Tag: Art

Gertrude Horsford Fiske

Gertrude Horsford Fiske

The artist I am looking at today is the nineteenth century American painter Gertrude Horsford Fiske who was famous for painting people, still life, and landscapes. Gertrude Fiske was born into an established New England family that can trace their family history way back to the Governor of Plymouth Colony, William Bradford an English Puritan Separatist originally from the West Riding of Yorkshire in Northern England who moved to Leiden in Holland in order to escape persecution from King James I of England, and then emigrated to the Plymouth Colony on the Mayflower in 1620. Gertrude, born in 1879, was one of six children born into a wealthy Boston family, her father being an eminent lawyer. She was educated in Boston’s best schools but during her teenage years she showed little interest in art as much of her free time was taken up with horse riding and golf. She proved herself to be an extremely skilled professional golfer.

Woman in White by Gertrude Fiske

It was not until she was twenty-five years old that she took an interest in art and began to look at the possibility that her future could be as a professional artist. In 1904 she enrolled on a seven-year course at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, (now the art school of Tufts University), where her tutors included Edmund C. Tarbell, an American Impressionist painter, Frank Weston Benson, known for his Realistic portraits, American Impressionist paintings, watercolours and etchings and Philip Leslie Hale, an American Impressionist artist, writer and teacher.

Charles Herbert Woodbury by John Singer Sargent (1921)


During the summers, she attended Charles Herbert Woodbury’s art classes in Ogunquit, Maine. Ogunquit was originally populated by The Abenaki indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands of Canada and the United States and in their language the name of the town means “beautiful place by the sea”. In the early years of the twentieth century, it had become a popular destination for artists who wanted to capture the landscape’s natural elegance.

Ogunquit Beach by Gertrude Fiske (1914)

Ogunquit Beach by Gertrude Fiske

Soon, a community of artists formed the Ogunquit Summer School of Drawing and Painting which was founded by Charles Woodbury. Woodbury was a great influence on Gertrude Fiske’s informative years and he encouraged her and her fellow students to “paint in verbs, not in nouns.” By this, he meant that his students should enter into the life of the things they painted. He wanted to inspire them to fresh, “active” seeing and expressive creativity and told them that in seascapes they did not draw what they saw of the wave – you draw what it does. The phrase implied that painting is perceptual and that realism is evidence of the felt and the seen and not just of what’s visible.

Bettina by Gertrude Fiske (1925)

Because of the family’s wealth, Fiske had the financial freedom to pursue her painting career and after she completed her time at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 1912, she spent time in France, continually sketching as she travelled. Her artistic style was a blend of the light-filled, classical, portrait style she had mastered under Edmund C. Tarbell with the freer, inventive, and colour-rich landscapes she had learnt during her summers spent at the Ogunquit school.

Nude in Interior by Gertrude Fiske (c.1922)

Gertrude Fiske painted a number of works featuring nudes. Her painting entitled Nude in Interior was completed around 1922. The subject of this work, the nude female, is shown posing for the artist, the image of whom we see in the background, reflected in a mirror. Gertrude often used this inclusion as a means to put over to the viewers the importance of the painter.

Bird of Paradise, Sleeping Nude by Gertrude Fiske (c.1916)

Another controversial nude work was her 1916 painting entitled Bird of Paradise, Sleeping Nude which received mixed reviews. It was praised for its honesty but more conservative critics said it was a scandalous depiction. Before us we see a foreshortened figure of a naked woman who appears supremely relaxed and unaware of us, the viewers. It is simply an honest depiction of a real woman.

Zinnias by Gertrude Fiske (c.1920)

Gertrude returned to America but tragedy struck her family with the deaths of a sister, brother and mother around the time that the First World War was raging in Europe. Fiske then had to care for her aging father. However, despite the tragic losses and her new role as a carer she continued to be a prolific and much-admired painter. She kept a studio in Boston as well as at her family’s longtime home, Stadhaugh, in the town of Weston, fifteen miles west of Boston. It was at Stadhaugh that she worked in her studio which was located on the top floor of a converted barn. It had a picturesque setting overlooking woods and this vista served as the backdrop for several of her works.

By the Pond by Gertrude Fiske (c.1916)

In 1914, she, along with prominent painters of the day, including Edmund Tarbell, William Paxton and Frank Benson, helped create the Guild of Boston Artists. Its mission was to promote both emerging and established artists who lived in the region. The Guild developed a reputation for excellence in quality and presentation. Later, in 1917, Gertrude was part of setting up the Boston Society of Etchers and in 1918 Fiske became a member of the National Association of Women Artists.

Strollers by Gertrude Fiske (c.1926)

After the end of the First World War, America staged a rapidly growing industrial way of life and along with waves of immigration in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, elements of a new national consciousness arose in the United States. It was considered to be part of the colonial revival, which found expression in architecture, decorative arts, paintings, and all types of material life which represented an effort to regain a sense of an earlier time in America. Boston was in the forefront of colonial revivalism, and it was the Boston School of Painting, led by Edmund C. Tarbell, that is closely identified with the movement. Gertrude Fiske, who had spent seven years there as a full-time student at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, was trained in this artistic dream of the future.

Wells, Maine by Gertrude Fiske


However Fiske was an independently minded and instead of blindly following social convention and the strong direction proposed by the Boston school with its more genteel mannerisms, she ploughed her own furrow and in her landscape depictions instead of removing signs of industry and technology from her work, she made a conscious decision to include them. A good example of this can be seen in her painting entitled Wells, Maine, in which she has retained depictions of a line of utility poles, with a secondary electrical line running across the painting. Her composition with utility poles set against the background of a seascape demonstrates the artist’s interest in juxtaposing signs of modernity with scenes more traditionally considered beautiful.

Portsmouth Burying Ground by Gertrude Fiske (c.1925)

Another example of Fiske’s urban landscape work is one she completed around 1932 entitled Portsmouth Burying Ground which depicts Portsmouth, New Hampshire’s oldest cemetery, known as the Point of Graves, which is situated on the banks of the Piscataqua River in the south end of town. This small historic cemetery dating to the 17th century was the final resting place for many of Portsmouth’s prominent residents. It is the oldest known surviving cemetery in Portsmouth, and one of the oldest in the state, which has about 125 gravestones. Whereas many landscape painters would have spent time amidst the beauty of the countryside Gertrude has chosen this discordant, working waterfront to position her easel to take in the surrounding land. Fiske confounded viewers of this work when she depicted the bright red gasometers and the Sheafe warehouse as a backdrop to the ancient burial ground.

Portrait of William by Gertrude Fiske (1930)

One of her best-known figurative works was one Gertrude completed in 1930 entitled Portrait of William which she exhibited at both the Boston Art Club’s Annual Winter Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting and at the National Academy of Design’s 105th Annual Exhibition. It is part figurative and part an interior depiction which was a popular concept favoured by many of the early Boston School teachers and yet she put her own mark on the composition by her use of colours, such as the juxtaposition of the green of the fabric on the pillows with the dotted Swiss cotton of the woman’s purple dress. She also adopts an unusual placement of figures and objects in the work.

The Carpenter by Gertrude Fiske (1922)

Gertrude Fiske was appointed as the first woman ever to the Massachusetts State Art Commission in January 1930. She was also the the founder of the Concord Art Association. In an article in January 1930’s Boston Globe it was written that she had always had a strong artistic individuality of her own, and there is a note of personal distinction in all of her work—a virile note.

Fiske died in 1961 in Weston, Massachusetts aged 82.

Jean-Jacques Henner

In my previous blog regarding the Dutch painter Thérèse Schwartze I mentioned that one of her early art tutors was Jean-Jacques Henner, the French painter famed for his portraiture.  Today I am going to focus on his life and his many artworks.

Jean-Jacques Henner

Henner was born on March 5th 1829 at the Alsatian town of Bernwiller.  Henner came from a family of Alsatian farmers who had settled in Bernwiller in the Haut-Rhin. He was the youngest of six siblings of George Guillaume Polycarpe Henner and Madeleine Henner (née Wadel).  He had two older sisters, Maria Anne and Madeleine and three older brothers, Séraphin, Grégoire and Ignace. He grew up in this farming community, but despite their modest financial situation, his parents sent him to the College of Altkirch where he studied drawing. His teacher was Charles Goutzwiller who noticed his rapid progress and encouraged him to move to Strasbourg and study at the studio of Gabriel-Christophe Guérin. His artistic studies continued when he enroled at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris as a pupil of Michel-Martin Drolling,  a neoclassic French painter noted especially as a history painter and portraitist. In 1851 he was tutored by another French artist, François-Édouard Picot, famed for his mythological, religious and historical paintings.   

Adam and Eve find the Body of Abel by Jean-Jacques Henner (1858)

In 1848, he entered the École des Beaux Arts in Paris and in 1858 after two failed attempts he won the coveted Grand Prix de Rome award, which was a French scholarship for arts students.  His submission was his painting entitled Adam and Eve find the Body of Abel.  The prize for the winner was a bursary that allowed them to stay at the Villa Medici in Rome, for three to five years at the expense of the state. The painting can be seen at the Musée d’Orsay.

Mountains on the Outskirts of Rome by Jean-Jacques Henner (c.1861)

During his five-year stay in Rome, he was guided by Jean-Hippolyte Flandrin, a French Neoclassical painter.  Like many artists, Henner was captivated by Italy and spent many hours in museums reproducing the works of the painters that he respected. He also had plenty of time during his five-year stay to travel around the country, visiting Florence, Venice and Naples in which time he completed a number of small landscape paintings.  His works at that time showed his appreciation of past masters and it was Titian and Correggio who influenced him the most. In 1864 Henner returned to Paris and brought back copies of works by masters and a number of luminous landscapes.

Rome from the terrace of the Villa Medici by Jean-Jacques Henner (1860)

During those five years in Rome Henner painted this work at the Villa Medici where he stayed between 1859 and 1864. This is not simply a view of the Eternal City as observed from the villa. Once he had painted the garden, Henner then populated the terrace with groups of what he believed were “typical” characters, which he had often seen in real life and are simply identifiable by their clothes, monks, peasants, and elegant ladies. All are depicted in front of the classical panorama of the city, in which one can see the silhouette of Saint Peter’s Basilica in the background.

