Tag: Art

Nettie Blanche Lazzell

Blanche Lazell during her time at the Art Student League, New York

Cornelius Carhart Lazzell, a direct descendent of pioneers who settled in Monongolia County, West Virginnia, after the American Revolutionary War, married Mary Prudence Pope and the couple went on to have ten children, three sons and seven daughters.  The ninth child was Nettie Blanche Lazzell who was born on October 10th 1878 and it is she who is the subject of today’s blog. 

The Lazzell family, who were devout Methodists, lived on a large farmstead near Maidsville, West Virginia, which lies close to the Pennsylvania border.  The town was thought to have been named Maidsville on account of there being a large proportion of “old maids” among the first settlers !  Her education during her early days was at the one-room schoolhouse on the property where students from the first through to eighth grades were taught from October through February.

Amarylis by Blanche Lazzell (1930)

In 1891, when Blanche was just twelve years old, her mother died, aged 48. In her early teens Blanche experienced hearing problems and became partially deaf and it was not until a year later that a Baltimore doctor was able to remedy her illness.  In 1893, at the age of fifteen, Blanche enrolled at the West Virginia Conference Seminary, which is now the West Virginia Wesleyan College.  From there, in 1899, she transferred to the South Carolina Co-Educational Institute in Edgefield. Once she graduated from the Institute, she became a teacher at the Red Oaks School in Ramsey, South Carolina. In spring of 1900, she returned to her Maidsville home, where she tutored her younger sister, Bessie.   In 1901, she studied art at West Virginia University and did well, receiving a degree in art history and the fine arts in 1905.  She continued to study at WVU on a part time basis until 1909, allowing her to broaden her knowledge of art and twice substituting as a painting teacher.

West Virginnia Coal Works by Blanche Lazzell (1949)

In 1908, at the age of thirty, she moved to New York and enrolled at the Art Students League.  The League had been formed in 1875 to provide more variety and flexibility in education for artists than it was felt the National Academy of Design provided. This breakaway group of art students included many women, many of whom, in the late 1890s and early 1900s, took on key roles. In Marian Wardle’s book: American Women Modernists: The Legacy of Robert Henri, 1910-1945. She recounts the words of the American artist Edith Dimmock regarding the atmosphere at the Art League:

“…In a room innocent of ventilation, the job was to draw Venus (just the head) and her colleagues. We were not allowed to hitch bodies to the heads——yet. The dead white plaster of Paris was a perfect inducer of eye-strain and was called “The Antique.” One was supposed to work from “The Antique” for two years. The advantage of “The Antique” was that all these gods and athletes were such excellent models: there never was the twitch of an iron-bound muscle. Venus never batted her hard-boiled egg eye, and the Discus-thrower never wearied. They were also cheap models and did not have to be paid union rates…”

During her time at the Art League Blanche studied under Kenyon Cox and William Merritt Chase and one of her fellow students was Georgia O’Keeffe. 

SS. Ivernia

On July 3rd 1912, Lazzell set sail on an American Travel Club cruise on the Cunard liner SS Ivernia, crossing the Atlantic and arriving in England. From there Blanche visited the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy.  She was fascinated by the architecture of the various churches she visited.   

Sailboat by Blanche Lazzell

In August she left the tour party and travelled to Paris.  She then stayed in a pension in Montparnasse on the Left Bank.  She moved into the Students’ Hostel on Boulevard Saint-Michel, one of the two major streets in the Latin Quarter of Paris, running alongside the Luxembourg Gardens.  During her stay in the French capital, she took lessons at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, Académie Julian, and Académie Delécluse.  She eventually established herself at the Académie Moderne where her tutors were the post-impressionist painters Charles Guérin and David Rosen.  Of all the art tuition she received in Paris she was the most contented with the ideas and techniques behind the Parisian avant-garde art, a genre which pushed the boundaries of ideas and creativity, which she learnt about at the Académie Moderne.

The Monongahela River at Morgantown by Blanche Lazzell (1939)

Blanche returned to America on the White Star passenger liner, SS Arabic, at the end of September 1913.  On her return to America Blanche went to live with her younger sister Bessie in Morgantown.  During her European travels Blanche built up a portfolio of sketches and paintings enough for her to have a solo exhibition in December 1914.  To make ends meet, she rented a studio in town and taught art as well as selling her hand-painted chinaware.

Byrdcliffe Artist Colony

Byrdcliffe Artist Colony

In the summer of 1917, Blanche spent time at the Byrdcliffe Arts Colony, an artists’ colony just outside Woodstock, New York.  The Byrdcliffe Art Colony was founded by Jane Byrd McCall and Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead and colleagues, Bolton Brown, an artist and Hervey White, a writer.  The name of the colony came from an amalgamation of Jane and Ralph’s middle names.  It was founded in 1902 and the complex was formed of a number of Arts and Crafts cottages.  It was there that visual artists, poets, and musicians found their muses and spent time creating works of art, music and poetry. In later times famous people, such as Bob Dylan, writer Thomas Mann, and even famous actors, Helen Hayes, and Chevy Chase, spent time at Byrdcliffe.  Blanche studied under the Belgian-born artist William Schumaker who whilst in Paris had come into contact with European avant-garde artists.  On his return to America he brought with him modernist principles.  The term modernism in art was a rejection of history and conservative values such as realistic depiction of subjects; it was an innovation and experimentation with form, that is to say, the shapes, colours and lines that make up the work have a tendency towards abstraction.  From 1913 to 1931, Schumaker was artist-in-residence at the artists’ colony at Byrdcliffe.

Still Life by Blanche Lazzell

In 1918 Blanche Lazzell left Morganstown and moved permanently to Provincetown, which is situated on the northern tip of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, a place she had previously visited in 1915.   She made the town her summer base while wintering back in Morganstown and Manhatten. 

Blanche Lazzell outside her Fish House studio, Princetown

She purchased an old fish house which overlooked the harbour of Provincetown and converted it into her studio.  She immersed herself into the local art scene and became a member of the Provincetown Art Association and the Sail Loft Club, Provincetown’s women’s art club.  She also became involved with the Provincetown Printers, a group of artists, most of whom were women, who created art using woodblock printing techniques.  It was a refuge for artists and a lively hub of experimentation and innovation. It became known as Princetown Print.  It was a white-line woodcut print, but it differed from woodcut printing as rather than creating separate woodblocks for each colour, one block was made and painted. Small groves between the elements of the design created the white line. In the main the artists often used soft colours, so that the finished product sometimes had the appearance of watercolour paintings.  Recalling her first summer at Provincetown, Blanche Lazzell fondly remembered her time there saying:

“…Hundreds of American artists who had been living in Europe before the first World War flocked to Provincetown. This quaint old seaport town, famous for the first landing place of the Pilgrims, was already an art colony…To be in Provincetown for the first time, in those days, under ordinary conditions was delightful enough, but that summer of 1915, when the whole scene, everything and everybody was new, it was glorious indeed–”

Untitled Abstract work by Blanche Lazzell

Lazzell returned to Paris in 1923 and studied with both Fernand Léger, Andre Lhote and Albert Gleizes, who was said to be one of the founders of cubism. By 1925, Blanche had mastered the static and shuffled planes of Synthetic Cubism, to which she added her own distinctive colour palette and elegant receptivity. Blanche defined Cubism as:

“… the organization of flat planes of colour, with an interplay of space, instead of perspective…”

Princetown Backyards by Blanche Lazzell

This was a style which was excellently suited to her woodcuts and often mirrored the angular patterns of the Provincetown houses, rooftops, and wharves which are depicted in many of her woodcut prints.  It is also interesting to note that Lazzell was a passionate gardener, and images of flowers often featured in her work but even these images, although based on direct observation, were changed into recurrent interactions of abstracted shapes.

The Flaming Bush by Blanche Lazzell (1933) At auction it realized $87,500.

Blanche’s younger sister Bessie gave birth to a son, in August 1924 and Blanche decided to return to Morganstown to help her.  Lazzell also became a mentor and role model for her niece, Frances Reed, the daughter of her sister Myrtle.   Blanche eventually returned to Princeton in 1926 and one of her first tasks was to pull down her previous studio, the Fish House, as it was getting too cold in the winter months due to the numerous drafts.

The Violet Jug by Blanche Lazzell

Trees by Blanche Lazzell (c.1930)

In 1928 she was invited to be on the board of directors of the international art group, Société Anonyme. Lazzell later joined the New York Society of Women Artists and the Society of Independent Artists. In the 1930s, Blanche took part in an exhibition called Fifty Prints of the Year where she exhibited her compositions The Violet Jug and Trees.

Ecuyère (Horsewoman) by Albert Gleizes (c.1923)

Around the same time she produced a number of pure abstract compositions which shows the influence of Albert Gleizes.

In 1934, America was in the midst of the Great Depression and Blanche Lazzell was one of two West Virginian artists who received Federal Art Project grants through the Works Progress Administration.  This was due to the American government which hired hundreds of artists who collectively created more than 100,000 paintings and murals and over 18,000 sculptures to be found in municipal buildings, schools, and hospitals in all of the 48 states. President Franklin Roosevelt sought to put as many unemployed Americans as possible back to work and to buoy the morale of the citizens. Some of the 20th century’s greatest visual artists were employed by the FAP, along with many nascent Abstract Expressionists.

Blanche Lazzell on her porch of her Provincetown studio, 1942

Blanche Lazzell outside Little Church around the Corner, New York

In May 1956, Blanche Lazzell’s health began to fail and she was taken to a hospital with a suspected stroke.  Lazzell died on June 1st 1956 and she is buried next to her father in Bethel Cemetery in Maidsville.  She was aged 77.

Ottalie Tolansky

After my very long last blog, here is a shorter one !

