one for Broncia for this was the year she married Dr. Hugo Koller, a German Catholic physician and physicist, who studied medicine as well as mathematics and physics at the University of Vienna. This decision did not please her family because she was Jewish and her husband was Catholic and the children were raised as Christians, albeit Broncia did not convert to Catholicism. After marrying, the couple lived in Salzburg and later Nuremburg where Hugo held a leading position at Schuckert & Co., a German electricity company based in the city. Whilst living in Nurenburg, they had two children, Rupert in 1896 and Silvia in 1898. More about them later. In 1903 the family resettled in Vienna.

Nude standing in Front of a Mirror by Broncia Koller-Pinell (1904)

Once settled in Vienna, Broncia actively participated in the circles around the Vienna Secession, which was also known as the Union of Austrian Artists, or Vereinigung Bildender Künstler Österreichs. It was formed in 1897 by a group of Austrian painters, graphic artists, sculptors and architects, including Josef Hoffman, Koloman Moser, Otto Wagner and Gustav Klimt. The latter becoming a friend of Broncia and her husband. The Vienna Secession was an art movement, closely associated with Art Nouveau. The artists who formed this organisation were opposing the domination of the official Vienna Academy of the Arts, the Vienna Künstlerhaus, and official art salons, with their traditional orientation toward Historicism. Broncia was also involved with the Wiener Werkstätte, which was an association formed and brought together architects, artists, designers and artisans working in ceramics, fashion, silver, furniture and the graphic arts.

Die Ernte (The Harvest) by Broncia Koller-Pinell (1908)

Broncia’s husband Hugo Koller was an art collector and patron of the arts and he endorsed his wife’s artistic work and, through his good relations with the Secessionists and artists of the Wiener Werkstätte, he facilitated her access to exhibitions. In 1898 the family moved to Nuremberg. In 1903 the family moved back to Vienna and lived right next door to the Theater an der Wien.

Hugo Koller by Egon Schiele (1918)

Hugo built the first power plant in Lower Austria to power the factory in Oberwaltersdorf which was owned by his father-in-law, Saul Pineles. After the death of his father-in-law in September 1903, Hugo and Broncia inherited Saul’s Oberwaltersdorf estate and had the main residence extensively rebuilt.

House Koller in Oberwaltersdorf (Vienna), Austria.

The couple would often entertain guests from the art world here such as Josef Hoffmann, Kolo Moser, Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt, as well as philosophers, musicians, and scholars. Broncia Koller had a special relationship with Klimt and his group of friends and she would exhibit her work alongside this group of artists and in 1913 she became a member of the Bund Österreichischer Künstler founded by Klimt, Moser, Hoffman, and others.

Erster Schnee” (Der Wiener Naschmarkt im Winter) by Broncia Koller-Pinell (1911)

Life’s pathway to being a respected artist was very bumpy for Broncia. There were two main reasons for this. Firstly she was a female and as such was looked down upon by some male art critics who, according to Albert Paris von Gütersloh, an Austrian painter and writer, despite her artistic accomplishments, her critics and even some of her “friends” labelled her with the stigma of being simply “the talented wife of a prominent husband” or “a painting housewife”. Sadly, like many Jewish women artists of her time, Broncia Koller-Pinell was supposed to fit into the male-ordained female role of just looking after the family and the home. The second reason as to why she had to fight all the way along her career path and parry male “put-downs” was that she was a prosperous Jew. That duel factor, coupled with the growing antisemitism in Austria after the First World War, was experienced ever more acutely by Broncia and other Jewish artists and their families.

Werden und Vergehen by Broncia Koller-Pinell (1920)

Bronica Koller-Pinell died in Oberwaltersdorf on April 26th 1934, aged 71. Her husband died in October 1949.

Junge Frau by Sylvia Koller (1924)

After completing her studies, her daughter Sylvia Koller worked as an artist in Vienna. She became a member of the Kunstschau and the Wiener Frauenkunst, at whose exhibitions she began entering her work in 1927. Being Jewish, it is probable that she was no longer allowed to work as an artist after the annexation of Austria. In 1937, three years after the death of her mother, she returned to Oberwaltersdorf and became a carer for her sick widowed father. In 1961, she organized the first posthumous exhibition of the work of her mother, Broncia Koller-Pinell. Silvia Koller not only posed for her mother several times but also for a number of artists including Egon Schiele. Sylvia died in 1988, two weeks before her eighty-fourth birthday.

Anna Mahler by Broncia Koller-Pinell (1921)

Anna Justine Mahler was the second child of the composer Gustav Mahler and his wife Alma Schindler. At the age of 16, Anna fell in love with a rising young conductor, Rupert Koller, the eldest child of Broncia Koller-Pinell and Hugo Koller. They were married on November 2nd 1920 but their marriage ended within months. She actually married and divorced five times during her life. Robert Koller was conductor at the Municipal Opera House in Elberfeld. He died in 1976.

I acquired a great deal of information for this blog from the following websites:

The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women

Schirn Mag: Forgotten Fame

artvise.me: Viennese Modernism, 6 important female artists from 1900-1938

Doris McCarthy-beautiful simplicity.

Doris McCarthy aged 96.

When I first saw the artwork of today’s featured artist, the phrase that first came to mind was “beautiful simplicity”. I hope you will feel the same when you peruse this blog. The artist I am showcasing today is Doris McCarthy, a Canadian painter, writer and educator and who is best known for her abstract landscapes.

Doris McCarthy was born on July 7^th 1910 in Calgary, Alberta. She was the youngest child of George Arnold McCarthy, an engineer, and Jennie McCarthy (née Moffatt). Doris had two older brothers, Kenneth and Douglas. Because of her father’s job the family had to make many house moves. In the Summer of 1912 the family moved to Vancouver, then Boise, Idaho that December. The following Spring they lived in Berkeley, California and in the Summer of that year they had re-located to Moncton in New Brunswick, where Doris’ paternal grandparents lived. Finally in the Autumn of 1913, at the age of three, Doris and her family moved to Toronto where she spent her youth living in the east end of the city, in a neighbourhood known as The Beaches, on the shores of Lake Ontario.

Doris’ schooling started when she was five-years-old at which time she was a pupil at Williamson Road Public School in Toronto. She remained there until she was eleven years of age. She then transferred to the middle-school of the Malvern Collegiate Institute in 1921. She remained at the Institute until she graduated in 1926. As she began to enjoy sketching and painting, whilst attending the Institute, she also enrolled in Saturday Junior courses at the Ontario College of Art (OCA). She showed such artistic aptitude during her time on these Saturday sessions that she was awarded a full scholarship to the college and started a three-year course in the Autumn of 1926. This was the start of her formal artistic training.

Hills at Dagmar, Ontario by Doris McCarthy (1948)

During her three-year stint at the college, she was mentored by some of the great Canadian artists such as Arthur Lismer, James McDonald and Lauren Harris who were founder members of the Group of Seven, also known as the Algonquin School of landscape painters, a group which was formed in 1920. These Impressionist painters loved to explore the uncharted areas of Canada continually recording through plein air sketches and paintings the beauty of their own country. It was from their works that other artists realised what was on offer to those who would make the effort to discover the history, culture and geography of their fine nation and question the reasoning behind going to Europe in search of inspirational beautiful scenery. Doris graduated from the college in 1930 and the following year she began to exhibit her work at the Ontario Society of Artists (OSA). She was accepted as a member of the OSA in 1945 and later went on to become OSA Vice President from 1961 to 1964 and later, President from 1964 to 1967.

Village Under Big Hills by Doris McCarthy

Was she influenced by these artistic luminaries? In an interview in 2004 she cast doubt on that assertion, saying:

“…I don’t think I was ever influenced by the Group of Seven’s actual paintings. I was influenced very strongly by the tradition of going out into nature and painting what was there. I bought it. And I still buy it…”

Sutton Village, Quebec Province by Doris McCarthy

Whilst at the OCA, Doris met and became great friends with a fellow student, Ethel Curry and the two would often go off together on painting trips together they spent many holidays painting in Haliburton Ontario. Haliburton, to the north-east of Toronto, was very popular with tourists with its beautiful lakes and old cottages. It was also referred to as the Haliburton Highlands, due to its geographical similarity to the Scottish Highlands. It was an ideal location for landscape painters such as Doris and Ethel.