Masure dans la campagne de Rome (Dilapiated House in the Countryside of Rome) by Jean-Jacques Henner (c.1863)

La Chaste Suzanne by Jean-Jacques Henner (1864)

Henner had his painting Bather Asleep exhibited at the Salon in 1863 and at the following year’s Salon his painting La Chaste Suzanne was exhibited. The Biblical episode depicting Suzanne bathing was a popular one for painters and it was above all an opportunity for various artists to paint a beautiful nude. Jean-Jacques Henner sent back his version to the French Academy which he completed whilst in his last year of his residence at the Villa Medici in Rome. For Henner, this was a compulsory exercise, supposed to demonstrate the student’s progress and their skill in execution, and for the Academy to see if their prize winner was advancing artistically.

Sacred Love and Profane Love by Titian (1514)

Henner almost certainly took his inspiration from respected examples left by the great masters’ depiction of nudes which he had seen whilst in the Italian capital. It is thought that Henner was influenced Titian’s 1514 painting entitled Sacred Love and Profane Love which was at the Galleria Borghese in Rome. Henner’s work was not well-received and was harshly criticised for the heaviness and lack of graciousness in the model’s body. It was also criticised for the artificiality of the subject which although being put forward as a history/biblical painting offered little more than a depiction of a bather. However the propensity of ridding any narrative self-justification in painting the nude, and so giving it as a subject in itself, was becoming more common in the work of many contemporary artists, such as Courbet.

Séraphin Henner (brother) by Jean-Jacques Henner (c.1881)

Grégoir Henner (brother) by Jean-Jacques Henner (1889)

While a student in Paris Henner was particularly interested in portraiture, and during his frequent visits home to Alsace he would complete many portraits of his family as well as local dignitaries and scenes of Alsatian peasant life.

Eugénie and Jules Henner by Jean-Jacques Henner (c.1865)

Eugénie and Jules were two of the three children of his brother, Séraphin and his wife, Madeleine. Henner was very close to his nephew and niece and he paid for violin lessons for Jules and piano lessons for Eugenie when they were little. Henner had no children of his own, and on his death, he bequeathed them all that he possessed. Here, Eugénie and Jules are depicted together in their childhood.

Paul Henner by Jean-Jacques Henner (before 1867)

A rather sad portrait. Paul Henner was the third child of Séraphin and Madeleine Henner. He was born in 1860, but sadly died seven years later.

Byblis by Jean-Jacques Henner (c.1870)

In 1864 Henner returned to France and exhibited with great success at the Paris Salon between 1865 and 1903. During his early days back in France his works were of quasi-mythological subjects, such as his 1867 work entitled Byblis, which was exhibited at the 1867 Salon.

Jean-Jacques Henner in his Paris studio at 11 place Pigalle

Jean-Jacques Henner lived in rue La Bruyère and his studio was at 11 place Pigalle, where he lived from 1867.

L’Alsace. Elle Attend (Alsace, She Waits) by Jean-Jacques Henner (1871)

Jean-Jacques Henner’s birthplace was the region of Alsace and this north-east area of France borders Germany. With the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, Alsace and northern Lorraine were annexed to the new German Empire. At the conclusion of the First World War, the defeat of Germany, and the Treaty of Versailles, Alsace once again came under French control. In 1940, during the Second World War Alsace–Lorraine was occupied by Germany during the Second World War. Although it was never formally annexed, Alsace–Lorraine was incorporated into the Greater German Reich. With the defeat of Germany in 1945 Alsace returned to French rule. Henner’s 1871 painting entitled L’Alsace. Elle Attend had political overtones. It depicts a young Alsatian woman in mourning and is a political comment on the German annexation of the province after the Franco-Prussian War. The patriotic image was very popular and achieved a wide circulation when it was engraved by Léopold Flameng.
L’Alsace. Elle Attend meaning Alsace, she awaits, was commissioned on the initiative of Eugénie Kestner, a member of the Thann industrial family from Alsace. On completion it was given Léon Gambetta, a French lawyer and republican politician, who was one of the fiercest opponents of the relinquishment of the Alsace-Lorraine region to the new German Empire following the war of 1870. Following the defeat of France by the Prussian armies a sense of fervent and heightened patriotism followed. Henner’s painting quickly became looked upon as a symbol of Alsace’s suffering, a pain shared by the painter who was very attached to the region of his birth. The painting depicts a young Alsatian woman in mourning, unassuming but gracious.

Donna sul divano nero (Woman on Black Divan) by Jean-Jacques Henner (1869)

At that time, Henner had assumed a naturalistic style which can be seen in his painting entitled Woman on a Black Divan, which was exhibited at the Salon of 1869 and now is housed at the Mulhouse, Musée des Beaux-Arts. A smaller version of this painting also included a rosette in the red, white and blue colours of France, pinned onto the traditional black Alsatian bow, gives the painting its patriotic significance without being pompous or anecdotal.

Magdalene in the Desert by Jean-Jacques Henner (1874)

After 1870 Henner’s entire work became a deliberation on the theme of death in various appearances. There were the depictions of Mary Magdalene in what became known as the Magdalene Series, such as Magdalene in the Desert, which was exhibited at the 1874 Salon, and Magdalene Weeping, which he completed in 1885.

Die Magadalena by Jean-Jacques Henner (Exhibited at the 1878 Salon)

La Magdaleine by Jean-Jacques Henner

Henner complted many more Magdalene paintings.

The Dead Christ by Jean-Jacques Henner (c.1884)

Jesus at the Tomb by Jean-Jacques Henner (c.1879)

There was also a number of works in Henner’s Dead Christ series with paintings such as Jesus at the Tomb, which was exhibited at the 1879 Salon and is now part of the Musée d’Orsay collection and the painting entitled Dead Christ which was exhibited at the 1884 Salon and now hangs at the Musée Beaux-Arts in Lille.

Portrait of Madame Laura Leroux by Jean-Jacques Henner

Jean-Jacques Henner will best be remembered for his portraiture which would provide him with financial stability. During his lifetime he completed many portraits of his family and famous people like his Portrait of Madame Laura Leroux. Laura Leroux-Revault was a French artist and painter. Her first teacher was her father, the painter Louis Hector Leroux and she later trained at the Académie Julian art school in Paris. She also trained under Jules Lefebvre and in Jean-Jacques Henner’s studio. The two artists were friends of her father.

Portrait of Jean-Gaspard-Félix Laché Ravaisson-Mollien by Jean-Jacques Henner (1889)

Another famous person to be immortalised by Henner was Jean-Gaspard-Félix Laché Ravaisson-Mollien, a French philosopher, said to be France’s most influential philosopher in the second half of the nineteenth century.

The Reader by Jean-Jacques Henner

La comtesse Kessler by Jean-Jacques Henner (c.1886)

Henner’s love of portraying nudes in historical or mythological settings was not his only love. He had a passion for the colour red and of portraying women with red hair !

Woman in Red by Jean-Jacques Henner

Les Naïades by Jean-Jacques Henner (1861). Painted for the Soyers’ dining room, 43 rue de Fauborg Saint-Honoré. Paris.

Alsatian Girl by Jean-Jacques Henner

L’Ecoliere by Jean-Jacques Henner

Over the years Henner tutored many aspiring painters. Between 1874 and 1889 he taught at what was termed “the studio of the ladies”, which he organized with Carolus-Duran, during the time when women were not allowed entry to the École des Beaux-Arts. Some of these students also served as his models such as Dorothy Tennant, Suzanne Valadon and Laura Leroux-Revault, daughter of his close friend Hector Leroux; Henner’s full-length portrait of Laura Leroux (shown earlier) is now at the Musée d’Orsay having been shown at the Paris Salon of 1898 and purchased by the French State.

Jean-Jacques Henner (Photograph by Nadar c.1900)

Jean-Jacques Henner died in Paris on July 23rd 1905 aged 76.

Ellen Day Hale

Portrait of Ellen Day Hale by Margaret Lesley Bush-Brown (1944)

The artist I am looking at today is the American painter, Ellen Day Hale.  Ellen Day Hale was born on February 11th, 1855 in Worcester, Massachusetts.  She was born into an elite Boston Brahmin Hale-Beecher family. The Boston Brahmins, sometimes referred to as the Boston elite, are members of Boston’s historic upper class who were associated with a cultivated New England accent, going to Harvard University, Anglicanism, and traditional British-American customs and clothing. They were considered White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs).

Edward Everett Hale

Hale’s father was the author and orator Edward Everett Hale, an American historian, and Unitarian minister, who was best known for his writings such as “The Man Without a Country” which was published in Atlantic Monthly in support of the Union during the Civil War. Her father acted as a Unitarian chaplain in the U.S. Senate from 1904 until his death in 1909, and Ellen Hale often assisted her father in his church-related duties. Her mother was Emily Baldwin Perkins. Although the Hale family was looked upon as being part of the Brahmin elite, they were neither wealthy nor were they well respected among the Boston upper class.  Emily Hale was one of nine children.  Her elder brother died during childbirth and she then became the oldest of eight children with seven younger brothers.  She was brought up in an artistic household and her mother encouraged her interest in art, and her father’s sister was watercolourist Susan Hale, and it was thought that Susan gave Ellen her first artistic instruction. Her brother was Philip Leslie Hale who became a celebrated artist and art critic and who married Lilian Westcott Hale, an Impressionist painter.

Plains Indian Girl by Ellen Day Hale

During the 1870s, Ellen Hale decided that she needed to move forward with her art and look for a formal art education.  It was a good time to cement this artistic idea as Boston was in the middle of what was known as the Boston Renaissance and new cultural institutions were coming into being in the city.  A new and large Boston Public Library had been founded in 1848 and the first large free municipal library in the United States, the first public library to lend books, the first to have a branch library, and the first to have a children’s room.  The Boston Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) was founded in 1870 and in 1876, it moved to a highly ornamented brick Gothic Revival building in Copley Square. 

William Morris Hunt by Helen Mary Knowlton (1896)

Starting in 1874, Hale enrolled on a five-year course at William Morris Hunt’s school for painting, where she studied under Helen Mary Knowlton.  Helen Mary Knowlton had received art tuition from William Morris Hunt, and she told him that she knew of forty women who would love to study art and so in 1868, despite criticism from those who thought he was wasting his time, Hunt began classes for women.  It was not art that he was teaching, he was inspiring his female students and instilling in them a sense of self-worth.  When Hunt died in 1879, Knowlton carried on his work of supporting his female students and getting the group of women to rely upon each other for professional and personal support rather than their husbands or other men,

Morning News by Ellen Day Hale (1905)

Having finished her five years at the William Morris Hunt school she moved to Philadelphia and enrolled at a two-year course at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), where the director was Thomas Eakins.  Following this, in 1881, Ellen Day Hale went to Europe with Helen Knowlton and the pair went on to visit Belgium, Holland, Italy and England continually visiting museums of art and taking time to copy some of the paintings.  For a brief time whilst in London, Hale studied at the  Royal Academy, but she eventually parted company with Knowlton and travelled to Paris where she enrolled with Emmanual Frémiet at the Jardin des Plantes, worked in the atelier of Emile Carolus-Duran, and learned the French academic style at Académie Julian before returning to Boston in 1883.