Ben Uri Gallery (Boundary Road, off Abbey Road, St John’s Wood, London)

When I was visiting London the other day, I visited the Ben Uri gallery in St John’s Wood, just off the famous Abbey Road.  I had been sent regular emails from the gallery about events and followed them on Facebook and was interested to visit the premises. 

The Girl in the Green Sari by Clara Klinghoffer

A few weeks ago I wrote about Clara Klinghoffer and I knew one of her paintings was at this gallery so I was interested to look at it up close.  I eventually found the gallery after going round in circles because I struggled to follow the GPS on my phone.  The gallery was much smaller than I had imagined but there on display was the Klinghoffer painting entitled The Girl in the Green Sari.

Girl in a Red Shirt by Ottilie Tolansky (c.1950)

The full-length painting was displayed in the small gallery and was quite impressive.  However, for me, more impressive was the full length painting next to it.  It was entitled Girl in a Red Shirt and the artist was given as Ottilie Tolansky and I knew I had to find out more about this unknown (to me) artist.

Self portrait by Ottilie Tolansky

Ottalie Pinkasovitch was born in Czernowitz, which was, at the time of her birth, in the northern Bukovian sector of the Austro-Hungary.  The town is now known as Chernivsti and is in western Ukraine.  She was born on May 30th 1912 into an Orthodox Jewish household.  Shortly after Ottalie was born, the town witnessed numerous riots directed against the Jewish community and so the family moved to live in Vienna.  For Ottalie, Vienna was home and she always looked upon herself as being Austrian. 

Reimann Art School in Berlin

In 1928, at the age of sixteen, the family were on the move again.  This time they set up home in Berlin where Ottalie’s father, an internationally recognised singer, took up the post of Obercantor at the city’s eighteenth century Alte Synagougue.  Meanwhile, the family having recognised that their daughter had a great talent for art decided to enter her into the Reimann School of Art in Berlin.  It was a private art school which had been founded in 1902 by Albert and Klara Reimann, and later in January 1937 was re-established in Regency Street, Pimlico, London following the persecution of the Jews by the Nazis. After leaving the Reimann School, she continued her studies at the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts.

Meadow Scene by Ottilie Tolansky

Hitler came to power in 1933 when he became the German Chancellor and with growing antisemitic views which swept the country the Pinkasovitch family moved to the safety of England.  Ottilie’s father accepted a job at a synagogue in Cheetham Hill, which was the predominantly Jewish area of Manchester.  Ottilie, who was enrolled at the Manchester Municipal School of Art, once again came into contact with her friend, the physicist Samuel Tolansky who was working at the University of Manchester. 

Mary Louise by Ottalie Tolansky

Samuel Tolansky had been born on November 17th 1907 in Newcastle upon Tyne. His parents had migrated to Great Britain around the turn of the century. His ancestors had come from Odessa but were of Lithuanian Jewish origin. Samuel was the second child in a family of two boys and two girls. His father was a tailor and, like most immigrants from Eastern Europe at the time, he had to start near the bottom of the ladder both financially and socially.  For the first ten years of life in England Samuel’s father lived in conditions of considerable poverty and that his son’s progress up the educational ladder was, at every critical stage, dependent on his ability to win scholarships and other awards.  However, Samuel worked hard and succeeded.

Samuel Tolansky

Ottilie had first met Samuel in Berlin in 1931 when he had been working at the Physikalisch-Technische Reicsansalt, a German government scientific institute.   In 1932, after a year working at the Berlin Institute he went to England and attended Imperial College London as a researcher into interferometry.  He remained in London until 1934.  From Imperial College London he relocated to Manchester and from 1934 to 1947 worked at the University of Manchester, as an Assistant Lecturer, later Senior Lecturer and Reader.  Ottilie and Samuel’s friendship blossomed and the couple found themselves in love.  The couple married in 1935.  Ottilie gave birth to their first child, Ann, who is now married and having graduated in history from Oxford University, became a solicitor. A second child, Jonathan, was born in London. He became a musician, a percussionist who has played in several of the leading orchestras.

Abstract by Ottilie Tolansky

Samuel and Ottilie Tolansky left Manchester and moved to London, where, after the war had ended, she attended the Hammersmith School of Art and regularly submitted her work at various exhibitions.  Ottilie’s portraiture, still lifes and figure drawings, which she completes mainly in oils and gouache are characterised by her main use of blues and violets.

Rabbi Joseph Trostmann by Ottilie Tolansky (c.1962)

One of her most famous portraits, in fact two paintings, is of her grandfather Rabbi Joseph Trostmann.  She based the depiction of the elderly man on her childhood recollections and family photographs.  One can be found at Stoke-on-Trent Art Gallery whilst the other was kept in the family.  After Ottilie died, her son Jonathan Tolansky, donated it to the Ben Uri Gallery.

Portrait of a Gentleman by Ottilie Tolansky

Ottilie Tolansky died in London on February 13th 1977 aged 64.  Her husband who had been nominated for a Nobel Prize, and was a principal investigator to the NASA lunar project known as the Apollo program, died four years earlier.

Albert Godwin

Albert Goodwin

The artist I am looking at today is the nineteenth century English painter, Albert Frederick Goodwin, best known for his watercolour landscapes.

The Artist’s Father, Samuel Goodwin by Albert Goodwin (1868)

Albert Goodwin was born at 1 Acton Place, 62 Boxley Road, Maidstone on January 17th 1845.  His father was Samuel Goodwin, a builder.  His mother was Rosetta (née Smith).  Albert was the seventh of eight children, having three older sisters, Emma, Rosetta and Mary Ann and three elder brothers, Charles, William Sidney and Henry (called Harry).  He also one younger brother, Frank Alfred.  An artistic talent weaved its way through his male siblings.  His eldest brother was known for his artistic talent as a young man before he joined the military as a member of the Royal Engineers.  Charles became a frame maker and Harry and Frank became professional painters.

Albert was brought up in a devout Baptist household and attended the Bethel Chapel in Maidstone, which his father had built along with its Sunday School in 1934.  Albert’s uncle, Thomas Goodwin often preached at the chapel and was its resident organist, which he had also constructed.  Albert attended Mr William Henry Wickstead’s School at Rocky Hill House, London Road, Maidstone.

The Old Bridge at Maidstone, Kent, Looking South by Albert Goodwin

Albert became interested in art and at the age of ten when he first exhibited one of his paintings,  This was a time at the start of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and one of its founders, William Holman Hunt had a great influence on young Goodwin.  At the age of fourteen Albert Goodwin started an apprenticeship with a local draper but after six months, he realised that the drapery business was not for him as he had set his heart on becoming a professional artist.  He just needed a willing teacher.   That came by chance, as it is said that whilst painting en plein air in the local woods he was spotted by the Pre-Raphaelite painter, Arthur Hughes who lived in Maidstone with his wife and children.  Arthur Hughes was impressed by Albert’s artistic skill and became his first tutor.

Sunrise over the Sea by Albert Goodwin

In 1859 Goodwin completed his painting entitled Bluebell Hill, Maidstone and in 1860 he exhibited his painting, Under the Hedge.  On March 18th 1863, Albert’s mother Rosetta died at the age of fifty-eight.  During Albert’s early twenties he was introduced to the well-known artist and art critic John Ruskin and on seeing Albert’s work, Ruskin purchased them all for £50 and Albert put the money to good use, funding his five week painting trip to the south coast resort of Hastings.  Around the mid 1860s Albert’s tutor, Arthur Hughes, introduced him to Ford Maddox Brown, a Pre-Raphaelite luminary who took Albert on as his pupil in his London studio.  Albert soon became acquainted with the other Pr-Raphaelite Brotherhood, such as Rossetti, William Morris, the Scottish artist William Bell Scott and George Price Boyce, the watercolour painter of landscapes.

The Old Bridge at Maidstone, Kent looking South by Albert Goodwin

Later, according to Albert’s daughter Olive, Albert and his brother Harry, went to work in the studio of William Morris’ company in Red Lion Square in London’s Holborn district.  In 1864 Albert set off on his first overseas trip, going to Holland where he visited the cities of Amsterdam and Rotterdam and that summer spent time in Jersey.  In the Autumn of 1864, he travelled north visiting Newcastle and Durham as well as the coastal town of Whitby

Whitby Abbey a watercolour by Albert Goodwin

Albert Goodwin completed a colourful watercolour of Whitby Abbey as seen from the east.  The abbey which had been founded in 657 by St Hilda was later destroyed by marauding Danes in 867.  This view is of Whitby Abbey from the east. The ruin depicted in this watercolour is as it is now after one of the towers collapsed in 1830.  Goodwin painted another version of the Abbey in 1910 but this was completed using oils and is now housed in the Victoria Gallery, Bath.  Albert Goodwin’s diary entry of July 22nd 1909 declares his love for Whitby.  He wrote:

“…Whitby once again…I am again inclined to repeat myself in the belief that one or two things in it (for colour) are as good as anything can be…”

Whitby Abbey by Albert Goodwin (1910)

Goodwin always loved to depict dramatic, poetic landscapes. In the 1910 version of Whitby Abbey the thoroughly radiant deep blue of the sky in this work is so typical of his work. Albert liked Whitby Abbey as a subject for painting because of its ruinous manifestation, but also because he was a deeply religious man, and had an interest in spiritual subjects.   Goodwin had painted many scenes featuring the abbey over the previous fourteen years.

A Prospect of Edinburgh from the East by Albert Goodwin (1909)

Albert Goodwin carried on painting in the 1860s and exhibited his work at many exhibitions including the Dudley Gallery in London.  On February 16th 1867 Albert married Mary Ann Lucas, who was the eldest daughter of George Lucas, a fruiterer from Brighton and a year later his brother Harry married Henrietta Lucas, the sister of Albert’s new wife.  Sadly, on December 13th 1869 Albert’s wife Mary Ann died, aged twenty-nine of peritonitis.  Albert and Mary Ann had no children.  Around this time Albert went to live with Arthur Hughes and his family in West Brompton, London and he was employed as Hughes’ studio assistant.