Houses on the Neck, Salvage, Newfoundland by Doris McCarthy (1999)

Doris graduated from OCA in 1930 and worked for very low wages at Grip, an advertising agency where many of the Group of Seven had previously been employed. However, her future pathway outside academia was given to her by one of her tutors, Arthur Lismer, who offered her an opportunity to teach children’s art classes at the Art Gallery of Toronto, which she accepted and thus began her career as an educator. Doris also worked part-time as a teacher with Moulton College from 1931 to 1932, and that year enrolled on a twelve-month teacher training course at the Ontario Training College for Technical Teachers in Hamilton during the years 1932 to 1933.

Asters in the Field at Fool’s Paradise by Doris McCarthy (1953)

In 1932 Doris, aged twenty-two, began teaching art at the Central Technical School in Toronto, and this began her forty-year period of teaching at this institute. In her forties, Doris McCarthy’s reputation as a landscape painter had blossomed. She had faithfully kept faith with the Group of Seven’s premise of “going out into nature and painting what was there” and it was on her many painting trips into the Canadian wilderness that she built up her work. Some of the places she visited looking for inspiration were Haliburton, Muskoka, Georgian Bay, the Badlands of Alberta, and the Arctic.

Fool’s Paradise

In 1939, whilst on a painting trip along Scarborough Bluffs she came across an abandoned property set high on top of a sheer section of the bluffs and along Gates Gully, a deep ravine at the end of Bellamy Rd. The property was derelict and covered in poison ivy. However, it was the position looking out over Lake Ontario and other views over the tree-less farmland which appealed to her, and she decided to buy the plot of land. It cost her $1,250 which was a “fortune” considering her teacher’s salary. Her mother was horrified with her daughter’s purchase and referred to it as a “fool’s paradise”. Doris was not deterred by her mother’s negative comments and designed a small single-storey cabin for the developed site. During the following years she expanded the building and protected it against the harsh winter weather. The State’s conservation authorities, wary of possible erosion of the land around her cabin, had trees planted around it but left the view of the lake unaffected. The adjacent land was later subdivided into lots and a residential neighbourhood now surrounds McCarthy’s Fool’s Paradise.

Home – a painting of her home – Fool’s Paradise on the Scarborough Bluffs, Toronto, Canada by Doris McCarthy

Doris ventured further afield when she went on a year-long sabbatical to Europe in 1951 and ten years later another twelve-month sabbatical had her travelling through the Middle East and Asia, visiting far-off places such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Cambodia, just to mention a few. McCarthy worked in both oils and watercolour and she cultivated a recognisable style of hard-edged angles, form and colour depictions.

Holman Island, Western Artic by Doris McCarthy (1977)

Using primarily thick oils and watercolours, McCarthy developed a style, often verging on abstraction, that was consistently praised for its vitality, boldness and skillful explorations of hard-edged angles, form and colour. In 1972, at the age of sixty-two, she retired from the Central Technical School. She was interviewed by a journalist from the Huffington Post as to her life in retirement and she said:

“…When I retired from teaching, I thought that the next major event of my life would be dying. There was no imagining that the best years were still ahead of me…”

For Doris McCarthy, retirement did not mean slowing down, for the following year after she retired, she enrolled at the University of Toronto Scarborough Campus as a part-time student. Sixteen years later, at the age of seventy-nine she was awarded an Honours Bachelor of Arts in Literature on June 6th, 1989.

Iceberg Fantasy by Doris McCarthy

Dennis Reid is the author of The Concise History of Canadian Painting, which is considered the definitive volume on Canadian art. He was also a curator at the Art Gallery of Ontario for over 30 years. In his book of Canadian art he wrote about Doris McCarthy:

“…Following her retirement in 1972 from [teaching at] Central Technical School, Toronto, she began exhibiting commercially on a more regular basis, not just in Toronto but in Ottawa, Calgary and later Winnipeg, showing work that some saw as a fresh take on the Canadian landscape tradition. She made the first of a number of trips to the Arctic in 1972, and that encouraged greater boldness with light, colour and pattern, and in 1977 she began painting larger canvases that emphasized this confident command of formal issues even more. She began showing with Aggregation Gallery in Toronto in 1979 (which became Wynick/Tuck Galley in 1982), and her subsequent regular showings there assured close critical attention to both the work of the half century already accomplished and the new, always fresh work that continued through the nineties and beyond…”

McCarthy painting at Grise Fjord, Nunavut 1976

Nunavut is the vast territory of northern Canada that stretches across most of the Canadian Arctic. It was created in 1999 out of the eastern portion of the Northwest Territories, Nunavut encompasses the traditional lands of the Inuit, the indigenous peoples of Arctic Canada. Its name means “Our Land” in Inuktitut, the language of the Inuit. The capital is Iqaluit, at the head of Frobisher Bay on southern Baffin Island.

Doris McCarthy, besides painting numerous works, also wrote three autobiographies during various times in her life. In 1990 she wrote A Fool in Paradise a fascinating memoir of her early years. It describes the fortunes of an artist who was striving to establish herself in the art world of the thirties and forties and the journey made by a spirited girl searching for her own path to fulfilment. Against the backdrop of those early years, Doris writes of studying art in pre-war London, winning a teaching position in the depths of the Depression and roughing it on painting expeditions to northern Ontario, the Maritimes and the Rockies. She reveals stories of her personal life: of breaking loose from a disapproving mother, building her own home on the bluffs above Lake Ontario, and of finding love in unexpected places.

Her second autobiography entitled The Good Wine: An Artist Comes of Age describes her life from 1950 to 1991. It tells of the time at the age of forty, she broke free of her teaching responsibilities to take a year’s sabbatical in Europe as a full-time painter. It was to be the first of many adventures around the world which included a solitary round-the- world odyssey from Japan to Australia, India to the Middle East. She also discovered the Arctic and in 1991, Antarctica, drawing inspiration for her art and her life in the far-flung corners she visited and in the beloved landscape of her own country. It recounts her meetings with Dorothy Sayers and Arnold Toynbee, and all the controversies associated with the fledgling Canadian art community.

In 2004, at the age of 94, Doris McCarthy published her third and final autobiography. In this final autobiography, Ninety Years Wise, she focuses on her 92nd summer and she tells of the summer ritual of heading to her summer home, her cottage on Georgian Bay, painting and entertaining friends.

During her long life, Doris McCarthy received many awards. She was the recipient of the Order of Ontario, the Order of Canada, honorary degrees from the University of Calgary, the University of Toronto, Trent University, the University of Alberta, and Nipissing University, an honorary fellowship from the Ontario College of Art and Design and also had a gallery named in her honour on the Scarborough campus at the University of Toronto.

Doris McCarthy died at her Fool’s Paradise home on November 25, 2010, aged 100. She is buried at Mount Pleasant Cemetery. Her Fool’s Paradise property now functions as an artist’s residence, the Doris McCarthy Artist-in-Residence Centre, and is in part funded by the Ontario Heritage Trust.

Some of the information for this blog came from the following websites:

The Life of Doris McCarthy. University of Toronto

https://doris.digital.utsc.utoronto.ca/content/life-doris-mccarthy

American Women Artists

https://americanwomenartists.org/rediscovered-women-artists-doris-mccarthy/

Fool’s Paradise Guided Tour

Doris McCarthy Gallery – Fool’s Paradise Guided Tour (utoronto.ca)

Adrien-Jean Le Mayeur de Merprès.

This blog is the second one requested by Barbara Matthias, a reader of my blogs, who had actually met the artist, and, like the previous one about Rudolf Bonnet, it is about the life and artwork of a painter who spent the latter half of his life on the Indonesian island of Bali. Let me introduce you to Adrien-Jean Le Mayeur de Merprès, a self-declared impressionist.

City view with boats in the canal by Adrien-Jean Le Mayeur de Merprès

Le Mayeur was born on February 9th 1880 in Ixelles, a municipality of Brussels which lies to the south-east of the Belgium capital. He was the youngest of two brothers born to Andrien Le Mayeur De Merpres, a marine artist, and his wife Louise Di Bosch. During his early years Jean studied painting with the French artist, Ernest Blanc-Garin as well as being tutored by his father. His father wanted his son to receive an all-round education and had him enrol at the Polytechnic College of The Université Libre de Bruxeles, where he studied Architecture and Civil Engineering. However much to the horror of his family, Jean decided to forego all that he had learnt at the polytechnic and pursue his love of painting and his favoured genre of landscape painting in the Impressionistic style, depicting Belgian landscapes in hazy hues.