Self portrait by Ellen Day Hale (1885)

It was whilst back in Boston at her family’s home in Roxbury, Massachusetts, and at the family’s summer home in Matunuck, Rhode Island. that Hale began her self-portrait in 1884.  In this work we see Hale gazing out at us with great assurance.  Her right arm rests on the arm of a chair.  She is dressed completely in black wearing a dress with buttons and a fur collar, covered by a loose jacket.  From under the brim of her black hat we can see her fringe.  Hale appears to be making a fashion statement with her clothes and youthful hairstyle.  Her bold gaze and her fashionable outfit suggest her willingness to push traditional boundaries.  Hale exhibited her Self-Portrait in Boston, perhaps for the first time, in 1887.  The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which owns the work later commented:

“…Hale’s forthright presentation, her strong dark colours, and the direct manner in which she engages the viewer recall the work of one of the French painters she most admired, Edouard Manet. Manet had been known for his confrontational images, strongly painted without subtle nuances of light and shadow…”

June by Ellen Day Hale (1893)

Now although back living in Boston, Hale still loved to travel and made frequent journeys to Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.  She also spent time exploring her own country especially the American West.  Despite her railing against traditional limitations exacted on females by society, the one she concurred with was that women should not travel alone and so she needed to find a like-minded companion for her exploratory journeys.  Hale soon lighted on the perfect companion in the guise of the painter Gabrielle de Veaux Clements.  Gabrielle had attended several prestigious art schools, studied under notable artists such as Tony Robert-Fleury and William-Adolphe Bouguereau, and exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1885. Clements specialized in landscapes, cityscapes, and harbour vistas capturing the bustling spirit of Paris, Baltimore, Cape Ann, and other cities and towns throughout France, Algiers, Palestine, and along the American East Coast.

Gabrielle de Veaux Clements.by Ellen Day Hale (1883)

Clements became the traveling partner of Ellen Day Hale whom she met in 1883. The two artists became life-long friends and beside their painting trips spent their summers in Folly Cove on Cape Ann, Massachusetts, which was a popular artist destination and an artist’s colony thrived. It was where the artists staying there were able to share models and learn each other’s techniques.   Such was their close friendship that in 1893, the two artists established a household together in the small Massachusetts town of Folly Cove, at a house they bought, “The Thickets”. During the winter months Clements and Hale spent their time traveling throughout Europe but sometimes just remained in America in Charleston, South Carolina, where they taught etching. Among their circle of friends and visitors were Cecilia Beaux and Margaret Bush-Brown.  Between 1904 and 1909, Hale resided in Washington, DC, serving as hostess in her father’s home while he was chaplain to the U. S. Senate.

Early Vegetables by Ellen Day Hale (c.1918)

The relationship between Ellen Day Hale and Gabrielle de Veaux Clements was often referred to as a Boston Marriage.  A Boston marriage was, historically, the cohabitation of two wealthy women, independent of financial support from a man. The term is said to have been in use in New England in the late 19th and early 20th century. Some of these relationships were romantic in nature and might now be considered a lesbian relationship; others were not.  The nature of Ellen and Gabrielle’s type of relationship is simply unknown.

Musical Interlude by Ellen Day Hale

While in Charleston Ellen and Gabrielle immersed themselves in the flourishing arts renaissance which was taking place in the city.  They were both accomplished printmakers and they helped organize the Charleston Etchers Club, whose founding members included Elizabeth O’Neill Verner, Alice Ravenel Huger Smith, and Alfred Hutty. It was Verner’s daughter who later recalled the input of Verner and Hale had in Charleston and she recalled Clement’s words:

“…We want to leave Charleston some of our skills . . . Get together a group so you can buy a press and we will show you how to use it . . . We’ll teach you, so you can teach them…”

The Charleston Etchers’ Club was formed in 1923 and it offered instruction on printmaking, encouraged intellectual exchange, art criticism, and exhibition planning.

The Green Calash by Ellen Day Hale (1904)

In 1904 Ellen Hale completed a painting entitled The Green Calash.  A calash is a large green bonnet or hood and resembles the folding top of an 18th-century carriage known as a calash.  It is a three-quarter-view portrait of a young woman who is sitting on a chair with her hands resting together in her lap.

The Green Calash by Ellen Day Hale (1925)

In 1925, twenty-one years later, Hale completed a soft ground colour etching and aquatint after her 1904 painting. The print is again a three-quarter-view portrait of a young woman seated with her hands resting together in her lap and is once again wearing a large green bonnet. The print of this etching was exhibited at the Smithsonian as part of a print exhibition in November 1936. Gabrielle DeVeaux Clements and Ellen Hale experimented extensively with colour printmaking throughout their careers.

The Original Colour Engraving by René Ligeron

Both had been influenced by the French artist René Ligeron’s 1924 treatise on colour intaglio, which Hale translated into English for the Smithsonian exhibition. Gabrielle Clements wrote to curator R.P. Tolman telling him that she and Hale had “been working on an interesting line of experiments in printing etchings in colour” and that they had “lately gained better control of the medium, and greater simplicity.”

This prestigious 1936 exhibition came near the end of Hale’s and Clements’s careers. By that time, they had been producing prints for more than sixty years. It was almost fifty years earlier that their work was showcased at the Women Etchers of America exhibition in 1887 at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

Hale died in Brookline, Massachusetts, on February 11, 1940, her 85th birthday.  Hale’s legacy is not only in her artwork and etchings but also her struggle to gain in the acceptance of female artists. A member of what is now referred to as the Boston School of Painting, Hale has also been recognized as one of America’s leading women impressionists.  She also wrote History of Art (1888). Her artist brother Philip Hale also exhibited at the Chicago World’s Fair. 

Ellen Day Hale

In his 1997 memoir, A Sculptor’s Fortunes, by Walker Kirtland Hancock an American sculptor and teacher talked about Hale and Clements, and their roles in establishing Folly Cove as a gathering spot for artists, a place he first visited in 1920:

“…Folly Cove…had begun to attract artists at least two generations before I arrived. The first to settle there were Ellen Day Hale and Gabrielle deV. Clements….Their houses were close to each other, overlooking the cove. Miss Clements’ was a large frame structure not far back from the road. Miss Hale’s, a stone building, was on higher ground. Miss Clements had been a mural painter, but because of her age she at that juncture limited her work to etching. She was kind and patient enough to give me lessons in that art. Miss Hale continued with her portrait painting. Both ladies were very much a part of the local community…They were responsible for [sculptor] Charles Grafly’s buying a house and building a large studio nearby, having recommended “the Folly” to him as a healthful place in which to live…

Groeningemuseum Bruges. Part 1.

Groeningemuseum, Bruges

If you ever manage to travel to Belgium and visit the city of Brugge (Bruges) then I entreat you to drop in at the Groeninge Museum which lies in the heart of the historic city.  It is at this establishment that you will be able to see works of art by Jan van Eyck, Hans Memling, Hugo van der Goes, Gerard David, Hieronymus Bosch, Ambrosius Benson, Lancelot Blondeel, father Pourbus and his sons and their contemporaries. These Masters came from the Low Countries and often worked in Bruges and completed assignments there in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. This museum is a home for many beautiful pieces of art produced by the Flemish Primitives. The painting of the 15th and early 16th centuries in the Southern Netherlands is an important highlight in the history of art. These painters are commonly referred to as Flemish primitives. The Flemish Primitive period flourished especially in the cities of Bruges, Ghent, Mechelen, Leuven, Tournai and Brussels, all of which are in present day Belgium.   The period began around the 1420s with painters such as Robert Campin and Jan van Eyck and lasted until the death of Gerard David in 1523, although many art historians believe it did not end until around 1566 or 1568 with the advent of the Dutch Revolt. Moreover, the Flemish primitives emphasise a previously unseen religious eloquence that accompanies a new tradition in painting. The painting commissions of the time not only came from the various courts and religious institutions, but also from the towns and cities and their citizens. It was a time when artists, for the first time, had attained a very important standing in the society. Several of their works are looked upon as highpoints in the history of European art.  In this blog I will introduce you to some of these fabulous paintings which can be found in this wonderful museum.

Virgin and Child with Canon Joris van der Paele by Jan van Eyck

The Virgin and Child with Canon Joris van der Paele by Jan van Eyck (c.1436)

One of the great examples of early Netherlandish painting is the body of work by artists who were active in the Burgundian and Habsburg Netherlands during the 15th and 16th century Northern Renaissance period. The first work of art I am featuring is the large (122 x 158cms) oil on oak panel by Jan van Eyck entitled Virgin and Child with Canon Joris van der Paele which he completed around 1436. The painting depicts the the Virgin Mary enthroned at the centre of the semicircular space, which most likely represents a church interior, with the Christ Child on her lap. The Virgin’s throne is decorated with carved representations of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, prefigurations of the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus, and scenes from the Old Testament. To the left in dark blue robes is Saint Donatian the patron saint of the church for which the panel was painted. The saint is dressed in brightly coloured vestments. This work is noted for the fine attire, including wonderful representations of furs, silks and brocades, and the detailed religious iconography. Kneeling down, as he piously reads from a book of hours, is Canon Joris van der Paele and standing behind him is St George, the canon’s patron saint.

Canon Joris van der Paele

Van der Paele had worked as a scriptor in the papal chancery in Rome.  From there he took up various posts in the Church before relocating to Bruges, his birthplace, in 1425.

Around the frame of the painting is a Latin inscription which once translated states:

“…Master Joris van der Paele, canon of this church, had the painting made by Johannes van Eyck, painter; and he founded two chantries, to be tended by the canons, 1434; the painting was, however, completed in 1436…”

The word “chantry” derives from Old French chanter and from the Latin cantare (to sing).   Its medieval derivative cantaria means “licence to sing mass”.  It is the prayer and liturgy in the Christian church for the benefit of the dead, as part of the search for atonement for sins committed during their lives.  In this case it indicates that Joris van der Paele donated a substantial amount of money to the authorities of St Donation’s Church in Bruges for them to dedicate an annual mass to his memory in perpetuity.  The painting would then have been hung alongside or above the church altar.