Ely Cathedral by Albert Goodwin

In 1871 Albert went on another European trip visiting Bruges.  That year he was elected Associate of the Society of Painters in Watercolours and at the time his address was given as Maltravers Street, Arundel, Sussex where he lived with his brother Harry and his wife Henrietta.  Sadly, Henrietta died that year, less than two years after her sister had passed.

The Medway at Maidstone by Albert Goodwin (1871)

Almost ten years had passed since Albert had first met John Ruskin and in Spring 1971, Ruskin offered Albert a job as his assistant and asked that he came to work with him at his home in Abingdon, Oxfordshire.  At the Royal Academy annual exhibition in 1871 Albert Goodwin exhibited his painting entitled The Medway at Maidstone.

The Drawing Room at Dixton Manor (Drawing Room at Dixton Manor with K.M.G. writing) by Harry Goodwin (1883)

In 1872 Albert’s brother Harry married for the second time following his first wife’s death.  His new wife was fellow painter, Kate Malleson. Harry depicted his wife writing at a desk in Dixton Manor.

From left to right: John Ruskin, Mrs JC Hilliard, Mrs Joan Severn, Arthur Severn, Constance Hilliard, Albert Goodwin.

Albert Goodwin’s friendship with John Ruskin continued and, along with Ruskin’s cousin Joan Severn and her husband Arthur Severn, visited Matlock Bath and the following year Albert Goodwin and Ruskin travelled to Italy and Switzerland.

  Mont Blanc from the Sèleve, near Geneva

In 1873, Albert Goodwin stayed for three months in the Swiss village of Simplon which lies close to the Italian border.

An Arabian Night, Cairo by Albert Goodwin (1876)

In 1873, like his brother the year before, Albert Goodwin a widower for four years, married his second wife, Alice Desborough at Holy Trinity Church in the West Devon village of Gidleigh.  The couple went on to have seven children, two sons and five daughters. In 1876, Albert and Alice travelled to Marseille before boarding a ship for Egypt.  They also called at Gibraltar, Naples and Crete.

Blue Water in Mounts Bay, Cornwall by Albert Goodwin (1881)

Albert Goodwin had first met the naturalist, Charles Darwin when he was introduced to him by John Ruskin. He visited Darwin at his Kent home, Down House.

Down House from the Garden by Albert Goodwin (1880)

Down House by Albert Goodwin (1880)

Whilst there he made sketches of the house and gardens and later completed two watercolour paintings of Darwin’s residence, which had been built in the early 18th century, and remained Darwin’ and his wife, Emma’s home for forty years until his death in 1882.   It was here that Darwin developed his theory of evolution by natural selection and wrote his ground-breaking work On the Origin of Species in 1859.

Ilfracombe by Albert Goodwin (1884)

Albert and his wife and children left London and moved to Montpelier Terrace Ilfracombe in 1877.  He continued on his painting trips around Britain and further afield to France, Switzerland and the Italian Lakes often accompanied by John Ruskin and Arthur Severn, sometimes accompanied by his brother Harry.  During these trips Goodwin made a large number of annotated sketches and watercolour studies direct from nature, a method he used, alongside working from memory, throughout his career. Ruskin was fascinated by the large number of sketches, which he termed “flying sketches”, which Goodwin produced on a daily basis. Goodwin was happy with his system and in his 1917 dairy entry, he wrote:

“…To me this method of work is one of the happy things of the art that I practise, for I get the realisation of a place twice over, and often the memory makes the scene a better one than the first experience…”

Meanwhile his wife Alice was at home in Ilfracombe with their seven children, Ivy, Olive, Edytha, Albert, Christabel, Alice and Harold and their two servants, one a cook and the other a nurse.  A few doors down from them were Alice’s mother and sister Mary.

Florence, Evening by Albert Goodwin (1896)

In 1881 Goodwin was elected a member of the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours. Albert Goodwin was continually influenced by John Ruskin who was constantly advising him with regards artistic techniques. Goodwin was a master of depicting topographical and landscape views.  For him, it was all about colour, and tonal values.   Ruskin was pleased and proud of his protégé and was constantly talking about the art of Turner and proudly showing off his own collection of Turner’s work.  Albert Goodwin wrote about the influence Turner had upon him in a diary entry in 1911.  He wrote:

“…I sometimes wonder if the spirit of old Turner takes over my personality. I often find (or think I find) myself doing the very same things that he seemed to do…”

Art critics of the time often likened his work to that of Turner.  In The Standard of October 1893, the art critic wrote:

“…In water-colour drawing Mr. Albert Goodwin is the legitimate successor of Turner…”

The Source of the Sacred River by Albert Goodwin (1900)

Albert Goodwin travelled to India in 1895 and one of the works from this trip was The Source of the Sacred River which he completed in 1900 and was exhibited at the Royal Academy that year.  The source in the title refers to the source of the River Ganges, which is regarded by the Hindu population of India as sacred, is at Lapthal, is in the Himalayas on the frontier between India and China. Of the painting, the art critic of The Athenaeum, a British literary magazine, in 1900 wrote:

“…Allegorical landscape, and still more allegorized landscape painting, is a difficult and particularly uncertain sort of art in which Mr Goodwin, its most accomplished practitioner amongst us, is one of the few who contrive even to approach success. The Source of the Sacred River is almost as suggestive, quite as well painted, and much more understandable. In general, it does not differ from a score of similar works by Mr Goodwin, who is not content with painting nature so admirably that few rival him and leaving to her sympathetic lovers the task of recognizing the pathos and poetry which, so to say, harmonizes itself with the spectator’s mood. There is nothing to tell us that the stream Mr Goodwin depicted so rarely is sacred in any exceptional sense, but there is much we can be grateful for in its abundant and sumptuous harmonies of colour, form, and light, and the dignity of its masses…”

Rye – The Winter’s Tale by Albert Goodwin (1920)

Albert Goodwin carried on with his painting trips around Britain and across the world, visiting South Africa, West Indies, Australia and New Zealand. His works were shown at a multitude of exhibitions and were always appreciated by critics and visitors alike. Goodwin died at his home, Ellerslie, in Bexhill-on-Sea on April 10th, 1932 aged 87.

Much of the information regarding the life and times of Albert Goodwin came from the Chris Beetles Gallery catalogue, Albert Goodwin RWS (1845-1932). The John & Mary Goodyear Collection, which I found in a charity shop in London.

and the website

The Maidstone Museum Websitre

Alethea (Thea) Mary Proctor

Alethea Proctor by George Lambert (1903)

The subject of today’s blog is the Australian painter, Alethea (Thea) Mary Proctor.  Thea was born on October 2nd 1879 at Armidale, a town in the Northern Tablelands of New South Wales, two hundred and fifty miles north of Sydney.  She was the elder child of William Consett Proctor, an English-born solicitor who was also a member of the Legislative Assembly and his Queensland-born wife Kathleen Janet Louisa Proctor, (née Roberts), who was a cousin of the artist John Peter Russell .  Thea’s brother Frederick William was born three years later.  She and her brother were brought up in what was considered as a financially comfortable lifestyle. During the 1880s the family lived at Hunters Hill, Sydney, and when she was ten years old, she was sent to boarding school at Armidale. Thea’s mother was determined that her children should succeed in life and arranged for them to take violin lessons from an early age.

Self portrait by Thea Proctor (1921)

In 1892, Thea’s parents separated and were finally divorced five years later. After the parent’s separation, Thea’s mother took her two children to live with her mother at Bowral, in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, about ninety minutes southwest of Sydney and it was her maternal grandmother who encouraged and inspired Thea’s love of art. In 1894, at the age of fifteen, Thea attended Lynthorpe Ladies’ College, and at the end of the first school year she won a prize at the Bowral District Amateur Art Society’s exhibition. In 1896 she enrolled at the Julian Ashton’s art school, founded by Ashton, an English-born Australian artist. Thea also worked for a short time as an illustrator at the Australian Magazine.

The Bay by Thea Proctor (1927)

Thea’s mother Katherine, who was aware of her daughter’s artistic talent also realised that she would learn much more by visiting England and see what the art institutions had to offer her daughter. Kathleen Proctor and her twenty-two year-old daughter set sail from Australia in April 1903 and arrived in the English capital in early June. Once in London Thea studied at St John’s Wood Art Schools where she and George Washington Lambert once again became fellow students.

Self portrait by George Washington Lambert

Thea would often pose for George Lambert who once proclaimed that Thea was beautiful, tall, dark-haired, languorous and dignified.  She in turn found Lambert to be intellectually stimulating and she was devoted to him and their friendship was to last a lifetime.  Amongst the artist she met whilst in London were other expatriate Australians painters, Charles Conder, Arthur Streeton and Tom Roberts, all of who had been drawn to the opportunities London had to offer aspiring painters. 

Fan by Thea Proctor (1906)

Charles Conder’s fan designs fascinated Thea as did the Japanese prints which were circulating the English capital at the time.  Thea exhibited her decorative fans created in watercolours on silk at the Royal Academy of Arts and New English Art Club in London and they were deemed a great success.  Thea’s favourite painting medium was watercolours and she completed many works drawing and painting in watercolours.  She was also greatly interested in the costumes she saw worn by women at the Chelsea Arts Club Balls and the Ballet Russe which she went to see in 1911.