Tahitian Women on the Beach Gaugin’s Tahitian painting (1891)

In 1914, now in his thirties, with the outbreak in Europe of the Great War, Jean was enlisted as a war-time painter and photographer. During the conflict he was affectedly badly by the carnage of the war and this could have been one of the reasons why he decided to leave Western “civilisation” and find solace in the exotic worlds which he had seen in the works of the French post-impressionist artist Paul Gauguin.

Two Women on the Beach, Tahiti, by Adrien-Jean Le Mayeur de Merprès

Jean had also acquired an insatiable appetite for travel. In the early 1920s he visited Italy, North Africa, India, Cambodia, Burma, Madagascar and Turkey, all the time transferring his thoughts and what he saw onto canvas. In a way these extensive travels were Jean’s way of searching for paradise and like Paul Gaugin, who had visited the Pacific island of Tahiti in June 1891, he too arrived on the Pacific island in 1929. Jean Le Mayeur was disappointed with Tahiti as it was now far more commercialised than it was in Gaugin’s day and so Jean discounted Tahiti as being the promised land and instead decide to travel to south-east Asia and in 1932 he embarked on his first voyage to the “island of the Gods”, Bali.

An Arab Market by Adrien-Jean Le Mayeur de Merprès

After a long sea passage, Le Majeur arrived at Singaraja, a port town in northern Bali. From there he travelled south and rented a house in Banjar Kelandis, close to the northern part of Denpasar, the island’s main town. He was captivated by the Balinese people’s traditional way of life, the temple ceremonies and the local dances such as Legong, which is a form of Balinese dance that is characterized by intricate finger movements, complicated footwork, and expressive gestures and facial expressions. For Le Mayeur, Bali was an ideal place to paint because of its light, colour and the exquisiteness of the surroundings in what was still a quite an unspoilt island.

Harbour of St Tropez by Adrien-Jean Le Mayeur de Merprès

From his love of watching the Legong dancers Le Majeur met a beautiful fifteen-year-old Legong performer, Ni Nyoman Pollok and he persuaded her to model for his paintings. In 1933 he had put together a collection of work featuring Ni Pollok, which he took to Singapore for an exhibition. The exhibition was a great success and it resulted in him being more widely known. On returning from Singapore, Le Mayeur purchased a plot of land at Sanur beach, a coastal stretch east of Denpasar in southeast Bali. There, he built a house, which was also his studio and a beautiful garden. It was here that Ni Pollok along with her two friends worked every day as his models.

Three Dancers in the Garden by Le Mayeur by Adrien-Jean Le Mayeur de Merprès

In his painting entitled Three Dancers in the Garden we see three graceful dancers. The setting of the depiction is in the garden in front of the house Le Mayeur and his wife Ni Pollok built on the beach of Sanur. Almost the whole of the background is taken up by the white house with its thatched roof and blue and white window shutters.

Their house at Sanur was depicted on a number of occasions by Le Mayeur. In one of his letters to a friend he recounts his love for the property:

“…I’ve evidently made all things serviceable to my art. All my actions have but one purpose: facilitating my work…”

In another, he talks about how he is inspired by the house:

“…you will understand my paintings wherever you may see them, for everything in this little paradise which I created for myself was made to be painted”…”

Again, in yet another letter he writes about his love for the garden:

“…I organized my home exactly as I liked it. I intended to surround myself with nothing but beauty. I planted a mass of bougainvillea, frangipani, hibiscus and all around the cottage I put groups of intertwining plants. I built little temples, completely made of white coral, dug little ponds in which the reflections of all the Gods of Hindu mythology can be seen among the sacred lotus flowers. The two temples are surrounded by approximately two hundred of these little sculptures, which have integrated with the flowers whose silhouettes are drawn on the purple and pink tropic skies…”

Le Mayeur and Ni Pollok

It is fair to say that Le Mayeur was smitten by the beauty of the island and the beauty of Ni Pollok. His original intention had been that he would just stay on the island for eight months but as that time came to an end he took the decision to remain in Bali for the rest of his life. After three years working together, in 1935, Le Mayeur and Ni Pollok got married. Le Mayeur kept on painting with his wife and her friends as his models during their married life. During the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies in 1942, Le Mayeur was put under house arrest by the Japanese authorities.

Around the Lotus Pond by Adrien-Jean Le Mayeur de Merprès

Many of Le Mayeur’s paintings depicted scenes in and around their house. The subjects were varied such as women at leisure on a daybed in the interior of the house; women weavers at the loom; women on the veranda or women dancing on a terrace; women in front of the house or in the garden picking flowers or making offerings but one of his favourite depictions was of women dancing around the lotus pond in his garden. In this painting, Around the Lotus Pond, which Le Mayeur completed in the 1950s, we see the pond around which are six young women picking flowers. It is thought that Ni Pollock posed for all the women. Le Mayeur strived to make his paintings colourful and in this work the hues of red, purple, orange and pink dominate the painting and are in contrast with the darker colour of the pond and its water which we see in the lower left of the picture.

Ni Pollok with a friend enjoying the Afternoon Sun

by Adrien-Jean Le Mayeur de Merprès

During the war, tourism had totally disappeared but at the cessation of hostilities tourism to the island slowly returned. The island’s tourists would often visit and look around Le Mayeur’s home and studio in Sanur and took the opportunity to buy his artwork. Returning home with their purchasers enabled Le Mayeur’s works of art to become part of many collections. Although Bali was undoubtedly a scenic paradise, one of the downsides of living on the island was the possibility of contracting malaria and le Mayeur often suffered from bouts of the disease which weakened him. A riding accident in 1948, resulted in the then sixty-eight years old artist to suffer a broken leg from a fall from his horse, Gypsy, and after that incident, probably because of his age, he never ever really recovered and had always, from then on, to use a cane when walking. In 1951 the aging artist was attacked by a group of robbers and thanks to the effort of his wife Ni Pollok, they managed to fight off the intruders. However Le Majeur received a large stab wound in the shoulder during the attack. Five years later he suffered with a hernia. Despite all these negative happenings, Le Mayeur managed to keep focused on his work and maybe the highly colourful works he produced radiated the sunny side of his and Ni Pollok’s life.

Five women on the Beach by Adrien-Jean Le Mayeur de Merprès

In 1958, seventy-year-old Le Mayeur had to travel to Brussels with his wife for treatment for cancer of his ear. Sadly, the illness was diagnosed as being terminal and the painter died on May 31st, 1958, aged 78. and was buried in Ixelles, Brussels. Ni Pollok later married an Italian physician who was living on the island but like many foreigners, during the troubles in Indonesia, he had his residence permit revoked and was obliged to leave the country. Ni Pollok stayed behind on Bali.

A room in Le Mayeur’s house, now a museum, in Sanur

The will of Le Mayeur had stated that Ni Pollok was allowed to live in the house in Sanur and she resided there up to her death in 1985. Subsequently, the house and its contents, including a hundred paintings by Le Mayeur, were then donated to the Indonesian government and the house was converted into a museum.

Johan Rudolf Bonnet

Rudolf Bonnet

My next two blogs were requested by a reader of my site and so I always try and fulfil requests, here is the first one.

Today I am looking at the life and work of the Dutch painter Johan Rudolf Bonnet. He was born in Amsterdam on March 30^th 1895, although, as we will see, he spent most of his life in the town of Ubud on the Indonesian island of Bali. He was one of the most individualistic artists who travelled and painted in the Dutch East Indies during the first half of the 20th century and he stood head and shoulders above his fellow European artists who visited the island of Bali. It was during his journeys away from his homeland to the East Indies which saw his artistic talent blossom.

Anticoli Corrado

Rudolf’s father was, Jean Bonnet Jr. and his mother was Elisabeth Elsina Mann, and both were of Huguenot descent, and were bakers. After normal Primary schooling he received artistic education at a technical High School where he studied decorative painting. He also attended evening classes at the Rijksacademie van Beeldende Kunsten. In 1920, when he was twenty-five, Rudolf Bonnet along with his parents took a vacation to Italy. Rudolf loved the area south of Rome known as Anticoli Corrado. The town was the home of an artists’ colony and many of the young inhabitants would pose as models for the this thriving artistic community. Rudolf remained in Italy for eight years.