Death of the Virgin by Hugo van der Goes

Death of the Virgin by Hugo van der Goes (c.1481)

The painting The Death of the Virgin is thought to have been the last work painted by Hugo van Goes before he died around 1482/1483.  It is thought that van der Goes was born in Ghent around 1442.  He enrolled in the city’s painter’s guild in 1467 and worked in the city for ten years during which time he received many lucrative commissions from the city, the Church and the Burgundian court.  In 1477 he left Ghent and went to live in Rouge-CloÎtre in the Forest of Soignes near Brussels.  Sadly, he suffered from many bouts of depression which culminated in a mental breakdown in 1481.  Following convalescence he returned to painting and completed this exquisite work of art which is believed to have been for Ter Duinen Abbey, a Cistercian monastery at Koksijde, in what is now Belgium.

Detail from Death of the Virgin by Hugo van der Goes

The depiction is the artist’s interpretation of the event with the vision of heaven above Mary’s deathbed.  The figures we see in the main picture are those filled with sorrow and the sense of despair at the death of the Virgin Mary.  Hugo van der Goes was looked upon as the most “modern” of the Flemish Primitive painters and this is borne out in this painting in which he has produced such realistic and expressive rendering of the figures and the movement and intensified feelings that pervade the composition.  The mystical, religious spirit along with the strong sense of emotion make this work one of the great masterpieces of 15th century painting.

The Triptych of Willem Moreel by Hans Memling

Hans Memling was born in Germany, at Seligenstadt near Aschaffenburg, and it is thought that he received his first art education in Cologne.  He then travelled to the Netherlands but probably spent his early life in Mainz. By 1465 he had moved to Bruges and was the leading artist there for the rest of his life.  By 1480 he had bought himself a large stone house in the city and was taking on pupils.  Memling was listed among the wealthiest citizens on the city tax accounts. Sometime between 1470 and 1480 Memling married Anna de Valkenaere who bore him three children.

 Portrait of the family Moreel, 1482 by Hans Memling (Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels)

It is in the area of portraiture that Hans Memling appears to have been the most successful and had gained a vast number of aristocratic clientele who lived in Bruges. One of his lucrative commissions came from Willem Moreel, a prominent Bruges politician, merchant and banker and his wife Barbara van Vlaenderberch. He had painted their portraits in 1482. His figurative depictions are painted with an exactness, a precision and a concern for detail which bring them strongly to life.

The Triptych of Willem Moreel by Hans Memling (1484)

One such commissioned work of art was the Triptych of Willem Moreel. Moreel and his wife had commissioned Memling to paint a triptych altarpiece for the altar of the Saints Maurus and Giles in the Church of St. James in Bruges, a church in which Moreel and his wife wished eventually to be buried.

Central panel of the Moreel Triptych

The central panel of the triptych depicts the large figure of St. Christopher, who according to medieval legend, carried the Christ Child across a river on his shoulder. In the distance, up in the rocks in the left background we see the light from the hermit’s lamp guiding the saint. The two figures on either side of St Christopher do not belong in the legend but may have been added by Memling to balance the composition. To the left we see the former monk, St Maurus, holding his crook and open book and to the right is St Giles, a Benedictine hermit with an arrow in his arm and a deer at his side. It is interesting to note that the inclusion of the deer and the arrow which is in most depictions of the saint, as it harks back to the legend that Giles  finally withdrew deep into the forest near Nîmes, where, in the greatest solitude, he spent many years, his sole companion being his beloved deer, which in some stories sustained him on her milk.  His retreat was finally discovered by the king’s hunters, who had pursued the deer to its place of refuge. An arrow shot at the deer wounded the saint instead, who afterwards became a patron of the physically disabled.

The left hand panel of the Moreel Triptych

The left hand panel of the triptych continues with the magnificent landscape background. The depiction of the left hand panel has multiple figures. It depicts the Willem Moreel kneeling, hands clasped in prayer. His hair is short in a “bowl cut” and over his black jerkin, he wears a fur-lined tabard which is without a belt or fastenings, which was very fashionable in the 1480s. Behind him are his five male children, who are also shown kneeling. Of Moreel’s sons, two are known to have died in infancy leaving Willem the oldest, with his two remaining siblings, John and George. Moreel and his sons are being presented by Saint Wilhemus van Maleval, who stands among them, dressed in a fur-lined black coat over army clothing.   He places his hand on Willem’s shoulder as he directs and presents him to St.Christopher in the centre panel.

Right hand panel of the Moreel Triptych

On the right interior wing of the triptych is the depiction of Barbara Moreel with eleven of her thirteen daughters, who all kneel in prayer before an open book. Barbara wears an hennin, a headdress in the shape of a truncated cone, which was worn in the Late Middle Ages by European women of the nobility, a damask silk dress with a white collar, and a wide red belt with a golden buckle. The women are being presented by Saint Barbara, who was the patron saint of Moreel’s wife.  The saint is depicted standing before the tower where she was, according to legend, imprisoned and executed.

Sibylla Sambetha (Catherine Moreel ?) by Hans Memling (1480)

Barbara Moreel’s eldest daughter, Catherine, kneels directly behind her mother.  She also wears a black dress and it is known that later in her life she became a Dominican nun.  Besides completing portraits of Moreel and his wife, he had also painted a small oil on oak panel portrait entitled Sibyla Sambetha, in 1480.   The painting is now in the Hans Memling Museum at the Old St. John’s Hospital in Bruges. The girl in the light brown clothing, black V-neck and transparent veil has been identified as Maria from her name written in her headband, and is their second-born daughter, given her linear position in the painting.

Exterior panels of the Moreel Triptych when closed

The outer part of the two wings, seen when the triptych is closed has grisaille depictions of John the Baptist with his lamb and staff.  On the other wing we have Saint George in his full armour, slaying the dragon with a lance depicted on the right outer wing.  It is believed that these two panel paintings may have been completed much later around the time of the deaths of Willem and Barbara Moreel and dated as around 1504 by a number of art historians.  It was thought that Moreel’s sons, Jan (John) and Jaris (George), probably commissioned them as the final, successful, effort to have their parents interred within the chapel space.

One strange aspect to the Moreel Triptych is the fact that not all of the daughters depicted in the right hand panel were painted by Memling.   The art historian and former curator of the Groeningemuseum, Dirk De Vos, has identified at least six females who are later additions, layered over the original landscape. The explanation for these additions, which were probably added by members of Memling’s workshop, were that the daughters were born after the 1484 completion date of the triptych.   The left-hand panel depicting Moreel and his sons underwent a similar update.

………to be continued.

Marie Laurencin. Part 3.

Marie Laurencin – a photograph by Granger (1913)

Marie Laurencin left Spain and returned to Düsseldorf via Switzerland in 1919. She was very unhappy with her life.  She was depressed and felt unstable with her marriage failing.   Laurençin filed for a divorce from her husband telling friends that the reason for the marital split was because her husband had become an alcoholic. In 1921 Laurençin returned to Paris, knowing that her marriage was finished and she divorced von Wätjen.   However, despite the divorce, they remained on good terms, and Marie kept in touch with van Wätjen’s until his death in 1942.

The Spanish Dancers by Marie Laurencin (1921)

Now having returned to the French capital Marie realised that she had been greatly affected by her separation from Paris which she looked upon as the unrivalled centre of artistic creativity. After her return, she developed a new style of painting which is reflected in her 1921 work, The Spanish Dancers.   Gone are the muted colours and the geometric patterns she had inherited from Cubism and these are replaced by light tones and undulating compositions. Once again, we note the coming together of the feminine world and the animal world, which became her favourite theme.  In the work we see three young women spinning around a small bounding dog, in front of a large grey horse. Marie has portrayed herself kneeling in the foreground wearing a pink tutu, which happens to be the only warm tone in the painting. Her hands are entwined with those of the young woman on the right, who is wearing a light grey dress with a light blue headscarf.  The woman on the left, wearing a light blue dress, is executing a dance step whilst holding a hat in place on her head.  Her eyes lead almost seamlessly into the large almond-shaped eye of the horse. The animals would appear to be the dancers’ confidantes in this strange setting.

Femme aux tulipes by Marie Laurencin (1936)

Now back in Paris, Paul Rosenberg began to act as Marie Laurencin’s dealer which afforded her enhanced financial security and he also provided her with sound business advice.  Unfortunately, she did not always take Rosenberg’s advice and he was horrified to find that Marie often gave her work as a gift to those she liked. She also set higher prices for work which she found dull and often discounted some of her favourite works.  Curiously she often charged men double what she asked of women, and even charged brunettes more than blondes and furthermore she had a reputation for painting only children whom she liked.

Jeunesse by Marie Laurencin (c.1946)

In her private life, while Marie Laurençin had a succession of male lovers, she also had close female friendships and lesbian relationships. She became part of the female expatriate community in Paris that searched for both artistic and sexual liberation. Lesbianism, for many of these women, was a crucial element of their resistance to bourgeois social conventions.

Gertrude Stein at 27 rue de Fleurus with her portrait by Picasso on the wall, May 1930

Now, based in the French capital, Marie was alone.  The first American who befriended her and bought her paintings was Gertrude Stein, an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector who had been born in Pennsylvania.  She had moved to Paris in 1903 and made France her home for the remainder of her life. She hosted a Paris salon, where the leading figures of modernism in literature and art, such as Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, Ezra Pound, Sherwood Anderson and Henri Matisse, would meet for conversation and inspiration.  Laurençin soon became part of the Stein salon on rue de Fleurus.  Marie remained in contact with Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas until Stein’s death in 1946 and continued to see Toklas until her own death.