Yellow Cab, Hyde Park by Thea Proctor (1910)

Thea’s mother, Kathleen, returned to Australia during the summer of 1905 but her daughter decided to stay in England.  Thea favoured the inspiring environment of London with all its cultural riches, and it offered her the chance to learn more about art and it was here that she was able to exhibit her work. The downside for her was it was an expensive place to live but she lasted out till October 1912 when she eventually returned to Australia.  Once back home Thea exhibited her work in Sydney and Melbourne and both the National galleries of Victoria and New South Wales bought some of her works.   The sale of her paintings was not as good as she had expected and the lure of England became too great to ignore and in late 1914, she returned to London. 

Summer by Thea Proctor (1930)

Thea soon produced her first lithographs which, although she continued to paint, established her reputation when exhibited by the Senefelder Club, an organization formed in London in 1909 to promote the craft of art reproduction by the process of lithography.  Later she exhibited with the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers and at the Goupil Gallery.  In tandem with her love for art was her love of fashion and the theatre.  This combined love of theatre and fashion was reflected in her work.   This was brought home in an interview she gave in the March 1926 issue of The Home Magazine, a high quality Australian quarterly magazine published in Sydney.  In the article Modifying the Mode by Selecting the Suitable Century, Thea talked about women’s fashion in England and was quoted as saying:

“…In London it is different. There quite a number of people dress to express their personalities. I don’t mean fancy dress or anything startling like Isadora Duncan’s brother who used to wear a Greek tunic and sandals on Chelsea Embankment in the chilliest weather, or one London authoress who generally attends dinner parties in hunting pink – the long topcoat looped back over an evening dress. But there are so many ways – almost imperceptible ways – in which a woman can modify the existing fashion so as to make a dress express her own personality rather than the personality of the shop from which it came. And her own period – it is a mistake to think that all women belong to the twentieth century simply because they were born in it…”

The Swing by Thea Proctor (1926)

Proctor eventually returned to Australia and went to live firstly in Melbourne in 1921 where she endeavoured to raise people’s interest in lithography, but unfortunately she found little interest and so she returned to Sydney.

The White Vase by Thea Proctor

Back on Australian soil Thea still promoted her lithographs and in 1925 Thea teamed up with Margaret Rose Preston, an Australian painter and printmaker, to stage a  joint exhibition in Sydney and Melbourne. Both artists exhibited brightly coloured woodcuts in scarlet frames and despite Thea’s works being viewed in London as being comparatively conservative, many Australian critics thought them to be ‘dangerously modern’.   In 1926, Thea Proctor and her long-standing friend, George Lambert, who had also returned from England in 1921 founded the Contemporary Group in Sydney in 1926 to encourage young avant-garde artists.  Their annual exhibitions were held at various galleries including Macquarie Galleries, Farmer’s Blaxland Galleries, Grosvenor Galleries, David Jones’ Galleries.

Alethea Mary Proctor in 1964

Thea taught design at Ashton’s Sydney Art School and also took on the role of a private art tutor and in so doing, introduced many young budding artists to the world of linocut printing.  In the 1940s Thea taught drawing for the Society of Arts and Crafts.  Thea Proctor never married and died on July 29th 1966 at Potts Point, a small suburb in the inner-city of Sydney.  She was 87.  She was cremated with Anglican rites.

Clara Klinghoffer. Part 4.

The Latter Years

Portrait of a Girl by Clara Klinghoffer

Clara’s stay close to Menton with her husband and youngest sister had proved to be a great success and their plans to return home to London had been postponed on a number of occasions.  The decision as to whether to leave their rented villa, Villa Aggradito, was taken out of their hands eventually as the owner needed the villa for a long-term rental over the coming winter, and the price for renting the villa was well beyond their means.  They eventually moved and found Villa Josephine, a small ground floor flat with a small garden in the small Nice suburb of St. Sylvestre which was run by an elderly woman, Madame Rigolier.  No sooner had the trio moved to their new home in September than Clara declared she was pregnant.  Madame Rigolier immediately took on the role of “mother” and saw to all Clara’s needs.  Clara’s husband on seeing that his wife was being well looked after decided to return to London with Clara’s youngest sister, Hilda.   Clara was not being left alone as they invited Joop’s brother, who had not been well, to come and stay and they believed he would benefit from the warmer climate during the winter months.

Portrait of a Young Girl by Clara Klinghoffer (1960)

With winter over Clara and Joop had to decide on their next move.  Clara was not happy with the medical help she received from the local doctor but could not afford the charges levied by the hospitals and doctors in Nice.  Clara and Joop left the Côte d’Azur in early March 1927 and headed to England with a two-day stopover in Paris.  They managed to rent a small ground floor flat in the London suburb of Hendon.  

Portrait of Cera Lewin by Clara Klinghoffer (1935)

On May 28th 1927 Clara gave birth to their first child, a daughter, whom they named Sonia.  The family finances were not good.  It was true that Clara was selling her work to various galleries but by the time you deducted gallery commissions and the cost of painting materials there was barely any profit.  Joop was struggling to find newspapers and magazine willing to buy his journalistic offerings and so the couple struggled financially.  He was also aware of Clara’s family’s disappointment in him for not being able to provide for his wife.  However, on a positive note, Clara’s fame as a talented young artist was spreading into Europe.  The art critic of the leading Amsterdam Handelsblad wrote:

“…Clara Klinghoffer is among the few of her generation who have succeeded in circumventing the many pitfalls adhering to the work of most younger painters in England. Her recent ‘Old Troubadour is praised by leading critics as her best work to date. And rightly so, for in spite of the forcefully realistic conception of this picture, it is free of all coarseness, while the blending of its colours may safely be described as refined…”

Such favourable comments with regards to her work appeared in newspapers in England and throughout Europe and her work was being shown in a number of major exhibitions.  Despite the continuing high praise from art critics the sale of he work was slow and her husband believed this was due to the poor publicity of the galleries were her work was on show. 

My Sister Beth by Clara Kinghoffer (1918)

At the end of 1927 the family’s luck took a turn for the better when Clara’s husband, who could speak French and German, was offered a job as secretary to an American industrialist, Ray Graham, one of the three Graham brothers, who headed up the Graham Paige Motor Car Company of Detroit. He was arriving in Europe and needed a well-travelled multi-linguist as his aide-de-camp.

Girl with Plaits by Clara Klinghoffer

Ray Graham eventually returned to America and offered Joop a position in Detroit but Clara was horrified at this offer and her husband had to turn down the job.  All was not lost however as Graham then offered to set up an agency for his car company in Paris and wanted Joop to head it up.  Clara was not averse to living in Paris so Joop accepted the job offer.  They relocated to the French capital in the Spring of 1928 and rented a small flat in the Avenue de Chatillon on the Left Bank which was an area where many artists lived.  Their home was not at all what they expected and the manageress, who seemed to be an alcoholic, was both unpleasant and unhelpful.  Clara was unhappy and wrote about their home and the surroundings:

“…High up from my window I look down upon the square, grey and desolate. The rain has not left off since last night. The immense puddles are filled with little bubbles that swim about till they burst. The square is new, and the road still unmade. To the right a house is in the making: an incomplete red structure, bricks, mortar and wood are piled up and scattered about. The workmen have not come. Factories and many-storeyed flats arise on all sides. A distant funnel gives out a grey smoke, with irritating slowness. At the end of the square a tram passes by, then a taxi. A group of people und.er umbrellas go past quickly.  Then, for at least four minutes, not another human soul is to be seen…”

Heemstede Canal behind Rudi’s House by Clara Klinghoffer (1932)

Unhappy with their present flat they were pleased to hear about an ideal house for them from a friend of Joop, a fellow journalist.   It lay some ten miles north-west of Paris in the village of Montmorency.  The house was in the rue des Berceaux, close to the railway station, and both Clara and Joop were pleased to make it their home. The little ‘villa’, as they called it had a large corridor leading from the front door, spacious living rooms, a large kitchen and a bedroom.  A wide staircase led to more bedrooms and the bathroom.  At the rear of the property there was a small, enclosed garden.  Both Clara and Joop were pleased with their new home.

Mother and Child by Clara Klinghoffer

Having had her first solo exhibition at Hampstead Gallery in 1920, she held her first solo exhibition abroad in April 1928 when fifteen of her  paintings and thirty-five sketches were displayed at the Nationale Kunsthandel in Amsterdam.  Following the success of this exhibition Clara was bombarded by galleries, such as the Imperial Gallery, The New English Art Club and the Woman’s International Art Club, for more of her work for their future exhibitions.

Untitled (One of Clara’s sisters) Chalk on paper by Clara Klinghoffer   ©the artist’s estate. photo credit: the artist’s family

Joop was still working from his Paris office for the American car company Graham-Paige and Clara was so busy painting that she had to employ an au-pair, Anne-Marie, to look after baby Sonia.  However in October 1929 life in America was rocked by the Wall Street crash and the Great Depression.  The Presidential hopeful Herbert Hoover’s phrase “two chickens in every pot and a car in every garage” in his speech the previous year, now had a hollow ring to it. Joop’s boss’s car firm was all to do with high-end cars and they were hit badly.   People were laid off and money spent on publicity, which was Joop’s area of expertise, was cut back.  Joop began to realise that his job was in jeopardy.  Fortunately, he heard that the Paris branch of the American publicity house of Erwin Wasey had advertised for a linguist to assist their executive in charge of all West-European advertising for Esso products.  He applied for the job and was taken on.  Meanwhile Clara had submitted a number of works to London’s Redfern Gallery and it had proved to be a great success even though financial problems were having an adverse effect on sales of works in both France and England.

Lakshme by Clara Klinghoffer (1918)

Life was to change in 1930 when, in July that year, Clara found herself pregnant with her second child.  Around the same time Joop was “head-hunted” for a position at Lord & Thomas & Logan, a publicity company who were looking for a Dutch-speaker with a Dutch background who, at the same time, had the necessary experience in the international publicity field.  Joop was exactly who they were looking for and he, and after speaking to Clara, agreed terms with his new employer.  Clara was not unhappy about the move to The Netherlands as she had enjoyed her previous stay there and Amsterdam to London was a short distance to travel when she needed to talk to London gallery owners.