Portrait of Wijnand Otto Jan Nieuwenkamp by Nico Jungmann (1909)

It was during his latter years in Italy that Rudolf met Wijnand Otto Jan Nieuwenkamp, the first European artist to visit Bali, and who significantly influenced the island’s art and culture, making it better known in the wider world, and who had made numerous illustrations of Balinese culture. Nieuwenkamp shared with Bonnet this love for the Dutch East Indies and Bonnet knew he had to visit this “wonderous” place.

Self portrait by Rudolf Bonnet (1927)

In 1927, a year before leaving for the Dutch East Indies, Bonnet, aged thirty-two, completed a self-portrait. It is a stunningly meditative depiction of the artist at a time in his life when he was struggling to find inspiration and motivation outside his safe and comfortable European lifestyle. The painting was completed at a time in the artist’s life when he had begun to yearn for inspiration and an experience outside the comforts of European living. The artist surveys us out of the corner of his eye. It is a self-portrait which does not hide his physical facial gauntness and the receding hairline which cannot disguise his premature ageing. Bonnet, in this portrait, has honestly revealed himself to us.

Village Street by Walter Spies (1929)

Soon after arriving on the island Bonnet met the German artist Walter Spies, who had come to the Dutch East Indies in 1923 and settled in Bali four years later in the town of Ubud. Nine years later Spies moved out of the town and built himself a mountain retreat in Iseh. Rudolf Bonnet took over Spies’ house in Ubud where he set up his own studio.

Dewa Poetoe by Rudolf Bonnet (1947)

The sitter for the above artwork is Dewa Putu Bedil, one of the youngest members of the Pita Maha movement who had received instruction and encouragement from Bonnet in developing his own artistic style. Bonnet had a close personal relationship with, Dewa Poetoe and this work is an outstanding study of expression, and highlights the artist’s mastery of portraiture.

I Tjemul by Randolf Bonnet (1949)

Bonnet soon came across traditional Balinese art but soon he began to witness a change in it as local painters came in contact with the tourists who were visiting the island and soon they picked up on their concepts of art. It was not long before Bonnet immersed himself in issues affecting the local community such as healthcare and education and he became involved in setting up the Pita Maha movement. Pita Maha literally means “Great Shining” and was founded in 1934 as an association for artists in Bali and it had two main goals; firstly to develop, improve and preserve the quality of Balinese art objects by setting up weekly inspections and secondly to encourage the selling of high-quality art by coordinating sales exhibitions outside Bali. Bonnet believed the association would inspire local artists to raise their artistic standards.

Two Balinese Men by Rudolf Bonnet (1956)

Two Balinese Men by Rudolf Bonnet (1954)

During his time in Italy, Bonnet had fell in love with the Italian Renaissance masters and in particular their portraiture. It was this that influenced him when he set about portraying the indigenous people living in the colonial Dutch East indies and he knew they faced many hardships during their lifetime in what was an ever-changing modernising of the twentieth century. Hoisted on their bare shoulders are tools of their manual trade Rudolf portrays the unpretentiousness of their daily existence and in a way has depicted them in the highest benchmarks of classical beauty.

Portrait of J. Djemul by Rudolf Bonnet (1949)

Bonnet’s arrival on Bali in 1929 was followed by an influx of Europeans all who wanted to learn about and record the lives of the Balinese people. During the 1930s, Bali became home to the anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, musicologist Colin McPhee, and the artists Miguel Covarrubias and Walter Spies. All these people helped glamorize and make popular the image of Bali itself and its inhabitants. Through words and paintings, they, like Bonnet presented Bali as an extraordinary place of unspoilt beauty. McPhee, made a musicological study of Bali, and in his book A House in Bali, described the island as “an enchanted land of aesthetes at peace with themselves and nature”, while Miguel Covarrubias, the Mexican painter, caricaturist, illustrator, ethnologist and art historian, on his honeymoon in Bali with his wife Rosa, wrote an ethnographic book, Isle of Bali, which became a literary sensation in the West, lauded for the detailed sketches of Balinese women, dancers and scenery that Covarrubias had made in the field.

“Ni Radji” Bali by Rudolf Bonnet (1954)

The Balinese idyll for Bonnet came crashing down with the arrival of the Japanese army in February 1942. Bonnet remained at liberty until later that year when he was arrested and sent to Sulawesi, where he remained a prisoner of war in internment camps in Pare-Pare, Bolong and Makassar for the remainder of the conflict.

Rudolf Bonnet standing in front of his house in the 1950s

When the war ended and he was released from internment and Bonnet returned to Bali where he built his house and studio in Campuan. More trouble was to rear its ugly head with the deterioration in the relationship between the Republic of Indonesia and the “motherland”, The Netherlands.

(Dua orang gadis) Double portrait of Ni Radji by Rudolf Bonnet.

However Bonnet was able to stay due to his close relationship with President Sukarno who, as an art lover, had collected fourteen of Bonnet’s works. His relationship with Sukrano soured in 1957 after a dispute regarding Bonnet’s painting entitled (Dua orang gadis) Double portrait of Ni Radji. Both Bonnet and President Sukarno loved the painting and Bonnet wanted to keep the work for himself and refused to sell it. For Bonnet, it was a means of remembering the young woman who had modelled for him but had left Ubud after her marriage. However Bonnet was pressurised by the President and had to sell the painting to Sukarno and after the acrimonious dispute Bonnet was forced to leave Indonesia in 1958. He only returned for short visits to his beloved Bali fifteen years later.

Rudolf Bonnet died in the Dutch town of Laren on April 18^th 1978, aged 83. He was cremated and his ashes were taken to Bali by his niece Hilly de Roever-Bonnet, where they were re-cremated.

Cedric Morris

Self portrait by Cedric Morris (1919)

Cedric Lockwood Morris was born on December 11th 1889 at Matcham Lodge, Sketty, Swansea. He was the first-born child of George Lockwood Morris, an industrialist, iron founder and prominent rugby player who had played for Wales and his wife Wilhelmina (née Cory). Both of Cedric’s mother and father hailed from well-to-do families who owned industrial businesses. Cedric had two sisters, Muriel who died in her teens and Nancy who was four years his junior. In 1947, when Cedric’s father, George, was eighty-eight, he succeeded to the baronetcy which had been created for his great grandfather. Sir John Morris, a copper and coal magnate. This prestigious event came three months before he died and the baronetcy passed on to fifty-eight-year-old Cedric Morris, who became the 9^th Baronet in November 1947.

Cedric was sent away to St Cyprian’s School, Eastbourne, an English preparatory boarding school for boys, which trained pupils to proceed to leading public schools, and so providing a taster to boarding school life. From here Cedric, aged thirteen, was enrolled at Charterhouse, an English public school. He achieved very little academically at these schools and sat the examinations to enter the army, which he failed. In 1907, aged seventeen, Cedric, at his mother’s suggestion, travelled to Canada to work on a farm in Ontario. That did not suit him and after a number of menial low-paid jobs he returned to Wales. He briefly studied music at the Royal College of Music where he hoped to become a singer but again he failed in that venture. In April 1914, at the age of twenty-four, he travelled to Paris and enrolled at the Académie Delacluse in the Montparnasse district of the French capital. His stay in Paris was curtailed due to the outbreak of the First World War and he returned to England and joined the Artists’ Rifles, an active-duty volunteer reserve force of the British Army. Many of those who joined were artists, actors, musicians and architects and its first headquarters was located at Burlington House. Its first commanders were the painters Henry Wyndham Phillips and Frederic Leighton. However like many of his previous aspirations, this came to naught, when he was medically discharged due to a childhood operation which affected his hearing and so he never made it to the Front. However, Cedric who was an accomplished horseman, took up his next position as part of the war effort when he joined the Remounts Service which was responsible for the provisioning and training horses and mules which were bound for the Front. He worked under Cecil Aldin, a Remount Purchasing Officer who was also an amateur artist. In 1916 the Remounts Service was taken over by the Army and became the Army Service Corps Remounts Service and as Cedric was a civilian he had to leave the organisation.