Portrait of Coco Chanel by Marie Laurencin (1923)

Laurencin held an exhibition of her work in 1921 at the Rosenberg Gallery in Paris. She had now built up her reputation as a talented portraitist, especially of celebrities, one of whom was Coco Chanel.  The commission to paint Chanel’s portrait came about in the autumn of 1923 when Marie Laurencin was working for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes which was established in Paris, Monte-Carlo and London, and Marie was designing the costumes and sets for the ballet Les Biches [The Does]. At the same time, Coco Chanel was creating the costumes for the same company’s Le Train Bleu [The Blue Train] operetta .   At that time, Coco Chanel was both very rich and famous, and she commissioned Marie Laurencin to paint her portrait.  This was one of Laurencin’s early portrait commissions. Laurencin depicted Chanel face-on, seated in a relaxed, somewhat dreamy pose, with her head resting on her right arm. She appears relaxed and her eyes and mouth, neutral and expressionless, suggest that she is daydreaming or preoccupied by her thoughts. Marie Laurencin’s painting style was to incorporate animals in her works and here she depicts a white poodle sitting on the Coco Chanel’s knees. It is unclear where Chanel’s flesh ends and her dress begins; her pale outfit is accented with dark black and blue scarves, while the seat behind her is a textured pink and blue. On the right-hand side of the painting, we can see another dog leaping upwards towards a turtle dove which appears to be descending from the sky towards Coco Chanel, like the dove of the Holy Spirit, and thus Laurencin’s symbolising it as a sort of freedom. The colour palette is of a soft harmony of the colours – green, blue and pink, which is reinforced by the long black line of the scarf draped around the model’s neck.  The finished painting was so like Laurencin’s earlier works but did it capture the likeness of Coco Chanel.  The sitter did not think so and the artist did not deny it, but claimed that physical likeness was unimportant.  Chanel refused to pay for it and Laurencin was so annoyed by Chanel’s attitude that she refused to execute a second portrait and decided to keep the original herself.  Despite Chanel’s rejection of the painting, the success of Laurencin’s approach to portraiture was such that she continued to receive and execute portrait commissions in this style until the 1940s. The painting can now be found at the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris.

In 1931, Laurencin was one of the founding members of La Société des femmes artistes modernes, and took part in their annual exhibitions until the outbreak of World War II. During the period from 1932 to 1935, she tutored at the Villa Malakoff, a private art school.  In 1937, which art historians believe was the height of her career, a retrospective of Laurencin’s work was held in conjunction with the Great Exhibition of Independent Art Masters at the Petit Palais, which sought to promote the superiority of the contemporary French artistic school, extended to foreign artists “living or having lived in France for many years”. The year 1937 saw a change in Laurencin’s appearance when she finally acquired glasses, which changed her life considerably as she had been extremely short-sighted since childhood and had had difficulty negotiating staircases since the 1920s.

During World War II, Laurencin remained in Paris painting and working on designs for the ballet, and in 1942 she published Le Carnet des Nuits – a collection of poetry with short memoir pieces in prose.  Although Laurencin will be remembered as an artist and the grace and the elegance of her artworks; she is also the author of a diary, Le Carnet des Nuits, an important witness of her time. It tells of her early years she spent in Bateau-Lavoir.  Her writing is of the same delicate style used for her artworks. 

Head of a Woman by Marie Laurencin (1909)

In later years, Laurencin became withdrawn and increasingly isolated and sadly suffered from periods of depression and other health complaints, albeit, she continued to paint throughout this troubling passage of time. Her main companion was her maid, Suzanne Moreau, who had lived with her since 1925. Whether there was more to the mistress/servant relationship is unclear but it is thought that they were romantically linked.    In 1954, Laurencin made Moreau the beneficiary of her estate. It is thought this came about due to Laurencin’s legal struggle, resolved the following year, with tenants living in the apartment that she owned.

The tomb of Marie Laurencin in Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris.

Laurencin died of a heart attack on June 8th, 1956, aged 72.  She was buried wearing a white dress in Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris, as per her wishes, with Apollinaire’s love letters and a rose in her hand.

The main source of information for the three blogs about Marie Laurencin came from the excellent The Art Story website.

Marie Laurencin Part 2.

Marie Laurencin, Paris (c.1912.)

Marie Laurençin’s paintings dating from around 1910 have a strong flavour of cubism. However, she once again stated that although the experiments of cubism fascinated her, she was adamant that she would never become a cubist painter because she was not capable of it.

Bateau-Lavoir c. 1910

Laurençin spent a lot of time at Picasso’s open studio at the Bateau-Lavoir, (Laundry Boat) building at 13 Rue Ravignan at Place Emile Goudeau in Montmartre in the 18th arrondissement of Paris.  The building was so nicknamed as it was said to resemble the public clothes-washing boats moored on the Seine in the early years of the twentieth century. The ramshakle building was said to strain and groan when it was windy—just like the those laundry boats on the Seine. Here, Laurençin exhibited her work along with a group of artists known as the Bateau-Lavoir, which was the residence and meeting place for a group of outstanding artists and men of literature.  It was here that she met Max Jacob, the French poet, painter, writer, and critic, and André Derain, the French artist, painter, sculptor and co-founder of Fauvism.  She was also introduced to Gertrude Stein, the American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector to whom she made her first sale in 1908.

Les jeunes filles (Jeune Femmes, The Young Girls) by Marie Laurençin (1911)

In 1911 Laurençin completed her painting entitled The Young Girls.  Marie Laurencin showed The Young Women at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris in 1911, alongside works by other artists painting in a similar style. The exhibition, which gave rise to the term “cubism”, caused a scandal but was also the breakthrough for Cubist art.  This work depicts four pale-skinned dark-eyed women with dark hair, independent of each other and yet overlapping.  They are all wearing  grey robes and stand against an abstracted pastoral backdrop. The female on the left is a violinist, playing music for the figure beside her, who dances. At the centre of the depiction we see a woman seated facing the dancer, but she turns her head to look back at us.  On the right, another woman appears in motion, carrying a bowl of fruit under her right arm and reaching down with her left hand to stroke the nose of a doe. All the limbs of the women have a fluidity which mirrors the drape of their dresses.   Their bodies are outlined with heavy black lines.  Laurençin has experimented with this depiction and artistic style. 

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon by Picasso (1907)

The posture of the four women with their flat, mask-like faces seems to have been influenced by her friend, Picasso’s 1907 painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.  In a way the work can be considered as a suggestion that the four women represent a fertile sphere of feminine creativity.  The presence of the doe is symbolic of femininity and naturalness that was a common theme in Laurencin’s work.  Critics believe the painting alludes to the of lesbian self-fashioning and as a celebration of an independent female realm.  The painting can be viewed at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm.

Portrait de jeune femme by Marie Laurencin

In 1913, Marie Laurençin’s mother died and this sad event coincided with her ending her relationship with Apollinaire, but this ending could have something to do with his reputation as a philanderer.   However, she would remain close to Apollinaire until his death, aged 38, in 1918. Her split from Apollinaire freed Laurencin of his Cubist influence, but at the same time, isolating her. On June 24th 1914, in Paris, Marie married Baron Otto van Wätjen, a German Impressionist and Modern painter whom she had first met as fellow students at the Académie Humbert.  

Marie Laurencin, Cecilia de Madrazo and the Dog, Coco by Marie Laurençin (1915)

In the Tate Britain, London, one can see the 1915 work by Laurençin entitled Marie Laurencin and Cecilia de Madrazo and the Dog, Coco.  Cecilia was an art collector friend of Maria.  Laurençin told a fellow artist that the painting was completed in 1915 while she and her husband were exiled in Madrid.  The girl wearing the hat is Cecilia de Madrazo, a young Spaniard, and the other figure is Marie herself wearing a pink dress with her dog poking up between them.  She had bought the dog from an English sailor at Malaga. Marie Laurencin was staying in Madrid with the Madrazos at the time.  Marie has depicted herself with short hair which covers her ears and forehead.  Although her skin is grey it is sharply in contrast with pink cheeks and lips and black eyes which are focused downwards.  Cecilia is fascinated by the dog.  She stares down at it and pushes a finger towards its very long snout. Cecilia’s skin is almost white, with pink lips and cheeks.  She is wearing a grey dress and has a white hat, with a large blue bow, atop her dark hair. The backdrop, almost without detail, is grey and there is a pink curtain at the right edge of the painting; the colour scheme is very limited, with Laurencin utilising only grey, pink, blue and very small amounts of beige. This painting is representative of Laurencin’s work, which has been both appreciated and criticised for its deliberately feminine aesthetic.  Marie’s palette concentrated on  pastel colours. The two figures depicted add a sense of peace and charm and they own the conventional female virtues of loveliness, sophistication and meekness. Laurencin’s unapologetic embrace of visual pleasure and the way she developed an aesthetic that acclaimed female softness, elegance and sweetness was itself a radical position. Laurencin’s painting has depicted such qualities as part of a creative process in which a masculine form is utterly unnecessary, and in a way it is a presentation of a work in which both artist and subject are female.   

The Fan by Marie Laurencin (1919)

In 1919 Laurencin completed her painting entitled The Fan and this, like the previous work, is part of the Tate Britain, London collection.  The painting was purchased by Gustav Kahnweiler, an art dealer, as a gift for his wife, Elly.  He and his wife amassed a modest art collection focused on Cubist paintings, sculptures, and works on paper. After the couple moved to England in the 1930s to escape Nazi persecution, Gustav and Elly loaned and gifted works from their collection to the Tate.  It is believed that the woman in the oval frame is Laurencin herself but the identity of the other woman is unknown.  The fan, which was a symbol of vanity, was one of Laurencin’s favourite accessories. The painting depicts a pink shelf that holds two images of women, one in a rectangular frame and the other in a round frame, against a pink and grey background. The portrait to the left, in the larger, rectangular frame, shows a woman and a dog in greyscale, accentuated by a pale blue ribbon, hat and curtains.  Next to it is an oval frame at the centre of the painting depicting a woman reputed to be Marie Laurencin herself, though it is unclear if this is a portrait or indeed a mirror. The lower right corner of the painting is dominated by the folds of a fan, painted in grey and white, that is cut off at the canvas’s edge.  Laurencin has cleverly depicted the fan in a position that could be seen as being held by someone who is staring at the two frames on the shelf.  The two portraits in the frames on the shelf are positioned such that the figures appear to look out towards us but also towards the person holding the fan.  There is an air of mystery about the depiction and the identities of the figures.  Some believe that the woman in the rectangular frame is Nicole Groult, a dressmaker with whom Laurencin is likely to have had a romantic relationship.

Dona Tadea Arias de Enriquez by Goya (1793)

Once married to Otto van Wätjen, Laurencin automatically lost her French citizenship and so took up German citizenship. She and her husband moved to neutral Spain at the beginning of the First World War in order to avoid France’s anti-German sentiment.  Here, Laurencin became involved with the Dada movement, editing the art and literary magazine 391, a Dada-affiliated arts and literary magazine created by Francis Picabia.  She also spent time looking closely at the work of Francisco Goya, whose dignified, dark-eyed women captivated her.