Grandmère and Sonia by Clara Klinghoffer (c.1930)

Joop travelled ahead to set up his Amsterdam office and a month later Clara joined him.  The couple found it difficult to rent suitable accommodation in the city and eventually, in the Autumn of 1930, settled for a small house in Heemstede- Aerdenhout, just south of Haarlem.  There they waited for their household furniture to arrive from Paris. Once again Clara, who was now heavily pregnant, needed help with looking after her daughter and husband and so they hired a maid to help with the chores.  It was not a good time for Clara and she became very stressed.

Portrait of Bananas the Pedlar by Clara Klinghoffer (1923)

On the twenty-fifth of January 1931 Clara’s second child, a boy, was born. They called him Michael Jacob.  The name Michael was chosen because they simply liked the sound of it, and Jacob because that was the name of Joop’s late father. With the birth of her son, Clara’s mood and physical health improved.  They even employed a German girl, Hettie, as nurse for the baby, but as Jews, they soon became wary of her and her questions relating to them and their families.  It proved later that the nurse was feeding this information back to the German embassy.  After confronting her, she hastily left the family home.  Help did materialise when her sisters, Leah and Hilda came to live with them during the summer.  In late 1931 Clara’s mother-in-law came to live with her and her son and she remained with them until she died in 1935.

Rosie with Apple by Clara Klinghoffer (c.1929)

The start of 1932 was a very sad time for Clara as she received news that Rosie, one of her younger sister and for many years one of her favourite models, had been ill for some times. At first her illness did not seem to be a very serious one. But her pains increased and then, on being examined by a specialist, Clara had to face the awful truth: that the girl, just about thirty years old, was dying of cancer.  Clara travelled to London at once and stayed there for some time, drawing as she always did and making an exquisite painting of Rosie.   Several doctors were consulted; even a Dutch physician of Utrecht who supposedly had a cure for cancer, was persuaded to send each week a bottle of his magic medicine to London. But it was, of course, all in vain. Rosie died that summer. It was a very hard blow. From now on the magic circle of the seven Klinghoffer girls existed no longer.  For some time the loss of Rosie paralyzed Clara’s desire for work. Then, gradually, she took up her brushes again and painted.

Giuseppina by Clara Klinghoff (1934)

In 1932 Hitler came to power when the Weimar Republic collapsed.  The National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands (Dutch Nazi party) led by Anton Mussert became more prominent following the rise of Hitler and grew more challenging, stressing ever stronger the anti-semitic principles of the Filhrer.   On February 27th 1933, the Reichstag in Berlin was set alight by a twenty-three-year-old Dutchman Marinus van der Lubbe and, as in Germany, anti-semitic tensions in The Netherlands grew fanned by inflammatory articles appearing in Mussert’s weekly newspaper Volk en Vaderland (People and Fatherland).  Notwithstanding the political tensions Clara and Joop managed to get away and have a holiday in Taormina, Sicily where they stayed in a small hotel which had beautiful vistas across the bay.  They became friendly with the owner, Ettore Silvestri and his daughter Giuseppina who agreed to pose for Clara. She said that posing for long periods would be a problem to her and Clara and Joop discovered she had been very ill for five years, an illness that tired her. In August 1935 whilst back home Joop and Clara received a letter from Taormina informing them that sadly, Giuseppina had died.

One-eyed Mexican Farmer by Clara Klinghoffer (1962)

In 1939, the anti-semitic feelings in The Netherlands had begun to escalate and there was talk of a Nazi invasion of the country and so Clara and Joop decided to move to London.  They packed up all their furniture and Clara’s paintings and they were stored in a warehouse in Haarlem but sadly their property was plundered during Nazi occupation.  When the Second World War ended Clara divided her time between her studios in London and New York. In New York Clara held a number of exhibitions of her work but the interest in her figurative art was waning as the art world had latched on to the new abstract expressionism, by the likes of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning and suddenly Clara’s work was considered unfashionable and she struggled to attain exhibition space, even in London.  In 1952 she visited Mexico and she was attracted to the colourful landscapes and had no trouble finding locals who would model for her.  Her last exhibition was in 1969 at the Mexican/North American Cultural Institute in Mexico City.  She then returned to Europe and spent time in Southern France.  Her health began to deteriorate and she returned to London where she died on April 18th, 1970 at the age of 69.  Clara is buried at the Cheshunt Cemetery near London.

Clara Esther Klinghoffer (Stoppelman) 1900-1970

I end with a 1981 quote by Terrence Mullaly of The Daily Telegraph who wrote about Clara and her artistic talent:

“…If ever there was an artist who for some time has been unjustly forgotten, it is Clara Klinghoffer … While the temporary eclipse of her reputation was not, given trends in the visual arts, surprising, it is certainly lamentable. She was a portrait painter of sensitive talent and, above all, a fine draughtsman … In her work her obvious sensitivity towards her sitters is manifested, and enforced by her ability not only to suggest weight and substance of a body, but also to convey mood … When much more celebrated artists are forgotten, she will be remembered…”

Information for this blog was found in many sources but the most important ones were:

Clara Klinghoffer- 20th century English artist

Clara Klinghoffer: the girl who drew like Raphael and Leonardo

Clara Klinghoffer. Part 3.

Marriage and travels.

Lucien Pissarro by Clara Klinghoffer (1928)

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

Upon Reflection by Clara Klinghoffer (1919)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Harriet Cohen by Clara Klinghoffer (1925)

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

Portrait of a Girl in a Fur Hat by Clara Klinghoffer

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

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

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

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

The Old Troubador by Clara Klinghoffer (1926)

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

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

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

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

………to be continued.

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

Clara Klinghoffer- 20th century English artist

and

Clara Klinghoffer: the girl who drew like Raphael and Leonardo

Clara Klinghoffer. Part 2.

The artistic road ahead.

“…I consider Clara Klinghoffer an artist of great talent, a painter of the first order…
Her understanding of form places her in the very first rank of draughtsmen in the world…”

Sir Jacob Epstein, London, March 30, 1939

Self portrait by Clara Klinghoffer

Fourteen year old Clara was just about to leave St Mark’s School and it is thought that it could have been the head teacher of the school, Mrs Sinock, who suggested that Clara should enrol at Sir John Cass Institute in Aldgate. Once there she was set the task to make sketches of statues such as Michelangelo’s David concentrating on the various facial attributes. Soon the tutors realised she had a natural aptitude for sketching. A talent which she achieved with little effort, one that amazed her tutors. Clara was happy at the Institute but that all ended when one of the young tutors acted towards her in a sexually inappropriate manner which frightened her. The pleasure she once had attending the classes vanished and she left the Institute suddenly without giving a reason for her departure. For a fourteen year old girl this must have been a shocking moment in her life.

Salman Klinghoffer -Man In A Felt Hat (‘Daddy’) by Clara Klinghoffer (1929)

Clara’s father was disappointed that his daughter had given up her art studies and one day whilst travelling home on a tram he caught sight of an advert for the Central School of Arts and Crafts which was situated in Southampton Row in the West End of London He then managed to persuade his daughter to come with him to the art school and enrol. She agreed and took with her a portfolio of her sketches. The principal took a look at her work and immediately offered her a place, starting that next Monday. On the Monday, Clara, who was still very small, arrived at her classroom carrying her huge portfolio case much to the amusement of the two tutors who were overseeing the students. One was Douglas Grant a British painter who became part of the Bloomsbury Set and the other was Bernard Meninsky, the British figurative and landscape painter who had immigrated from Ukraine with his family when he was three weeks old. On looking at Clara’s portfolio, Meninsky was astounded by the quality of her work and set her the task of sketching a cast of a hand. He was astounded by the result and likened it to that of Da Vinci drawings. Both Meninsky and Grant had witnessed such talent in a person so young as Clara and often her sketches were hung on the walls of the classroom. Also on the wall was a print of Botticelli’s Primavera which Clara said that she loved above any other work she had seen. Another of her favourite works was a black and white reproduction of Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne which she had seen a few years ago in the local library. More and more, she became influenced by Italian art.

East End Girl with Dark Hair by Clara Klinghoffer

Meninsky went on to tutor Clara in life drawing and became an important influence on her work.  He also introduced her to a number of luminaries of the art world such as Walter Sickert’s third wife, Thérèse Lessore, a British artist who worked in oil and watercolour and was a founder member of the London Group, the English writer and painter, Wyndham Lewis, and the New York born sculptor, Jacob Epstein and his publicist wife, Peggy, who became her close friends.

Harry, Old London Man by Clara Klinghoff (c.1920)

Clara remained at the Central School of Arts and Crafts for two years and during this period would often spend time at her easel, sketching at the Victoria and Albert Museum and her favourite venue, the British Museum, where she became a regular and was well known to the security guards, staff and regular visitors.