Frances Hodgkins by Cedric Morris (1917)

In 1917 Morris travelled to Zennor, a village in south-west Cornwall, close to St Ives, where he stayed for twelve months painting in watercolours and studying the plants and fauna of the area. It was here that he met the New Zealand painter, Frances Hodgkins.

Cedric Morris (Man with Macaw) by Frances Hodgkins (1930)

As well as his painting of her Frances painted one of him with a macaw in 1930.

Arthur Lett Haines

By the time of the Armistice and the end of the Great War on November 13^th, 1918, Morris had left Cornwall and returned to London and it was on Armistice Day that he first met Arthur Lett Haines and fell in love with the painter and sculptor despite Haines living with his wife of two years, Gertrude Aimee Lincoln, an American and granddaughter of Abraham Lincoln. Cedric Morris moved into the Lett Hains’ household in Carlyle Square, Chelsea and the trio had planned to move together to America. However, the three-person tryst ended and Aimee moved alone to America. With Aimee out of the picture, the two men travelled to Newlyn, Cornwall and set up home. Arthur Lett Haines, known by his middle-name Lett, was five years younger than Morris, being born on November 2nd 1894. He was educated at St Paul’s School Public School, London and went on to serve in the British Army during the Great War.

Atelier Tapisseries, Djerba, Tunisia by Cedric Morris (1926)

Cedric Morris and Lett Haines moved to Cornwall to set up home in 1919 and at the same time they sub-let their London flat to Frances Hodgkins. They moved houses a couple of times before settling in a house known as The Bowgie, which was a combination of a row of old cottages overlooking Newlyn harbour, and became a holiday home for the pair. At Christmas 1920 they sold The Bowgie and moved to Paris.

Cedric Morris and Lett Haines

The Paris that Morris and Lett Haines arrived at was said to have been a melting pot of artistic creativity. The pair would devote their evenings mingling in the cafes and bars in Montparnasse and mixed with such artistic luminaries as Marcel Duchamp, Peggy Guggenheim and the photographer, Man Ray. The one thing that Cedric Morris had difficulty with whilst in Paris was his dislike of crowds and so he and Lett Haines would take every opportunity to escape the hubbub of city life and although living in Paris for the next five years, it was just a base they used as the two painters, along with friends, went off on their European travels.

The Italian Hill Town by Cedric Morris (1922)

They went to North Africa in 1921, 1925 and 1926 and spent time in Germany in 1921 before journeying to Italy where they travelled the country for most of 1922. Cedric held his first one-man exhibition at the Casa d’Arte Bragaglia in Rome which opened at the beginning of November 1922. Casa d’Arte Bragaglia was an exhibition space for Futurist art and a meeting point for intellectuals and artists. Unfortunately the exhibition opening coincided with Mussolini’s March on Rome, an organized mass demonstration and a coup d’état which resulted in Benito Mussolini’s National Fascist Party ascending to power in the Kingdom of Italy. Futurist art was condemned by Mussolini and his Fascist followers and the exhibition was closed down.

Patisseries and a Croissant by Cedric Morris (c.1922)

Although living in Paris, Cedric Morris held the first of his two one-man exhibitions in London. The first was in June 1924. which was held at Gower Street, and organised by the Arts League of Service, a little-known cultural organisation founded in Britain in 1919 with the singular aim of bringing art and the ‘higher forms of entertainment’ to the masses. Cedric exhibited forty-four paintings and twelve drawings.

Experiment in Textures by Cedric Morris, (1923)

It was also in the 1920s that Morris dabbled with Abstract Art.

The Brothel by Cedric Morris (1922)

Cedric Morris and Lette Haines were great “people watchers” and Parisian streets, boulevards and bars were great places to study the locals. Morris took delight in recording the activities and idiosyncrasies of the people as we can see in the paintings he completed around that time. One example is his painting entitled The Brothel.

Les Bocks à Montparnasse (1922)

Another was his café scene for his painting entitled Les Bocks à Montparnasse.

The Entry of Moral Turpitude into New York Harbour by Cedric Morris (1926)

One of Cedric Morris’ unusual paintings around this time was one he completed in 1926, entitled The Entry of Moral Turpitude into New York Harbour, a painting bought by his friend, Vita Sackville-West. This painting’s compartmented depiction is unique in Morris’ work. The idea for this depiction came about with the dramatic and scandalous case of the time when the United States immigration authorities refused to allow a titled Englishwoman to land and enter into New York after a sea passage from England. The Immigration officials stated that their refusal was based on their belief that she was allegedly guilty of “moral turpitude”. Moral turpitude refers to conduct that is considered contrary to community standards of justice, honesty, or good morals and so covers numerous types of misdemeanours. In the case of the English women her misdemeanour was having been divorced by her husband and the man, also titled, travelling with her had been cited in the divorce case. She and her companion are depicted in Morris’ painting standing at the bow of the ship wearing coronets. Their transatlantic ship is being approached by uniformed officials in a boat marked “USA”. On the quayside we see a group of men wearing black suits, large hats and white collars waiting for the ship’s arrival. They are meant to be ministers of the church.

A legal battle followed and their deportation order was eventually quashed. The news of the case travelled back to England and the English Foreign Secretary at the time was asked if England should refuse entry to Britain of American divorcees. The main painting is surrounded by fourteen smaller paintings that were meant to draw attention to contrasting impulses in America towards liberty and oppression, the latter being an obvious message in the main painting. Other scenes depicted in the smaller peripheral paintings include Landing of Christopher Columbus, Landing of the Mayflower, fraternisation between colonists and American Indians, burning of witches, George Washington cutting down the cherry tree, assassination of Lincoln, to name but a few. Cedric Morris, probably due to his sexuality, disliked and found offensive the more restrictive aspects of morality taught by the churches

Herbs, Salads and Seasoning by Marcel Boulestin, illustrated by Cedric Morris

Probably because of Morris’ dislike of big cities, he and Lett Haines left Paris and returned to England, staying for a time in the late summer of 1926 with his sister Nancy who lived in the Dorset village of Corfe whilst at the same time they were searching out studio space in London. At around this time he met Marcel Boulestin who had wanted an illustrator for his soon-to-be-published book, Herbs, Salads and Seasoning. Cedric Morris accepted the commission to illustrate the book.

The Dancing Sailor by Cedric Morris (1925)

Morris eventually found a large studio in London which catered for all his needs. It was at 32 Great Ormond Street and early in 1927 Cedric and Lett Haines moved in. It seems strange that Morris should leave the over-crowded French capital because of the suffocating atmosphere and yet locate his studio in London but it is thought that Lett Haines had persuaded him to make the move to the English capital as it would be possible to launch Cedric into the British art scene. The Great Ormond Street studio became a very popular meeting place and party venue for the great and the good of the Bloomsbury Set. The Bloomsbury Set was a group of English writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists in the first half of the 20th century which included Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell, Roger Fry, John Maynard Keynes, E. M. Forster and Lytton Strachey.

From a Bedroom Window at 45 Brook Street, W1 by Cedric Morris (1926)

Soon after settling down in London, Morris became a member of the Seven and Five Society, an art group of seven painters and five sculptors, including artist Ben Nicholson and sculptors Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth. Morris submitted many of his works to exhibitions but one of his greatest successes was at his one-man exhibition at Arthur Tooth & Sons Gallery in New Bond Street, an art gallery founded in London, in 1842 by Charles Tooth. It was a great success with thirty-one of his thirty-nine painting selling at the private viewing and the remaining ones sold by the time the exhibition closed.

Pound Farm, Higham

Not only was Cedric Morris a great artist who loved to paint, he also had another great love – a love of horticulture. He was a true plantsman but living in London hindered that love and so he and Lett chose the country life in order to pursue Cedric’s passion for horticulture. And so, early in 1929, Cedric and Lett took the lease of Pound Farm, Higham, Suffolk, and in February 1930 they gave up their London studio. The farm was owned by the wealthy landlady and student, Mrs Vivien Doyle Jones. In 1932 their landlady died and bequeathed the farm to Cedric Morris. It was here that Morris lovingly created a memorable garden.

Flowers by Cedric Morris (c.1926)

Morris had always been interested in floral painting and now, at Pound Farm, he found the ideal location. He also became a successful and well-known breeder of irises.