Simultaneous Windows on the City by Robert Delaunay (1912)

During this period in Spain she became great friends with Sonia Delaunay and Robert Delaunay, who had similarly left France to avoid the War.   Robert was an artist of the School of Paris movement, who, with his wife Sonia Delaunay and others, co-founded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes.

……to be continued.

Marie Laurencin. Part 1.

Marie Laurencin photographed by Man Ray (c.1925)

My blog today features the life and artwork of the nineteenth century French painter, Marie Laurencin.  She played an important role in the bringing out the female and lesbian identity in early-20th century modern art movements which at the time was dominated by men.  Her depictions were mainly of females, including many self-portraits but also many also accompanied by animals.  She prided herself with her choice of subjects famously stating:

“…Why should I paint dead fish, onions and beer glasses?  Girls are much prettier…”

Le Bal élégant, La Danse à la campagne by Marie Laurencin (1913)

From early in life, Laurencin was predominantly interested in worlds in which women moved independently and peacefully, creating self-portraits and scenes featuring animals and women which were striking in their thematic consistency. Her fame came through her association with Cubism and she exhibited her work with the Section d’Or, (“Golden Section”), which was also known as Groupe de Puteaux or Puteaux Group, a collective of painters, sculptors, poets and critics associated with Cubism and Orphism.  Her work was also exhibited in America at the Armory Show, but later in her life she fought against her art being compartmentalised in a specific art movement.  She concentrated on her own aesthetic, favouring escapist imagery in pastel hues, that was at once decorative and radical in its embrace of feminine images.

Tête pensive by Marie Laurencin

Marie Laurencin was born in Paris on October 31st, 1883, and lived in an apartment with her mother, Pauline Mélanie Laurencin, a seamstress. Laurencin was an illegitimate child but did not have the courage to question her mother about her absent father.  However, when she was twenty-one-years-old her mother disclosed that her father was the politician Alfred Toulet. Marie Laurencin’s achievements at school were limited although she w an avid reader and enjoyed sketching.  He failings at school precluded her from becoming a teacher, a profession favoured by her mother.   As a teenager, Marie found life difficult and this was presumably due to her classroom failings.  She became introverted and began to paint self-portraits which she carried on doing for most of her life.  After leaving school she studied the art of porcelain painting at the École de Sèvres with the flower painter Madeleine Lemaire.  In 1903 when she was twenty, she enrolled at the Académie Humbert where she worked on drawing, painting and printmaking. 

Self-portrait by Marie Laurencin (1904)

She completed one of early self-portraits in 1904 whilst studying at Académie Humbert.  Laurencin depicts herself wearing a white painter’s smock and her hair is tucked behind her face.  She stares out at us with calm confidence and yet serious expression and yet she has a piercing questioning stare. The palette Laurençin has used is dominated by browns, whites and pinks and she has cleverly used colour to model her face, with pinks shaping the sides of the nose and the eyelids and browns and greys indicating shadows around her cheeks.  Her lips, at the centre of the canvas, are red and full.  It was this love of self-portraiture throughout her artistic career that indicated her interest in depicting herself as the subject of her work which ties in closely to her concentration on female independence and self-fashioning. Laurencin always depicted herself as both an independent artist and as a modern woman.  The painting is part of the Musée Marie Laurencin, Nagano collection in Japan.

Portrait de jeune femme by Marie Laurencin

It was at the Académie Humbert that she first encountered fellow French students Georges Braque and Francis Picabia who would become famous artists of the twentieth century.  It was through her friendship with Braque that she soon became part of a group that included Picasso.

Natalie Clifford Barney

It was around this time that Marie first encountered Natalie Barney, an American writer born in Dayton, Ohio and after coming to Paris to live, hosted a literary salon at her Rue Jacob home, in Paris that attracted French and international writers.  Although the guests included some of the most prominent male writers of her time, Natalie Barney attempted to showcase female writers and their work.  For her, the events were celebrations inspired by the archaic Greek poet Sappho’s group on the island of Lesbos.  Many of these soirees were neo-Sapphic get-togethers, at which a crowd mainly comprised of lesbian and bisexual women would mingle and discuss links between female desire and creative production.  It was these events that were to influence Laurencin’s creative production which can be seen throughout her artwork.

Aléoutiennes by Marie Laurencin

Laurencin’s first print-making efforts came in 1904 with her illustrations of Pierre Louÿs’s The Songs of Bilitis, a collection of erotica, which basically was a set of lesbian poems celebrating erotic love between women. It was around this time that Marie Laurençin indicated her own preference for women.  In 1907, twenty-four-year-old Laurencin had her work shown at her exhibition debut at the Salon des Indépendants, which was held at the Gallery Clovis Sagot in Montmartre. Many of the Cubists painters had their artwork displayed at this event and they wanted to claim Laurencin as one of their own.  However, she refused to be compartmentalised with any one genre. 

Guillaume Apollinaire,

Whilst attending the exhibition Pablo Picasso introduced her to Guillaume Apollinaire, the French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist and art critic of Polish descent.  Laurençin and Apollinaire had a relationship that lasted for six years, during which Apollinaire wrote often about his lover and would refer to her as “Our Lady of Cubism” which of course led more people to associate her with the Cubism movement.

The Muse Inspires the Poet by Henri Rousseau (1909)

The relationship between the two lovers was a strange one. Both were illegitimate children of a single mother and whether this had something to do with it but they lived apart throughout their relationship. The pair never married, and it is thought that this was to the disapproval of their mothers and also they both believed in the modern lifestyle which reject the bourgeois convention of marriage. The “partnership” was depicted in Henri Rousseau’s 1909 portrait of Laurencin and Apollinaire, in 1909, entitled The Muse Inspires the Poet. The two were great influence on each other and their artistic vision so much so that Apollinaire referred to Laurençin as “a female version of himself” and his literary works inspired her dreamy imagery and the symbolism of her work.

Apollinaire and his Friends by Marie Laurencin (1909)

Laurencin completed an interesting painting in 1909 entitled Apollinaire and his Friends.  The painting depicts a gathering of intellectuals, artists, and bohemians, with their host, Guillaume Apollinaire, the celebrated poet and art critic, in the centre of the painting.  He is surrounded by a group of friends.  Before him sits a dog who is depicted with its head turned in loving admiration of the poet !  On the left of Apollinaire are Gertrude Stein, the novelist and art collector, Fernande Olivier, a French artist and model known primarily for having been the model and first muse of painter Pablo Picasso, and for her written accounts of her relationship with him and an unknown woman with a lavish headdress.  To the right of Apollinaire, behind a vase of flowers, are the poets, Maurice Cremnitz, Marguerite Gillot, and Picasso.  Laurencin is seated on the ground wearing a pale blue dress.  She has turned her body turned toward Apollinaire while she looks out at us.  The colour of her dress and the colour of Apollinaire’s tie are similar and she has probably consciously did this to serve as a pictorially connection between her and him.  Laurencin gave the portrait to Apollinaire as a gift and she sold a smaller version to Gertrude Stein.  Apollinaire had the painting placed above his bed in his apartment on the Boulevard Saint-Germain, and it remained there throughout his life and after his death was preserved by his family. The painting can now be seen in the collection of the Musée Picasso in Paris

Laurencin’s paintings dating from around 1910 have a strong flavour of cubism. However, she once again stated that although the experiments of cubism fascinated her, she was adamant that she would never become a cubist painter because she was not capable of it.

…………to be continued.

Jean-Baptiste Armand Guillaumin

Jean-Baptiste Armand Guillaumin, the French impressionist painter and lithographer, was born on February 16th 1841 in Paris.  He was brought up in a working-class family, the grandson of Jean Joseph Guillaumin who was a notary by trade.  He was sent to school in Moulins, where his family came from, and this period in central France, made him take note of the beautiful surroundings and the mountainous landscape which stimulated his interest in art and it was also in Moulins that he first met Eugéne Murer, a pastry chef, author, self-taught painter and collector of impressionist paintings, who became his life-long friend.

Farms in Janville by Armand Guillaumin (1878)

By 1857, at the age of sixteen, Guillaumin returned to Paris and began working as a clerk in his uncle’s lingerie shop awhile also studying art under the sculptor Louis Caillouet.  His interest in art and the time he spent studying it caused friction with his family and he left to hold a position in the French government railways. He then continued his art training at the Académie Suisse where he trained to draw from the models, in the mornings and evenings.  It was here that he first met with Courbet, and began more lasting friendships with painters such as Cézanne, Pissarro and Francisco Oller, a Puerto Rican Impressionist painter.

Garden in Janville in June by Armand Guillaumin (1886)

Now friendly with the artists associated with the Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors, Engravers, (later dubbed The Impressionists) he was able to exhibit with them at the first Salon des Refusés in 1863 and their first joint Impressionist Exhibitions in 1874 at the former studio of the photographer Nadar (at 35 Boulevard des Capucines) in Paris, and in total he submitted work to six of their eight annual exhibitions.  Still young, the art critics of the time judged him to be an accomplished draughtsman who completed amazing mature compositions.  He developed connections with Emile Zola and his circle of friends and was greatly influenced by the artwork of Manet and Courbet.

Portrait of a Young Woman by Armand Guillaumin (1876)

One of the problems Guillaumin soon encountered was financial as he had no private income to turn to and so he had to continue holding down a job to survive.  This situation was further exacerbated with the advent of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870.  Once the War and the Paris Commune fighting had ended there was some hope for Guillaumin who had managed to have himself included with the popular Impressionist movement.  Guillaumin and fellow Impressionist, Cézanne had met up with Dr Paul-Ferdinand Gachet, a French physician most famous for treating the painter Vincent van Gogh during his last weeks in Auvers-sur-Oise, and he bought a number of their works.  Guillaumin also sold a number of his works to his friend, Eugéne Murer who had recently established a successful café in Paris. Guillaumin and Cézanne began sharing a studio but both found themselves in precarious financial positions despite the sales of their work to Gachet and Murer who continued to be close friends of the pair.

Cottages in a Landscape by Armand Guillaumin (1896)

At the start of the 1880s the Impressionist group was beginning to break apart and it split into two camps.  One headed by Pissarro and the other by Degas.  Gaugin had vociferously supported Pissarro and he had allied himself with Guillaumin.  Although not initially supportive of the Impressionist group having misgivings about what its intentions were, Renoir and Monet joined the Impressionist Exhibition of 1882 with Guillaumin, Gauguin and Pissarro as well as Sisley, Morisot, Vignon and Caillebotte.  However, Degas was noticeably absent.