Mother and Child by Clara Klinghoffer. Modelled by Clara’s eldest sister Fanny and her youngest sister Hilda (1918)

One of Clara’s fellow students at the Central School of Arts & Crafts was a young man called Seidenfeld, who was besotted with Clara but she alas did not return his amour.  He, like Meninsky, praised Clara’s work and would tell everybody who would listen, about Clara’s work and her extraordinary talent.  Word of this young artistic genius reached the ears of a journalist, Joseph Leftwich and he was so impressed by her artistic talent that he spoke of it to the post-Impressionist painter, Alfred Wolmark,   Wolmark had some of his work shown at the Hamstead Art Gallery in London and he persuaded Clara to put together a portfolio of her work which would be used in her “one-man” show at the gallery in May 1920.  That gave her twelve months to complete a collection which was good enough to be exhibited and this entailed a period of non-stop painting. The painting Mother and Child was one which was exhibited at Clara solo show at the Harpenden Gallery in May 1920. The show received rave reviews and of this work, The Sunday Times art critic wrote:

“…Clara Klinghoffer’s ‘ Mother and Child’ will appeal to ‘many as having more sheer beauty than any work in the exhibition. While exceedingly able in point of drawing, this moving painting of a mother just lifting her child “out of the bath delights one by the piquancy of its colour, the shimmer of light on the bare flesh being rendered with the tenderness of a Renoir and the dexterity of a Besnard. In its dazzling radiance it is a joy of pure colour…”

Portrait of a girl in a fur hat, with red background by Clara Klinghoffer

Portrait of Woman Plaiting her Hair by Clara Klinghoffer

In the end Clara submitted twenty-one paintings and thirty-two framed and glazed drawings. On May 3rd 1920 the solo exhibition opened. The London Evening Standard stressed the brilliant future this 19-year-old painter is destined to have. and it continued:

“…One of the most encouraging things about her work is that it gives frank and full expression to what may be supposed to be her racial instincts and interests. She likes exuberant forms and bright colours and says so when painting with commendable frankness. Her strongest point at present is the ease with which she can fill her canvas. Evidently, she has studied the Old Masters, particularly Leonardo da Vinci, to good purpose…”

In 1920, an edition of the The Jewish Chronicle sang the praises of Clara’s work at the exhibition writing:

“…Clara Klinghoffer, in her exhibition at the Hampstead Art Gallery, has clearly proved to be a truly great artist. Her drawings are very beautiful and quite remarkable for an artist scarcely out of her teens. One feels how very much she has been influenced by the Great Masters–by Raphael and by Leonardo for example. And yet, her outlook is entirely modern; she has absorbed the past and expresses herself freely, inspired but never enslaved thereby. Her paintings are always well composed and this is so whether a single portrait or a group is considered. She has a peculiar sense of colour and makes no attempt to get the correct tone, which fact accounts for the unreal appearance of all save one or two portraits. She apparently paints without much effort, and the spontaneity of her work is charming……. There is nothing shallow in Miss Klinghoffer’s genius. She is perfectly sincere and employs her extraordinary gifts for a definite artistic purpose, simply and beautifully, without the slightest trace of affectation…”

The painting Mother and Child was then put on display at the New English Art Club that summer and the press was full of praise for the work

Portrait of a Man (on Red) by Clara Klinghoffer

Meanwhile, her father’s “mill end” business was flourishing, so too was her mother’s clothes shop, so much so, the family moved to a large Victorian House in King Edward Road, Hackney.  Compared to their previous London homes, this was paradise.  It was large with a basement kitchen, large first floor living rooms and several bedrooms on the upper floors.  The increase in the size of their home was fortuitous as Clara’s mother gave birth to a three further children, all daughters, which meant the house was home to mother, father and seven daughters !  Business success for her father meant that he could afford to buy Clara all the materials she needed for her paintings.  He and his wife were convinced their daughter would one day become a famous painter.

Portrait of the Artist’s Sister Rachel (Rachel in a Red Dress) by Clara Klinghoffer

Clara would complete small paintings of the neighbourhood children but realised that for her own exhibition at the Hampstead Gallery she would need to complete larger works and so she turned to her sisters, (Fanny, Rose, Rachel, Bertha, Leah, and Hilda), whose ages ranged from four to twenty-one, to act as models, but most frequently Rose (who also sat as a model for the sculptor Jacob Epstein), and Rachel. This shimmering portrait of Rachel is made from delicate brushstrokes and this was a recognisable style of Clara’s portraits and establish her renowned warmth and understanding in the way she depicts her sitters.

Girl in the Green Sari by Clara Klinghoffer (1926)

This portrait, Girl in the Green Sari, by Klinghoffer was that of the Bengali artist Pratima Devi, the  daughter-in-law of the famous Bengali poet and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore.  Pratima often travelled abroad with him and they often visited Klinghoffer in her London studio. In all, she completed at least three portraits of Pratima: the first, in oils, around 1919-20; the second, a pencil head, which The Times, in 1924, considered it remarkable for the sensitive drawing and the suggestion of light. This later full-length painting was carried out in 1926, which was the year Clara married and her husband remembers Pratima’s visit and sitting for her portrait.  She wore the blue sari and was adorned with dazzling jewellery.  Clara had Pratima remove all the jewellery, maybe as she believed it would detract from the woman’s depiction.  We observe Pratima as a demure, maybe shy, woman with her eyes downcast, dressed in a translucent sari standing in front of a glistening backdrop.

Portrait of Orovida Pissarro by Clara Klinghoffer

Clara’s arresting portrait of her friend and fellow artist Orovida Pissarro was completed in 1962.  Orovida was born in Epping, Essex, in 1893, and was the only child of Lucien and Esther Pissarro. Her father, Lucien Pissarro was an acclaimed artist and graphic illustrator, while Lucien’s father, Orovida’s grandfather, was the renowned Danish-French painter Camille Pissarro who was a founder of the Impressionist movement.  Much to her father’s horror, Orovida turned her back on Impressionism – and even dropped her famous surname, wanting to be simply known as ‘Orovida’. Her reason for this was not because she wanted to cut herself off from her family ties but because she wanted to make her own way in life, on her own terms.  Clara has depicted the form of her sitter including her rounded belly and full face framed by her cropped hairstyle, which is copied in the curves of the chair.  Behind her we see a collection of inanimate objects which probably referred to items which often appeared in Orovida’s portraiture.

……to be continued.

Information for this blog was found in many sources but the most important ones were:

Clara Klinghoffer- 20th century English artist

Clara Klinghoffer: the girl who drew like Raphael and Leonardo

 

Isabel Codrington Pyke Nott

Portrait study of Isabel, by Philip Alexius de László, (c.1909)

In 1856, John Nott , the Lord of the Bydown Manor estate within the parish of Swimbridge, close to the town of Barnstable in Devon, died childless and his two sisters Elizabeth and Marianne became his co-heirs.  In 1838 Elizabeth Nott married Reverend John Pyke, and their son John Nott Pyke, became the heir to Bydown.  John Nott Pyke was educated at Eton College and Exeter College, Oxford and was an amateur playwright.    In 1863 John Nott Pyke received royal licence to assume the additional surname of Nott, in compliance with the will of his uncle and thus became known as John Nott Pyke-Nott. In 1867 he married Caroline Isabella Ward, a writer and artist.  The couple had five children, three sons and two daughters.   John Moels Pyke-Nott, the eldest and heir to the estate was born in 1868.  Caroline Evelyn Eunice Pyke-Nott was born in 1870 and Isobel Codrington Pyke-Nott was born in 1874 and it is this lady, a painter that is the subject of this blog.

Phoebe by Isabel Codrington

Isabel Codrington Pyke Nott, more commonly referred to as Isabel Codrington, was born on the Bydown estate within the parish of Swimbridge in Devon in 1874.  When she was nine years old she and her family moved to London.  In 1885 Isobel and her sister Evelyn Caroline Eunice were enrolled at the Hastings and St Leonards School of Art.  From there Isobel and her sister attended the St John’s Wood Art School which was a precursor for entry into the Royal Academy Schools which Isobel entered in 1889, aged fifteen. It was also here that her sister Eunice met her husband-to-be, the artist Byam Shaw.  Isobel soon displayed her artistic talent and won two medals for her work and she soon began to have her work shown at various exhibitions.

Paul George Konody by William Roberts (1920)

Around the end of the nineteenth century Isobel Codrington met a young and highly motivated Hungarian-born art critic, Paul George Konody who at the time was the editor of The Artist, and later became a regular art reviewer for The Observer and The Daily Mail. The couple fell in love and were married on October 27th 1901 in the romantic village of Porlock, an English coastal village in Somerset.  Isabel was twenty-seven at the time of her marriage and her husband, twenty-nine. She was now Mrs Isabel Konody. The couple went on, during the next five years, to have two daughters, Pauline and Margaret.

At this time, Isabel’s work featured miniatures and inventive watercolours, one of which won her a medal at the Exposition Internationale d’arte in Barcelona in 1907.  Isobel and her husband lived in London and hosted many parties for their artistic and literary friends.  Isobel’s husband was a keen motorist and the couple and two male companions, Gustavus ‘Dan’ Mayer, the art dealer, and ‘Pomponius’, the architect, Edwin Alfred Rickards, embarked on an exciting road trip in 1911 driving through France and then down the length of Italy from north to south through the Alps and Apennines, in what Konody described as a ‘noiseless’ thirty-horse-power steam driven landau.  Out of this momentous trip Konody published the account of their exploratory journey in a 1912 book entitled Through the Alps and the Apennines.

Mrs Konody sketching an ox-cart at Assisi. Photograph by Gustavus Mayer from P.G. Konody’s book , Through the Alps to the Apennines, (1911)

Cantine Franco-Britannique, Vitry-le-François by Isabel Codrington (1919)

Sadly Isobel’s marriage to Paul Konody came to an end around 1912 and they divorced in 1913.  That same year, Isabel married Gustavus Mayer, known as Dan, who had been with Isabel and her husband on their Italian road trip.  He was a director in the London art dealership, P & D Colnaghi.