Irises and Tulips by Cedric Morris

Cedric Morris had a great passion and extensive knowledge of gardening and one of his favourite hobbies was breeding irises. In his painting Irises and Tulips we see a colourful arrangement of irises and tulips and an impressive white Arum Lily along with two stems of the Great Yellow Gentian. The tulips are shown as starting to collapse which hints at this painting being carried out in the early part of summer.

River Zezere, Portugal by Cedric Morris (1950)

Three miles to the south-west of Pound Farm was the small town of Dedham, which a century earlier, was the home of the great English painter, John Constable. On April 12^th 1937 Cedric Morris and Lett Haines opened the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing in an old house in the centre of Dedham. Lett-Haines taught theory, whilst Morris taught by encouragement and example. It is interesting to note that the school was described in a prospectus as “an oasis of decency for artists outside the system”. It was a great success from the very start and by the end of the year, it had sixty students.

Lucian Freud by Cedric Morris (1941)

In 1939 a seventeen-year-old student by the name of Lucian Freud enrolled at the school, after he had spent a short time studying at the Central School of Art in London.

May Flowering Irises. No.2. by Cedric Morris (1935)

In July 1939, disaster struck when the old Dedham house was destroyed by fire. Living nearby was the artist Alfred Munnings, who would become the President of the Royal Academy in 1944. He was one of England’s finest painters of horses, and an outspoken critic of Modernism which Cedric Morris practiced He shed no tears when the Dedham art establishment of Morris and Lett Haines burnt to the ground and it was reported that he had his chauffer drive him around the burnt-out house, gloating at its destruction, and cheered loudly at the destruction of what he saw as an odious development in art .

Benton End, the home to the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing (Photo: Benton End House & Garden Trust)

Not to be deterred by this disaster, at the end of 1939, Morris and Lett Haines discovered Benton End, a rambling 16th-century house with gardens, on the outskirts of Hadleigh in Suffolk. The large size of the place allowed the artists to live and run their school and also accommodate their students in one place, which hadn’t been possible at the previous venue.

In 1946, Cedric Morris and Lett-Haines became founder members of Colchester Art Society and later Morris became the society’s president. In 1947, on the death of his father, Cedric became Sir Cedric Lockwood Morris, 9th Baronet. Deteriorating eyesight in the mid 1970s curtailed most of his art. The Dedham school closed shortly after Lett Haines died on February 25^th 1978, aged 84.

Cedric Morris continued to live at Benton End until his own death on February 8^th 1982, aged 92. The two are buried near each other at Hadleigh Cemetery in Hadleigh. Morris’s gravestone, in front, and Lett-Haines, in back on the right.

The information for this blog came from the many websites about the life of Cedric Morris and Lett Haines as well as Richard Morphet’s Tate Gallery book on Cedric Morris, the great Welsh artist.

Benjamin Robert Haydon.

Part 3. The Elgin Marbles affair

Judgement of Solomon by Benjamin Haydon

The eventual sale of Haydon’s painting, Judgement of Solomon, to a pair of Plymouth bankers, Sir William Elford and his partner, Mr T J Tingcombe gave Haydon a much needed seven hundred guineas but although that lessened his debt, he still owed more than four hundred guineas to various other creditors. Even before the sale of the work Hayden had decided that he would complete another monumental biblical painting and ordered in the large canvas measuring 396 x 457 cms, a metre taller and a metre wider than his Judgement of Solomon canvas, which was considered colossal at the time. Haydon believed that the finished work would bolster his artistic stature as a great historical painter. The subject of the painting would be the arrival of Christ into Jerusalem a few days before his crucifixion.

Christ’s Triumphant entry into Jerusalem by Benjamin Haydon (1812-16)

In August 1814, despite his dire financial situation, Haydon took a two-month trip to Paris with Wilkie, He returned to London and started his monumental biblical painting. A month later he was struck down with severe eye trouble and had to take time off to recuperate on the south coast. News came in September that lifted his spirits. He had been made Freeman of Plymouth for his “extraordinary merit as a historical painter and particularly for his recent painting”. His latest biblical painting progressed slowly and for the last three months of the year he set about recruiting models for the depiction.

The painting was not completed until the end of 1816.

Portrait of Leigh Hunt by Benjamin Haydon (1813)

The monumental painting was halted for a short time to allow Haydon to complete a portrait of his friend James Henry Leigh Hunt which he had started a couple of years previously. Leigh Hunt was an English essayist, critic and poet who had worked in the War Office before becoming editor of The Examiner, a journal that had been founded by his brother John Hunt, and had articles also written by another brother Robert Hunt. It was a controversial publication often writing stinging attacks on the government and the royalty, some in the shape of personal attacks on the Prince Regent. In 1813 the government tried the three brothers and for their attacks on the unpopular prince regent and they were sentenced to two years imprisonment. Leigh Hunt, who continued to write for The Examiner whilst languishing in the Surrey County Gaol. He was regarded as a martyr in the cause of liberty. He was released from prison in February 2^nd 1813. John Hunt had approached Haydon to paint his brother’s portrait. The portrait shows Leigh Hunt as a pale-faced man with round cheeks and pouting lips. The broad, floppy white collar gave him a young appearance, younger than his thirty-one years. The portrait had not been a labour of love for Haydon who wrote about the different feelings he had painting his large biblical painting against his feelings about painting the portrait:

“…I miserably feel……different sensations after concluding [the portrait] to those after a day’s work on my Picture [Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem]. The one was all the timid, mean sensation of a face; the other all the swelling, bursting glories of realising….visions of imaginations. I feel the beauties of individuality as much as any one, the sharpness and softness of flesh, the delicacy of touch, and calm sweetness of breath & melting, racy flush of colour, but if all these tend to elicit a mean character, of what value are they?…”

After this experience, Benjamin Haydon refused to paint another portrait and this determination lasted eight years.

Despite the money, seven hundred guineas, Haydon had received for his Solomon painting together with a one hundred guinea prize for it from the British Institution, he was still deeply in debt which had been exacerbated by his two-month “holiday” in France. His financial situation was so bad that he had to make his first visit to a moneylender asking for one hundred guineas, He described the man as:

“… a little low fellow, with red eyes, his lids hanging down over his pupils so that he was obliged to throw his head back & look at you through the slit, as it were, his eye lids made…”

The moneylender had a novel way of making a profit from the transaction as he made Haydon buy a poor quality sketch of Rubens for twenty guineas before he gave him the loan !

Christ’s Agony in the Garden by Benjamin Haydon

George Philips, the MP for Ilchester in Somerset, had approached Haydon with regards a five hundred guinea commission to paint the biblical work depicting Christ’s Agony in the Garden. Haydon received 100 guinea on account and two months later a further 100 guineas. In 1815 Haydon once again approached Philips to solicit more money, despite not having started the commission, nor had he completed his painting entitled Christ’s Triumphant Entry into Jerusalem. His work on his paintings had to stop that September as his eyesight was deteriorating and he was advised to convalesce on the south coast and he moved to Brighton. After a month, the solitude caused him to become depressed but that was alleviated with the arrival of his friend, David Wilkie.

Haydon sleeping – A sketch by David Wilkie (1815)

While staying with Haydon in Brighton Wilkie made a quick sketch of his friend whilst he was asleep. The sketch depicts the artist lying on his side, arms crossed over his chest, right hand resting on a book, still wearing his glasses. It is a sketch of great tranquility, one portraying his friend as being somewhat gentle, carefree but with a certain vulnerability. This was at the mid-point in Haydon’s life with no inclination of what was coming. Haydon and Wilkie returned to London a month later.

A portrait depicting the Elgin Marbles in a temporary Elgin Room at the British Museum surrounded by museum staff, a trustee and visitors, 1819

Benjamin Haydon fell in love with the Elgin Marbles from the very first encounter with them accompanied by his friend David Wilkie, when the two of them visited the makeshift museum in a shed at the bottom of a garden of Gloucester House. Haydon declared they were the most heroic style of art combined with all the essential details of actual life. He spent hours and days in Lord Elgin’s garden shed/museum making copies of the figures and the artefacts so they could be used for his Dentatus painting Haydon would constantly think, speak and write of the Elgin’s Marbles until his death.