Moulins en Hollandee by Armand Guillaumin (1904)

It was somewhat surprising that Paul Gaugin, known for his irrational behaviour towards his fellow painters, continued to befriend Guillaumin and keep him in the Impressionist group despite its continued disintegration.  It was through Gaugin, that Guillaumin met many new young artists who had arrived on the Paris art scene such as the Symbolist painter, Odile Redon, and the Pointillists, Georges Seurat and Paul Signac. In the mid 1880s Guillaumin’ s studio had become a meeting place for the young group of painters.  By 1885, new styles of painting had come to the fore and this resulted in further rifts between the old guard of Impressionism resulting in the disintegration of the Impressionist Group. The other factor for the break-up of the Group was its leading man, Gaugin, became more and more temperamental and intolerant and was destroying the Movement from the inside.  Guillaumin decided it was time for him to exit the movement which he had been part of from the very start.  Guillaumin’s reputation had grown over the last decade and Paul Adam wrote in La Revue Contemporaine:

“…I was not aware of any other painter who has so correctly noted the corresponding values of the lights of the firmament and of the ground…. their unification in colour appears to be perfect…”

Again, Felix Feneon, the French art critic, gallery director, and writer reiterated this, writing about the same show Immense Skies and commented on Guillaumin’s work:

“… superheated skies where clouds jostle each other in a battle of greens and purples, of mauves and of yellows…”

Vue de Port by Armand Guillaumin (1880)

t was in 1886 that Guillaumin married.  His wife was his cousin Marie-Joséphine Charreton, a schoolteacher, who was able to support him financially.  They settled down at 13 quai d’Anjou in the Saint-Sulpice area of the 6th arrondissement of Paris. It had previously been the studio of the painter Charles-François Daubigny. Guillaumin’s relationship with Pissarro eventually ended with the latter beginning to concentrate on experimentation with pointillism while Guillaumin became progressively interested in romantic art. Guillaumin’s relationship with Gaugin also in due course ended as the latter being constantly away on his travels.

Agay Bay by Armand Guillaumin (1910)

From 1875 to 1880, Guillaumin was a frequent guest of Dr Gachet at Auvers, at a time when he was travelling in that area searching for views of the rural scenery of the Yonne valley to paint and, later, the Creuse valley and the countryside around the farming village of Crozant, where he spent most of his life. Around 1887 Guillaumin became a good friend and mentor to Vincent Van Gogh, who was twelve years his junior. Vincent’s letter to fellow painter Ermil Bernard in December 1887 shows how highly he thought of Guillaumin:

“… I believe that, as a man, Guillaumin has sounder ideas than the others [the Impressionists], and that if we were all like him we’d produce more good things and would have less time and inclination to be at each other’s throats.

Again in a letter to his brother Theo in June 1888, Van Gogh writes about a visit he made to Guillaumin’s house and how he was inspired by him:

“…Wasn’t it pleasant at Guillaumin’s last winter — finding the landing and even the stairs, not to mention the studio — chock-full of canvases? You understand since then that I have a certain ambition, not about the number of canvases, but that these canvases as a whole should, after all, represent a real labour on your part as well as mine…”

Neige by Armand Guillaumin (1876)

In the last decade of the nineteenth century Guillaumin’s circle of artist friends was dwindling.  Vincent van Gogh died in July 1890 and his brother Theo, the art dealer, died in the January of the following year.  Gaugin and Cézanne had left Paris and Guillaumin and Pissarro’s views on art had diverged so much that their friendship had gradually faded.  Despite all this Guillaumin’s life was to change rapidly when won he won the sum of 100,000 francs (about 400,000 euros in today’s money) in a state lottery.  This completely changed his life.  He no longer had to rely on commissions.  He no longer had to exude a subservience towards patrons.  He was now able to paint what he liked and strive for his own artistic goals.

Caves Prunal near Pontgibaud by Armand Guillaumin

With this newly found wealth Guillaumin set off travelling around France capturing on his canvases the beautiful views of the countryside, mountains and the coast, often during sunrise and sunset.  His continuous journeying around was brought to an end with the onset of The Great War of 1914.  Once the war came to an end he once again set off on his travels but by then he was seventy-seven and he, like his artistic output, was declining.   In 1926 a retrospective exhibition was held at the Salon d’Automne.  He died at the Chateau de Grignon in Orly, Val-de-Marne, just south of Paris, on June 26th 1927 aged 86. He was the last survivor of the Impressionist Group.

Crozant, Solitude by Armand Guillaumin (1915)

Guillaumin’s paintings are renowned  for their intense colours and can be found in major museums around the world. Most of all he is best remembered for his landscapes of Paris, the Creuse département, and the area around Les Adrets-de-l’Estérel near the Mediterranean coast in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region of France. Guillaumin became known as the leader of the École de Crozant, a disparate group of painters who came to portray the landscape in the region of the Creuse around the village of Crozant.

Paysage à Crozant (1917)

One such depiction is entitled Landscape in Crozant, is part of the Art Institute of Chicago collection.

His bust is in the square near the village church in Crozant.

Walasse Ting

Walasse Ting (1929-2010)

Walasse Ting at work in his studio

I have just returned from another stay in the Algarve where I could finally see some sun and experience warm weather.  Whenever I visit the Algarve, I always visit the Art Catto gallery in Loule which I have often written about.  This time I not only got a chance to return to the excellent small gallery in the centre of town,but take up their invitation to the opening of an exhibition at the Conrad Hotel in Quinta do Lago.

Conrad Hotel, Quinta do Lago, Algarve

The Conrad Hotel is, to say the least, a spectacularly lavish hotel, and the entrance foyer rooms where fine places to exhibit the expensive works of Walasse Ting.  Seven years after his death, Walasse Ting’s has been given a place as a giant of 20th century paintings. He is such a captivating figure and the art he has produced over his 50-year career reveals many influences.   Today, his artwork is in public collections which include MOMA, New York; Guggenheim Museum, New York; National Gallery of Chicago, Chicago; Tate Modern Museum, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Hong Kong Museum of Art, and the Shanghai Art Museum. 

Beautiful Ladies by Walasse Ting

Many devoted private collectors also own his artwork. The latter group is growing especially fast, thanks in part to the rise of China as an economic and cultural force.  From the very early works, Walasse Ting’s paintings have charmed viewers with his use of vivid colours and light-hearted mood.

Ladies with Parrots by Walasse Ting

Walassi Ting is a Chinese artist who was born in Wuxi, China in 1929 but in fact was raised in Shanghai.  Ting is primarily a self-taught painter, sculptor, graphic artist, lithographer and poet, who began his life as an artist at a very young age. Ting studied at the Shanghai Art Academy before he left China in 1946 and after living briefly in Hong Kong set sail for France in 1950.   Times were hard for the young aspiring artist continually battling against poverty.  His stay in Paris coincided with the rise of the avant-garde artistic group known as CoBRA.   The word Cobra is derived from the French names of the cities of Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam.

CoBra member Karel Appel working on a mural in Rotterdam for the Manifestation E55

The artists had founded the CoBRA group during a major international conference held in Paris in 1948 and they came from these three European capitals.  Ting became acquainted with all the members of the avant-garde group, most notably Pierre Alechinsky and Asger Jorn.

Women with Flowers by Walasse Ting

Walassi Ting left Paris and arrived in New York in 1959 and participated in the Pop Art and Abstract Expressionism movement where his closest associates were artists Sam Francis and Joan Mitchell, members of the second generation of Abstract Expressionist painters.  He sold many paintings which often featured bold dripping strokes.  It was just over a decade later in 1970 that Walassi Ting created a distinctive style using calligraphic brushstrokes to define outlines and filling flat areas of colour with vivid paint. After 15 years of abstract painting, Walasse Ting’s interest in the body and his exploration of sexuality led him back to figuration in the 1970’s.  Like the colour master, Gauguin, Ting made a number of journeys to Tahiti continually on the lookout for the exotic colours that he loved. The subject of his paintings often contained women, cats, birds and peacocks. 

Kiss me, Kiss me by Walasse Ting

Ting embraced sexual desire through his art, as he conveyed his inner emotions through the fluent and expressive brushstrokes as he captured the alluring beauties set against a background of uncontrolled vibrant acrylic colours that break free into a dreamscape of sensual pleasure. In his 1974 acrylic on paper work entitled Kiss Me, Kiss Me, the title of the work and the bare-breasted model conjure up the emotions of sexual passion.   The work comprises of flat planes of colour and simplified lines, and the woman exposes herself to us, and is drenched in a tumult of multicoloured drips as if she was incorporated into an abstract expressionist canvas.

Come Talk to Us by Walasse Ting

In the summer of 1976 Ting produced his acrylic on canvas work entitled Come Talk to Us which depicted two half-length female figures who stare at a plant-like bouquet of colours at the centre of the image, an image which divides the image in two. The mirror-image like effect creates a sense of calm and balance, and the dabs of green, blue, and red paint trickle slowly along the canvas, exuding a melancholic beauty like that of gazing through a window on a rainy day. The title of the painting, Come Talk to Us, questions the viewer and echoes a lonely yet tantalizing longing. Ting has once again used the depiction of his figures to express the feelings inspired in him by objects of beauty.  Ting explained:

“…When I see a beautiful woman [and] I see flowers, its beauty makes me feel intangible, melancholy, love, refreshed, different, and reborn. I want to use different colours to express my inner feelings and emotions in my paintings.”

Eat me, I’m a Fish b y Walasse Ting

His 1978 work, with the strange title, Eat Me, I’m a Fish, Ting has splattered the paint over the entire canvas giving it the impression of a faint effervescence. This oblong depiction of the woman suggests the shape of a fish and the title boldly summons the viewer to come and consume its imagery, once again arousing the viewer’s culture’s sexual drive. The figure transects the diagonal of the picture plane while a cyan blue rectangle slices off the upper right quadrant of the image, giving the impression of a window.  Eat Me, I’m a Fish is Walasse Ting’s vivid interpretation of everyday life, and yet the composition is an obvious reference to Édouard Manet’s masterpiece Olympia. This painting could be thought of as Ting’s homage to a modern master, reinterpreting the essence of this classic painting and challenging the earlier artist’s greatness.

At the Conrad exhibition, many of his paintings were watercolours on rice paper.  They were both delicate and ornate, rendered with detail and repetitive patterns.

Peacock by Walasse Ting

Peacock II by Walasse Ting

Ting frequently depicted cats, flowers and birds as in his painting, Peacock, in which the ‘eyes’ of the bird’s plumage radiate outwards across the large surface of the painting, creating a striking wallpaper of electric blue, yellow and green. The controlled circles, tightly arranged, create an arresting optical vibration.