The Beggars are coming to Town by Isabel Codrington

Having two young daughters and a new husband to look after curtailed her painting for a few years.  She remembered the time she returned to her beloved art in an interview with a reporter in 1918, saying:

“…I felt I would like to begin again…… I had forgotten almost everything…”

The phrase “getting back on the horse” came to fruition in 1919 when she received a painting commission from the Imperial War Museum for a painting, Cantine Franco-Britannique, Vitry-le-François, which depicted life at a French canteen during the Great War.  It is an interior scene of a canteen for French troops and we see soldiers sitting and standing around the tables talking amongst their comrades. In the right foreground we observe one soldier greeting another who has just come into the room. On the extreme left of the foreground, we see one soldier slouched over with his head resting on his arms on a table.

The Shrimp Girl by William Hogarth (c.1745)

The depiction of Costers, Hawkers and Gypsies became popular around the mid eighteenth century with the likes of William Hogarth’s painting, The Shrimp Girl. The painting was one of Hogarth’s later works and depicts a woman selling shellfish on the streets of London, which was typically a job assigned to the wives and daughters of fishmongers who owned stalls in markets such as Billingsgate. By the 1920s this type of depiction was favoured by the likes of George Clausen, who was one of Isabel Codrington’s most notable teachers.

The Old Tramp by Isabel Codrington (1926)

Her painting entitled The Old Tramp was well received by the critics and the art critic of the Colour magazine wrote:

“…At the present time Miss Codrington is among its ablest exponents as can be seen in this outdoor character study which is remarkably naturalistic and full of descriptive detail…”

The article also made reference to the plein air tradition of George Clausen and Bastien-Lepage.

Zillah Lee, Hawker by Isabel Codrington (c.1928)

Two years later in 1928 when her painting entitled Zillah Lee, Hawker was shown at the Paris Salon des Artistes Français, similar remarks were made about her depiction of the gypsy woman.  One French critic remarked that the depiction of the old woman was ‘sobres, très observés, traduites avec une grande simplicité de moyens, (simple, highly observed and translated with great simplicity of means). The exhibiting of her work that year was the fifth time her paintings had graced the walls of the Salon.  From Paris the painting went to London where it was exhibited at the Royal Academy.

The Onion Rover by Isabel Codrington

In the 1920s Isabel had her work exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy and after 1923, her paintings could be seen hanging at the prestigious walls of the Paris Salon.  On one occasion she received a Mention Honorable from the Salon Jury. One of her favourite subjects for her paintings was that of peasant life.  She had exhibited works alongside the great George Clausen,  one of the foremost modern painters of landscape and of peasant life and maybe it was his influence that influenced Isabel. It could also be, despite her impressive circle of artist friends and the connections she made through her husband’s firm of P &D Colnaghi, that Isabel preferred scenes of peasant life which she would have come across during her travels through France, Spain and Italy. One of her “peasant” depictions was entitled Onion Rover.

The Old Violinist by Isabel Codrington (c.1933)

Fine Prints of the Year was an annual series of books that reported and discussed the etchings, engravings, woodcuts and lithographs published each year between 1923 and 1938 by major artists of the period.  Malcolm Salaman,  an art critic and Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers, who studied at Slade School of Art and Ruskin School of Art, Oxford,  explained in the preface to the 1933 volume of Fine Prints of the Year, why he had chosen to illustrate the distinctive figure of The Old Violinist in preference to Isabel Codrington’s consummate landscapes. He wrote about the subject of the print:

“…He is playing his way slowly along the poor street, his worn fingers touching the strings in no uncertain fashion, though his bowing is not perhaps what it was in his younger and more showy days. But there is something in the tone or the tune that attracts a small boy ambling along with his marketing mother. This etching is suggestive, the face, figure and clothes of the man show wear, but the fiddle is being strummed with a reminiscence that the child seems to recognise…”

Isabel often added distant figures to her etched street scenes, so to enrich the narrative element of the work.

Drowsy Summer Days by Isabel Codrington (c.1935)

In complete contrast to Isabel’s paintings depicting gypsies, beggars and the like, she produced one of her most sensuous works entitled Drowsy Summer Days. Isabel Codrington may well have seen paintings depicting provocative reclining nudes which were popular in the 1920s and 1930s but she has depicted the sleeping female in the most sensitive way. 

Grande Odalisque by Ingres (1814)

Her model’s sleek torso, pale skin, and the cool, silken cloths and cushions on which she rests, remind us of Ingres’ 1814 Grande Odalisque or the Venus of Urbino by Titian.. 

Venus of Urbino by Titian (1534)

In Isabel’s painting the woman’s body is bathed in the light from the fire in her boudoir on what appears to be a drowsy summer day. The young woman’s book has been set aside and her arms have fallen by her side, whilst her head has sunk into a silken pillow.  The painting was the last one she submitted to the Royal Academy.  Alfred Lys Baldry, the English art critic and painter commented on the work saying:

“…. it was an idealized rendering of the female nude as seen by a male painter and the frank fidelity of the female nude of the woman artist who has no illusions about the beauty of her sex…”

Morning by Isabel Codrington (1934)

Similar in some ways and yet in total contrast in other ways is Codrington’s 1934 work simply entitled Morning.  It was a masterclass on the use of light and shade.  Gone are the silk furnishings seen in her Drowsy Summer Days painting.  In this work we see a woman lying asleep in a simple metal bed. Her left arm lies outstretched towards the floor while her right hand clutches the sheets. The room is seedy and an untidy mess. In the room we see a plain wooden chair by her bed, enveloped with her discarded clothing and a melted candlestick.   In the foreground, the light from the morning sun streams through a window into the room. A breakfast table can be seen, cluttered with bread, cucumber, a bowl of tomatoes, a half-read newspaper, and a glass of water.  The lifestyle of the depicted woman could not be further away from the luxurious lifestyle of the female in the Drowsy Summer Days painting.

Wild Thyme Farm by Isabel Codrington (1927)

Isabel and her husband, Gustavus Mayer, moved to the village of Woldingham in Surrey, and bought a mock-Tudor mansion named Wistler’s Wood.

Isabel Codrington dominated the British art scene during the 1920s. Her landscape work was outstanding and her painting, Wild Thyme Farm was a prime example of her excellence.  The depiction with its foreground field of hay-stooks typifies a series of downland landscapes painted by Isabel on the estate surrounding her home at Whistler’s Wood, a forest in Surrey. The sun shines from the left on to the rolling hills and casts long shadows.

Frank Rutter, a British art critic, curator and activist who was the art critic for The Sunday Times, wrote about Isabel Codrington’s landscape works, saying:

“…since her art is based on simple domestic commodities and the homely landscapes and barns of the southern counties, Isabel Codrington has little need of an interpreter. Her pictures speak for themselves and speak simply but eloquently…”

The Lily Garden by Isabel Codrington (c.1935)

Isabel’s landscape paintings depicting rural scenes around her home, the Mayer estate, at Whistler’s Wood, Woldingham in Surrey, were shown at a 1929 exhibition.  During the 1930s, Isabel began to concentrate on etching and an exhibition of her etchings was presented at Colnaghi’s London gallery in 1933. 

Chrysanthemums by Isabel Codrington

In 1935 she submitted work for the Royal Academy exhibition for the final time.  Her final solo exhibition of ‘Flower Paintings’ was held at the Rembrandt Gallery in Vigo Street in November 1935.  During the final years of her life, she moved to Devon where she died in 1943, aged 68.

Below are some websites I used when compiling this blog and they will offer you further reading about the life and works of Isabel Codrington.

Lyon & Turnbull

Artvee

Christies

Elizabeth Harvey Lee:  Original Prints 15th – 21st centuries

Doris McCarthy-beautiful simplicity.

Doris McCarthy aged 96.

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

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

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

Hills at Dagmar, Ontario by Doris McCarthy (1948)

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

Village Under Big Hills by Doris McCarthy

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

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

Sutton Village, Quebec Province by Doris McCarthy

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

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

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

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

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

Fool’s Paradise

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

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

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

Holman Island, Western Artic by Doris McCarthy (1977)

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

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

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

Iceberg Fantasy by Doris McCarthy

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

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

McCarthy painting at Grise Fjord, Nunavut 1976

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Life of Doris McCarthy. University of Toronto

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

American Women Artists

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

Fool’s Paradise Guided Tour

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

The Knip Dynasty of Artists

(Left click on family tree for larger view)

Nicolaas Frederik Knip (1741-1808)

A Stone Urn with Flowers and Fruit by Nicolaas Frederik Knip

In this blog I am looking at the Knip family, a Dutch artistic dynasty, a multi-generation of talented painters. To begin this journey I go back to February 12th, 1741 and the birth of Nicolaas Frederik Knip in the Dutch town of Nijmegen, which lies close to the German border. During the first thirty years of his life, he earned money for his family as a travelling painter picking up commissions on his journeys.  His favoured genre was painting wallpapers for large residences, painting advertising signs for inns and various businesses.  In 1774, a year after moving to Tilburg, he married Anna Elisabeth Drexler the daughter of Matthijs Drexler, the keeper of Tilburg Castle. The couple went on to have five children, four of who, like their father, became well-known artists. They were Josephus Augustus Knip, Mattheus Derk Knip, Henriëtta Geertrui Knip and Frederik Willem Knip. After his marriage, Nicolaas Knip started painting floral still lifes and landscapes.

Saint Nicholas as Patron of the Butchers’ Guild (1789)

In 1787 Nicolaas Knip moved to Den Bosch and two years later, he collaborated with the Dutch painter Quirinus van Amelsfoort on the large painting (220 x 530 cms) commemorating the fourth century saint, St Nicholas of Myra as the Patron of the Butchers’ Guild.  We see the bishop in the centre of the work holding out his hands to three children. At the top right are some angels who have alerted the saint to the incident.   The depiction refers to the legend that through his fervent prayer the saint brings to life the children and is a reminder of the gruesome tale which tells of three children who, at the time of a famine, were cut into pieces by a butcher and pickled in a barrel.  It now hangs in the Den Bosch town hall. For the last 12 years of his life, Knip was completely blind. He died in Den Bosch in 1808.