In December of 1798 Thomas Bruce, the Seventh Earl of Elgin and Eleventh Earl of Kincardine, was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of His Britannic Majesty to the Sublime Porte of Selim III, Sultan of Turkey. Lord Elgin decided to undertake a survey of the Temple of Minerva (the Parthenon) at Athens to record and remove Greek antiquities, fearing their destruction in the ongoing conflict between the Greeks and the Turks. Elgin decided he would engage, at his own expense, a team of artists and architects to produce plaster casts and detailed drawings of ancient Greek buildings, sculptures and artefacts. Later it was decided to remove about half of the Parthenon frieze, fifteen metopes, and seventeen pedimental sculpture fragments and Elgin and his team arranged to bring back casts and sketches that might serve to improve the general “taste” in Britain. They became known as the Elgin Marbles and were removed from Ottoman Greece and between 1801 and 1812 and then were transported to Britain by agents of the Earl of Elgin. According to Elgin, the act of removing the artefacts was with permission of the Ottoman officials who, at the time, exercised authority in Athens. The truth with regards this “permission” has since been queried. The bringing to Britain of these structures was not well-received in all quarters with Lord Byron, at the time, likening Elgin’s actions as a form of vandalism and looting.

Visitors at the British Museum looking at sections of the frieze of the Elgin Marbles

In 1816 Lord Elgin, newly divorced and deeply in debt, needed to sell the Marbles to the UK government in an attempt to recoup the £74,240 it had cost him to remove them and bring them to England. However, there was one big problem for Elgin, as he and the government had differing views as to their worth. The diplomat and Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs under the then British Prime Minister, Lord Castlereagh, valued them at £62,000. Artists such as Sir Thomas Lawrence, a future President of the Royal Academy and Benjamin West, the incumbent President of the Royal Academy and sculptors such as Joseph Nollekens, John Flaxman and Richard Westmacott were sounded out by the government’s Select Committee as to what they believed the Marbles were worth and most believed they were of a superior standard, although most declined to put a figure on them. The government turned to the Art Connoisseurs, art experts, with a more refined and more intricate knowledge about art and artists who advised institutions and investors. One such connoisseur was Richard Payne Knight, Britain’s “leading” antiquarian, who was outspoken about the Marbles being of “mixed quality”, some of which were “second-rate” and he advised the government that they should pay Elgin no more than £25,000 which he still believed was twice what they were worth on the open market.

Much to his annoyance Benjamin Haydon, who loved the artefacts and spent days copying them, was not consulted about their worth. However, this did not stop him voicing his opinion on the matter. Between the completion of the Select Committee’s meetings and the publication of their report about the value they put on Elgin’s Marbles, Haydon launched a bitter attack in the pages of the Examiner, a leading intellectual journal expounding radical principles, and the Champion, a radical eight-page newspaper. His article entitled On the Judgement of Connoisseurs being preferred to that of Professional Men, he was critical of the Government listening to the advice of Connoisseurs (such as Payne Knight) rather than the advice of artists and sculptors. He went on to write that in no other profession is the opinion of the man who has studied a subject for his amusement preferred to that of him who has devoted his soul to excel at it, adding that no man would trust his limb to a connoisseur in surgery.

Haydon’s comments are thought to have irked the government, which finally offered Lord Elgin £35,000 for the Marbles which he reluctantly accepted. Haydon however, due to the article in the journals, had made a name for himself and he even had the article translated into a number of foreign languages. There was a downside to this for Haydon who incurred the wrath of the “Connoisseurs” and in particular Lord Mulgrave who had made plans for Haydon with the British Institution directors. They were shelved as they believed Haydon’s criticism of Richard Payne Knight was a criticism of them. Once again Haydon had upset the “establishment” On April 19^th 1816, after the Parliamentary Select Subcommittee that had been appointed to make recommendations concerning the purchase of Lord Elgin’s collection announced that they were in favour of the purchase and in June 1816, granted £35,000 to Lord Elgin in exchange for the sculptures.

Many of the public believed that the government should not waste their money on buying Elgin’s Marbles and instead, be spending the money on much more needy things such as alleviating poverty and feeding the people during the time of famine. A John Bull satirical cartoon appeared in the newspaper in 1816 highlighted the problem. In the cartoon by George Cruikshank entitled The Elgin Marbles! or John Bull buying stones at the time his numerous family want bread, John Bull’s family are starving during the famine caused by the catastrophic harvest of 1816. During the same summer the 7th Earl of Elgin persuaded the British government to purchase the sculptures he had removed from the temples of the Athenian acropolis. The cartoon depicts the Leader of the House of Commons, Lord Castlereagh, as a sinister salesman trying to lure John Bull into buying some statues. It depicts Castlereagh saying:

“…Here’s a Bargain for you Johnny! Only £35,000!! I have bought them on purpose for you! Never think of Bread when you can have Stones so wonderous Cheap!!…”

…………………………………..to be continued

The majority of the information I have used in this and the subsequent blogs on the life of Benjamin Haydon came from an excellent second-hand book, published in 1998, I came across entitled A Genius for Failure, The Life of Benjamin Robert Haydon by Paul O’Keefe. If you are interested in Haydon’s life, I can highly recommend you try to get yourself a copy.

In this particular blog further information I gleaned regarding the Elgin Marbles came from the Foundations website:

http://ww2.jhu.edu/foundations/?p=8

Benjamin Robert Haydon

The beginning.

Benjamin Robert Haydon

I was watching the film Mr Turner for the second time the other day and often on a second viewing of a film or the second reading of a book you come across things that you didn’t see the first time around. During the second viewing of the film about Turner I noticed a minor character in it who Turner referred to as Haydon. He was depicted as a “fussy” man who had great money troubles and was constantly approaching Turner for a financial loan. I had never come across an artist named Haydon and it peaked my interest. So, let me share with you a look at the life and works of a very troubled, whom some would say, was a very talented English artist. Let me introduce you to Benjamin Robert Haydon.

Benjamin Robert Haydon by William Nicholson RSA (c.1820)

Benjamin Robert Haydon was born in Wimpole Street in the south coast English garrison town of Plymouth on January 26^th, 1876. He had a younger sister Harriet; another sister, Sarah, had died in infancy. His father was Benjamin Robert Haydon who had married his wife Mary, one of eight children and the second daughter of the Rev. Benjamin Cobley, curate of Shillingford and later, the rector of Dodbrook, near Kingsbridge, in the county of Devon. Haydon’s father was a well-to-do printer, stationer and publisher and had a shop in Plymouth at 75 Market Place. He was also an amateur “special correspondent” to the Bristol Journal, who as he lived in a garrison town, he enjoyed writing about the valorous exploits of the English military heroes fighting for their country in various parts of the world.

The Banishment of Aristides from Athens by Benjamin Haydon

In 1792 Benjamin Haydon, then aged six, first attended school and it was the start of his interest in sketching and he would often draw rough portraits of his school friends.. The following year, 1793, England and France went to war and it was that same year that seven-year-old Benjamin Haydon attended the Plymouth Grammar School run by the headmaster, the Reverend Dr. Bidlake. Bidlake, Haydon recalled the head painted and played the organ and realising the young Haydon had a love and aptitude for sketching gave him and one of his fellow pupils some painting lessons. That fellow student was Samuel Prout who would later become a renowned watercolourist, and one of the masters of watercolour architectural painting. Bidlake encouraged Haydon to paint landscapes en plein air but this was countered by the advice given to him by a Neapolitan worker in his father’s business, a Mr. Fenzi, who would regale excitedly about the works of Raphael and Michelangelo. Haydon was excited about what he saw and heard and remembered Fenzi’s words of advice about ignoring landscape painting and concentrate on figurative painting:

“…Do not draw de landscape; draw de feegoore, Master Benjamin…”

When Haydon was eleven years old he contracted measles and was laid up in bed. He recalled the time well, as his father visited his bedside to excitedly announce the British naval victory at Cape St Vincent. Later Haydon recalled the excitement in the household with the news of Horatio Nelson’s naval victories.

Plympton Grammar School

In 1798, at the age of twelve, Haydon left Plymouth Grammar School and was admitted as a boarder to All Hallows School in Honiton, some sixty miles from his home. Here the headmaster was Reverend William Hayne who was tasked by Haydon’s father to help his son improve his art. In 1800 Reverend William Hayne was offered a teaching post at Plympton Grammar School and he accepted and moved his family and pupils to Plympton St Maurice. In a way it was a return home for Haydon who had spent his early years nearby. Fifty years earlier the grammar school had been where the artist, Sir Joshua Reynolds, studied and Reynold’s father had been the headmaster. In all, Haydon had been under the tutelage of Reverend Hayne for two years at Honiton and a further six months at Plympton Grammar where he rose to become head boy at the age of fifteen and by which time he had acquired a good understanding of the Latin, Greek, and French languages.