Cat Series by Walasse Ting

Cat Series by Walasse Ting

One very unusual thing at the exhibition was a display board giving a brief bio. by Ting himself It was also in the exhibition brochure. That is not strange in itself but what was unusual and some may say inappropriate, was his summary of his life “achievements”, year by year.

In the mid-1980s, he set up a studio in Amsterdam and in 2001 he permanently settled in that city. He was unable to create after a stroke in 2002. Ting died on May 17, 2010, at the age of 81 in New York.

Graham Clarke

What is the reason behind you placing a paintings or prints on your walls at home?  Is it because it reminds you of somewhere you have visited or maybe it is a depiction of somewhere nearby?  Maybe it is a portrait of a loved one or somebody famous whom you admire.  In this period of our lives when there is so much suffering going on around us then sometimes the painting is a depiction which simply lifts our spirits and makes us smile.   Today I am looking at an artist and his work which fulfils that category.  Let me introduce you to the English author, illustrator and humourist Graham Clarke. He has created over five hundred images of his beloved English rural life. He has focused on how the ordinary Englishman viewed Europe. Through his quirky depictions, he brings his own unique brand of humour to his interpretation of past and present history through the eyes of the common man.

Graham Clarke

Graham Clarke was born on February 27th 1941 in a village in Oxfordshire during the Second World War.  His father Maurice was a Midland Bank employee.  He, his mother and his elder brother, Anthony, were evacuated there from their three-bedroomed semi-detached home in Hayes, Kent.  When Graham was two years old the family spent a couple of months at the Cornish village of Denabole, which lies close to Trebarwith with its large expanse of sandy beaches which was always remembered fondly by Graham.  In his teenage years Graham and the family would spend time at the coastal towns of Broadstairs and Looe and it was those holiday times on the coast that made a great impression on him. 

The Flippits.  A Story of the Rabbit, Fox and Badger by Margaret Ross.

On his fourth birthday in 1945, with the war at an end, back living in Kent, Graham received a birthday present which was to remain in his memory in the years that followed.  It was the children’s book, The Flippits.  A Story of the Rabbit, Fox and Badger by Margaret Ross.  It was a make-believe world, a world of peace unlike the threatening years that he and his family had experienced during the war.   It was an underground world of a warren with its cottagey interiors.  It was a book with illustrations which fuelled the imagination of four-year-old Graham.  Looking at many of Graham’s multi-figured depictions one can look back at the multi-figured illustrations from this book and realise the connection.

A la Carte by Graham Clarke

In 1949, when Graham was eight years old, the family left their home in Hayes and moved to a larger three-bedroomed semi-detached house. large enough to also accommodate Graham’s paternal grandfather  who had been widowed.  As a teenager, Graham was described as being an observant and sensitive child by his mother who would spend his free time cycling and exploring Hayes Common.  He and his brother would also help their parents with their love of amateur dramatics and their AmDram group, The Hayes Players.  Graham’s brother Anthony would help his parents by aiding with set building jobs and Graham would assist with painting stage portraits and stained glass windows.

Miss Jay’s Wood by Graham Clarke (1952)

One day Graham’s father came home and presented his son with a box of felt-tipped brushes and spirit-based inks and after the usual child-like sketches his artwork improved and he began to use watercolours for his countryside depictions.  The box of watercolour paints with sable brushes and a set of oils had been a Christmas gift from his aunt and uncle in 1952 and on that Boxing Day he completed his first oil painting entitled Misses Jay’s Wood, which was owned by a close-by neighbour.  The painting was bought by one of the neighbours for ten shillings.  Graham could immediately envision himself as becoming a professional artist !

Close Up Please by Graham Clarke

Meanwhile, Graham attended a small private school who fast-tracked their pupils’ education to be of a standard which would allow them to pass their 11+ exams.  Whilst attending this school Graham let it be known of his future aspirations as a professional artist.  However, he received no encouragement from his teachers, in fact, they told him it would be a pauper’s life for him if he were to realise his artistic dream.  Notwithstanding this, he clung to his ideas and passed the 11+ exams and entered the Beckenham and Penge Grammar School in 1952.  During his time there he enjoyed the geography and history lesson through his love of map-making and his fascination with castles and life for the working-class people of those times. 

A book at the time which fascinated Graham was 1066 and All That, a tongue-in-cheek reworking of the history of England, written by W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman and illustrated by John Reynolds.

Another book which Graham loved was Down with Skool, by Ronald Searle which was one of his 1953 Christmas presents.  He became interested in caricature.  He excelled at art under Ronald Jewry, his art teacher who encouraged his students to use their imaginations when they painted.  Graham Clarke enjoyed his time in the art class.

Graham received an excellent grade for his GCSE ‘O’ level Art and managed to scrape through Maths and Science sufficient enough to enter the sixth form ‘A’ level on a Science course but he hated it.  His former art teacher, Jewry, approached his father and suggested that his son should abandon his A-level Science course and take up art instead.  No doubt Graham had already spoken with his father over his future.

Graham’s favourite artist at this time was Samuel Palmer, born in 1805, a British landscape painter, etcher and printmaker who was also a prolific writer. Palmer was a key figure in Romanticism in Britain and produced visionary pastoral paintings.  Graham believed that although he knew about the works of Palmer he realised that to get to really know him he had to visit the countryside around Shoreham, in west Kent, where Palmer had been so inspired.  During his studies at the Art College Graham had enrolled in the History of Art Course and went on a short train journey to Shoreham.  Graham was mesmerised by what he observed.  He later wrote:

“…Palmer loved this place and love it is that makes me walk here too.  Every lane is climbing up its hill [and] down again to the river, over the bridge and up and on again climbing and twisting. These are not mountains here there is no raging torrent, the trees are not giants and all is on a small scale, quiet and complete, Palmer decided God (and Nature) was at its best in this little valley of vision. Twenty miles from here is peace…”

Round and Round by Graham Clarke

One of his tutors as the Beckenham Art School was Wolf Cohen who Graham described as “small, fiercely energetic and a model of dedication” and it was he who instilled in Graham that art should be life-absorbing.  Although Graham’s figure drawing was not the best he managed to improve that during the time he spent in Susan Einzig’s life classes.  She introduced Graham to the Laurie Lees’ book Cider with Rosie, illustrated by John Ward.   It was these delicate and sensitive drawings that appealed to Graham.

Tea Party by Graham Clarke

At the start of his final year at the art college, Graham Clarke had to make a decision about his future.  His tutor Wolf Cohen persuaded him to apply for a post-graduate position at The Royal College of Art and along with half a dozen of his fellow students he would spend weekends at Cohen’s studio building up his portfolio which would be needed when he applied to the college.  Graham succeeded in his entry interviews and portfolio submission and in 1961 he became a student at the prestigious Royal College of Art.

Wendy by Graham Clarke. Pen and ink drawing from his sketchbook.

In his late teens Graham had been a member of various Youth Clubs, one of which was the Bromley High Street Methodist Youth Club and it was here that eighteen year old Graham first met fifteen year old Wendy Hudd and the two of them became involved with the organising of plays, pageants and parties.

The Four Seasons by Graham Clarke

Graham’s first year at the Royal College of Art was a disaster.  He felt totally isolated from his fellow students and their interests in art.  Whereas they looked for their inspiration by studying modern American magazine depictions of pop stars and flashy cars and motorcycles, Graham clung to his love of all things rural or historical and soon realised that he was going to be isolated by such loves.  As he said, he was destined to “plough a lone furrow”.  He decided to stay with what he loved and he was proud of this sincere decision and when challenged about it, would just say that he did not need to “ride another horse”.  Graham described his first year as being a dark tunnel and yet he added he could just make out a light at the end of it.  Graham was fortunate to have the support of Wendy and her family during those difficult twelve months.

Serenata by Graham Clarke

At the Royal College of Art Graham specialised in illustration and printmaking and had the chance to follow his interest in calligraphy.

Billingsgate Market by Edward Bawden (1967)

During his time at the Royal College of Art he was greatly influenced by one of his tutors, Edward Bawden, an English painter, illustrator and graphic artist, who was known for his prints, book covers, posters, and garden metalwork furniture. 

Yeomans by Graham Clarke

It was through Bawden’s influence that Graham took an interest in producing prints of traditional landscapes, the depictions of which highlighted local areas.  One such print featuring a rural scene was Yeomans which depicted a quaint English street scene featuring cottages and trees. 

Graham finally graduated in 1964, which, fortunately for him, coincided with peoples’ interest in buying prints which resulted in a flourishing sale of them.  His artwork was admired and he soon received commissions for his depictions from the likes of Editions Alecto and London Transport Publicity Department and so a bright career for him began.

Vision of Wat Tyler by Graham Clarke

In 1969 Graham’s first hand-printed “livre d’artiste”, Balyn and Balan was published.  Another of his books was Vision of Wat Tyler which won recognition from the most influential patron and connoisseur of the day, Kenneth Clark. Lord Clark wrote enthusiastically in praise of Vision of Wat Tyler:

“…the whole book is a splendid assertion that craftsmen still exist and cannot be killed by materialism. A few idealists are the only hope for decent values…”

Dance by the Light of the Moon by Graham Clarke

Graham’s famous ‘arched top’ etchings has established his widely successful reputation in Britain and overseas, and came to public attention in 1973 when the first of these, Dance by the Light of the Moon, was exhibited and sold in London at the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Show.

For you Madam by Graham Clarke

Examples of his work are held by Royal and public collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, the British Museum, the Tate Gallery and the National Library of Scotland in the United Kingdom, as well as by Trinity College, Dublin, the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., the New York Public Library and the Hiroshima Peace Museum. Many more are to be found on the walls of private homes all over the world, collected systematically by devotees, as well as singly by ordinary art lovers who “know what they like”

Quite Cricket by Graham Clarke

Graham Clarke, who prides himself as being a “Man of Kent” lives with his wife Wendy, four children, his animals and friends, in the village of Boughton Monchelsea in the county of Kent where he also has his studio. 

He offers open-days at his studio which gives visitors an opportunity to view his work including hand coloured limited edition etchings, watercolours, posters and greetings cards depicting English rural life and history, the Bible and the Englishman’s view of Europe, all of which are available for sale.

My blog has only scratched the surface of the life of this talented artist. The information for this blog came from two main sources:

Clare Sydneys’ 1985 book entitled Graham Clarke

and

Graham Clarke’s website