Josephus Augustus Knip (1787-1847)

The Shelling of ‘s-Hertogenbosch during the French Revolutionary Wars  by Josephus Augustus Knip (1800)

Josephus Augustus Knip was the eldest child of Nicolaas and Anna Knip (née Drexler).  He was baptized on August 3rd 1777.  In 1788, when he was eleven years old, he moved with his family to ‘s-Hertogenbosch. His father was his first art tutor.   Unfortunately when his father’s eyesight deteriorated and eventually became blind in 1796, Josephus had to take on the role as breadwinner.  In 1801 at the age of twenty-four, he built up a reputation as a landscape artist in Paris, where he accepted commissions for topographical landscape works. He spent nine years in Paris during which time he became drawing master to Napoleon III of France. Josephus left Paris at the end of 1809 and travelled to Italy and based himself in Rome for three years. 

The Gulf of Naples with the Island of Ischia and the Epomeo Volcano in the Background by Josephus Augustus Knip (1818)

During those three years he made many painting depicting Naples, the Sabine Hills, the Alban Hills, and the Campagna.  He was greatly influenced by the panoramic landscapes he saw during his travels. He made numerous detailed sketches which he would later convert into beautiful watercolour and oil paintings. One such work from his days in Italy is his 1818 work entitled The Gulf of Naples, with the Island of Ischia and the Epomeo volcano in the background. Also depicted are the Roman monuments. You can see the ruins of the Colosseum on the left, the aqueduct of Nero and the monastery church Quattro Coronati. In 1813, Josephus went back to his Dutch homeland with his wife, the painter Pauline Rifer de Courcelles, whom he had married in 1808. He settled in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, where he set up his studio. Later he lived in Amsterdam. His career was cut short in the late 1820s when he lost the sight of one eye. By 1832 he was completely blind. He died at the end of September 1847, aged 70.

Illustration by Pauline Rifer De Courcelles femme Knip for the book, Les Pigeons.

There is some doubt as to Henriëtte’s mother, as at the time of her birth in 1821, Josephus and Pauline were living apart, their marriage had been a disaster as they were such different characters and incompatible.  Josephus was then living with his mistress, Cornelia van Leeuwen, who is credited with being Henriëtte’s mother. In 1824, when Henriëtte was three years old, Pauline and Josephus divorced and thereafter she signed her pictures ‘Pauline De Courcelles femme Knip’. 

De Courcelles’s earliest paintings featured American birds and later she provided illustrations of pigeons for the book Histoire Naturelle des Pigeons, written by the Dutch ornithologist Coenraad Temminck. The backstory to this publication is filled with intrigue as in 1811 when she had finished one volume of pigeons, she published it straight away, much to the annoyance of Temminck who did not publish his own three-volume work until 1813-15. He stated with much anger that she had rushed in and ‘stolen’ his text on pigeons of the world and published it with her illustrations before he had completed his 3-volume set.

Henrietta Geertrui Knip (1783-1842)

Henriëtta Geertrui Knip was born in Tilburg on July 19th 1783.  She was the second-born child of Nicolaas and Anna Knip.  Initially she was tutored in painting by her father, Nicolaas but when he began to go blind she turned to her older brother Josephus for artistic advice.  In April 1801 when Josephus went to Paris she accompanied him.  She had always been interested in floral paintings and so, on arriving in Paris, she took lessons from the Dutch flower painter Gerard van Spaendonck, who had been living and working in Paris since 1769.

Flowers in a Vase by Henriëtta Geertrui Knip (1830)

Once she had completed her studies she returned to The Netherlands where she spent the summers in Haarlem and was employed by various flower companies to illustrate their adverts and brochures.  During the harsh winters and out of the flower growing season she returned to Amsterdam where she taught ladies how to paint.

Floral Bouquet by Henriëtta Geertrui Knip (1834)

She eventually returned to the French capital in 1824 and studied under Jan Frans van Dael, a Flemish painter and lithographer who specialised in floral painting and still lifes featuring various fruits.  She remained close to her older brother and when he suffered from blindness and had to give up painting, Henriette was able to step in and support him and his family.  Henriëtta Geertrui Knip died in Haarlem on May 29th 1842, aged 58.

Mattheus Derk Knip (1785-1845)

Dr. P.J. de Willebois with His Family at the Rhine in Germany by Mattheus Knip (c.1823)

Mattheus Derk Knip, the second son of Nicolaas Frederik Knip and his wife Anna, was born on December 30th 1785 in Tilburg.  Little is known about his early years but, like his sister Henrietta, it is believed that he received his first art tuition from his father and later from his elder brother Josephus.  It is thought that he also studied under the Brabant brothers, Gerard van Spaendonck and his brother Cornelis van Spaendonck who were renowned floral painters. At the time, there were no leading flower painters in Paris and so the brothers were able to make a name for themselves with their favoured genre.  King Louis XVI appointed Gerard to the role of royal miniature flower painter.

View of Oirschot and St Petrus Church by Mattheus Knip

When his siblings, Josephus, Mattheus and Henriette moved to Paris in 1801 he went with them and remained in the French capital until 1806.  On returning to the Netherlands he set up home in Vught and then Den Bosch in the North Brabant, a province in the south of the Netherlands.  Mattheus would go on to paint many Brabant landscapes. Mattheus rarely signed his work which made the attribution of his work difficult. Mattheus Knip married twice. His first marriage in 1810 was to Elisabeth Ubens and they had a son, Henri Knip, who also became a painter. Mattheus married a second time in 1822.  His second wife was Cornelia Adriana van Hoften.  He died in Vught on April 24th 1845, aged 59.

Hendrikus Johannes “Henri” Knip (1819-1897)

Self portrait by Henri Knip

Henri Knip, the son of Mattheus and Elisabeth Knip, was the youngest member of the family of artists.  He was born in den Bosch on April 20th 1819.  It is thought that during his career , around 1833, he travelled to Italy and Switzerland accompanied by his father, Mattheus Derk Knip. The long painting trip through the mountainous regions of those countries were captured on canvas and resulted in half of his work such beautiful scenes.   As well as using his sketches from his painting trip to aid his finished oil paintings he also made use of topographical lithographs which were circulating at that time.  Other of Henri’s works depicted village scenes and buildings, including churches, castles and country estates.

A Mountainous Landscape by Henri Knip

In 1854, Henri was living in Amsterdam but two years later he took up residency in Brussels and in the latter years of his life he lived Schaerbeek where he died in 1897, aged 78.   Henri had been married to Louisa Henriëtte Victoire Verassel.

Henrietta Ronner-Knip (1783-1842)

Henriette Ronner-Knip

Henriëtte Ronner-Knip, named after her aunt, was born in Amsterdam on May 31st 1821, the younger of two children of Josephus Augustus Knip and Cornelia van Leeuwen.  She had one brother, August, who was almost two years older than her.   Henriette’s parents were not married at the time of Henriette’s birth as her father was still officially married to his French animal painter wife, Antoinette Pauline Jacqueline Rifer de Courcelles. 

Katjesspel (The Kitten Game) by Henriette Ronner-Knip

Her father, despite his failing eyesight, tutored both her and her brother in the techniques of painting. In 1833, after a short stay in The Hague, the Knip family moved to Beek before returning to ‘s-Hertogenbosch.  When she was twenty years old, she and the family took up residence in the nearby village of Berlicum in North Brabant, close to the River Aa.  Once her father had to give up painting because he was going blind, Henriette took on the task of looking after the household and providing for the family.

A Kitten Playing by Henriette Ronner-Knip

On the death of her parents, her father Josephus in 1847, and her mother Cornelia in 1848, she left Berlicum and went to Amsterdam where she joined, and was the first female member, of the Arti et Amicitae Society (For Art and Friendship).   The Society played a key role in the Netherlands art scene and in particular in the Amsterdam art schools. It is still a focal point for artists and art lovers in the city of Amsterdam.

Cart Dog at Rest by Henriette Ronner-Knip

Henriette began painting local landscapes of North Brabant.  Often she would sketch scenes using pencil and watercolours but soon began to paint using oils.  The breakthrough for her was when she and her brother August were commissioned in 1835 to produce a painting featuring the Tilburg farm owned by the Dutch ruler, Prince of Orange.  A year later many of her paintings depicting North Brabant scenes were exhibited at various salons.

Mother and Kittens playing by Henriette Ronner-Knip

In 1850 she married Feico Ronner and moved with him to Belgium, living first at Rue de la Régence 7, in the north-east suburb of the Belgium capital, Saint-Josse-ten-Noode,  much later, in 1878, they settled in the Brussels suburb of Elsene.   Feico acted as Henriette’s business manager looking after money matters and the correspondence.  It was when she moved to Brussels that her painting genre changed from landscapes and village scenes and focused on depictions of dogs and then latterly, around 1870,  her paintings incorporating cats which was probably what she was best remembered for.

The Musicians by Henriette Ronner-Knip

She exhibited her work at many exhibitions and received many awards. In 1887, she was awarded the Order of Leopold and, in 1901, became a member of the Order of Orange-Nassau.  Feico and Henriette had three children, a son Alfred and two daughters, Allice and Emma who all became artists and Henriette would often show her work along that of her children.   Henriette Ronner-Knip died at Ixelles, Belgium on February 28th 1909, aged 87.

Augustus Knip (1819-1859)

Brother of Henriette Ronner-Knip.

Spring in the Sheep-pen by Augustus Knipp

Henriëtte’s elder brother Augustus who was born in 1819 and, like his sister, was also tutored by his father and later became a successful artist, who, at the age of sixteen, was commissioned with his sister, to paint farmyard scenes at King Willem II’s farm. His speciality was the depiction of farm animals often portrayed in indoor settings.