Haydon left the school and the world of the classic literature and had to decide on his next move. However, that decision was taken away from him by his father who saw his son as being his successor in the family business and so had his son move to Exeter where he studied business and as Haydon saw it, the dry tuition of profit/loss and ledgers. He was not enamoured by the world of finance and bookkeeping. His course lasted six months at which time he returned home to Plymouth where he was indentured for a period of seven years as an apprentice to his father. Life could not have been worse according to young Haydon who hated everything about the job. He hated everything – his father’s customers, serving behind the counter in his father’s shop, working on his father’s accounts. Nothing pleased him and he would spend long periods of time sulking at his lot in life.

Benjamin Haydon came to the conclusion that his future lay ahead as an artist. His father and his grandfather both had similar thoughts at Benjamin’s age but they soon faded and Benjamin’s father believed the same would happen to his son’s great artistic ambitions. Heated and constant family arguments followed on a daily basis over young Haydon’s future, so much so, Haydon became ill and suffered severe inflammation of his eyes. Benjamin’s father believed this would put an end to his son’s fantasies of becoming an artist and told him he could never become an artist as he couldn’t see properly, but he was mistaken for his son was not to be deflected.

Discourses by Sir Joshua Reynolds

Haydon believed that his eyesight problem was not a major stumbling block and he was buoyed by the words of Joshua Reynolds in his first Discourse he delivered to the Royal Academy during the opening session in January 1769. Reynolds set out his theories on art in a series of fifteen lectures in the Royal Academy Schools, which were later published as Discourses on Art. It was all about the fact that nothing would be achieved without hard work. Reynolds said:

“…But young men have not only this frivolous ambition of being thought masters of execution inciting them on one hand, but also their natural sloth tempting them on the other. They are terrified at the prospect before them of the toil required to attain exactness. The impetuosity of youth is disgusted at the slow approaches of a regular siege, and desires, from mere impatience of labor, to take the citadel by storm. They wish to find some shorter path to excellence and hope to obtain the reward of eminence by other means than those w4iich the indispensable rules of art have prescribed. They must, therefore, be told again and again that labor is the only price of solid fame, and that whatever their force of genius may be, there is no easy method of becoming a good painter…”

Haydon met Samuel Northcote, one of his father’s customers and hearing of young Haydon’s wish to become an artist Northcote advised him to study anatomy. Haydon took that advice and purchased a book at the Plymouth Naval Hospital Auction entitled Tables of the Skeleton and Muscles of the Human Body written by Bernhard Siegfried Albinus in 1749 It cost him two pounds ten shillings, an amount he did not have ! This attitude to buying things he could not afford would haunt him all his life. Haydon rushed home and spoke to his father who grudgingly gave him the money. Haydon immersed himself in the anatomy book and after two weeks of constant studying the drawings and information, he claimed that he knew every muscle and every bone in the human body.

Haydon’s constant battle with his mother and father as to his future continued with neither side relaxing their stance. However, he must have finally worn them down as they finally agreed to him travelling to London and enrolling on a two-year course at the Royal Academy Schools. They gave him an initial twenty pounds to cover the cost of lodgings which he secured in the Strand, close to Somerset House, the home of the Royal Academy. The course was free of charge but to get a place on the course one had to be recommended by an Academician. This was achieved through Haydon’s uncle Benjamin Cobley who contacted his friend and Academician, Prince Hoare. Haydon left Plymouth on an overnight coach on the morning of May 4^th 1804 and arrived in London the next day.

Haydon, on arrival in London, took lodgings at 3 Broad Street, Carnaby Market. One of the first outings Haydon made was to the Royal Academy’s thirty-sixth annual exhibition which was being held at Somerset House (The Royal Academy did not move to its present location at Burlington House on Piccadilly until 1868). There was a one shilling entrance fee which entitled you to a catalogue and according to the catalogue outlined the reason for the charge:

“…it was to prevent the Rooms from being filled by improper Persons, to the entire Exclusion of those for whom the Exhibition is apparently intended…”

Laocoön’s head

Haydon settled into his course at the Royal Academy Schools and studied hard. He decided that his favoured painting genre would be that of historical paintings. The first stage of his admission to the Royal Academy Schools was to present a drawing from plaster casts and so he immediately went to a seller of plaster casts who had a shop in nearby Drury Lane. Here he purchased a cast of Laocoön’s head, a famous pieces of Hellenistic sculpture, along with some casts of arms, hands and feet and these together with his copy of Albinus’ anatomy book he set about creating acceptable drawings. He worked non-stop and described his daily ritual:

“…I rose when I woke, at three, four or five; drew at anatomy until eight, in chalk from my casts from nine to one and from half-one until five – then walked, dined and to anatomy again from seven to ten and eleven…”

Dissection of the neck from the 1794 book ‘Engravings, Explaining the Anatomy of the Bones, Muscles and Joints’ by John Bell.

Another early purchase Haydon made was a copy of the 1794 book Anatomy of the Bones, Muscles and Joints by John Bell and this was to supplement his Albinus book on anatomy.

It took a while before he made meaningful friendships with the exception of his sponsor and Royal Academy’s Secretary of Foreign Correspondence, Prince Hoare, who, on seeing Haydon’s sketches introduced him to John Opie and James Northcote. Opie concurred with Haydon as to the importance of studying anatomy whereas Northcote advised Haydon to forget about anatomy and historical paintings and concentrate on portraiture but Haydon would not be deterred. At the meetings Haydon spoke to the two artists about whether he should take lessons from a master. Once again Opie and Northcote had differing views. Opie was for it, Northcote against it saying Opie was only interested in extracting money from Haydon and Haydon’s father. In the end he decided to follow Opie’s advice about studying anatomy but Northcote’s advice with regards not working under a master painter.

The Nightmare by Fuseli (1781)

On Christmas Eve 1804 Prince Hoare introduced Haydon to the Academy’s Professor of Painting, the Swiss-born painter John Henry Fuseli. Fuseli held the position at the Royal Academy as Keeper, who carried overall responsibility for the Royal Academy Schools. Haydon had seen Fuseli’s “strange” works such as his 1781 painting The Nightmare and his 1802 painting, Uriel watches Saturn on his Flight to Earth, a print of which he remember seeing in his father’s shop and so was delighted to visit this great master in early January and show him his sketches. Fuseli was duly impressed with Haydon’s works and granted him admission to the RA Schools as a Probationer.

A sheet of anatomical drawings of the bones, muscles and tendons of the arm and hands by Benjamin Haydon (ca. 1805)

One of Haydon’s early tasks he had to perform at the RA School was to copy a cast but the object was set up some distance from him and he realised that his poor sight was going to pose a problem and so had to purchase a pair of spectacles. Haydon continued to work hard and such attitude found favour with Fuseli.

The statue of the athlete Discobulus by Myron (c.450BC)

In March 1804, having completed the task of drawing the figure of Discobolus he received his “ticket” and became a ”Student of Painting”. Shortly after, Haydon was summoned home by his family as his father was dying. However, despite still being a patient at Royal Naval Hospital in Plymouth his father had recovered and Haydon remained in the city that summer. Haydon immediately sought permission from the hospital authorities to draw from their collection of preserved human bones with dried muscle. He drew obsessively, combining his depiction of the specimens with poses typically found in anatomical textbooks.

Anatomical drawing of the bones and muscles of the lower leg by Benjamin Haydon (1805)

The result was an album with a collection of anatomical drawings. Haydon believed that anatomy was the key to comprehending the ‘principles of heroic form’ which would then result in successful completion of grand historical works which was still his artistic aim. His ambition was to become the greatest historical painter England had ever known.

……to be continued

The majority of the information I have used in this and the subsequent blogs on the life of Benjamin Haydon came from an excellent second-hand book, published in 1998, I came across entitled A Genius for Failure, The Life of Benjamin Robert Haydon by Paul O’Keefe. If you are interested in Haydon’s life, I can highly recommend you try to get yourself a copy.