For a number of years now, probably for centuries, many female artists have been discounted as hobby-painters or painting because art for many was like playing the piano, a social grace that every young woman should achieve. It is even more annoying when a man and a woman work side by side and yet it is the reputation of the male artist that is remembered. An example of this is looking at two Camden Town Group artists, one a founder, the other on the periphary as it was an all-male domain. I am sure you have heard of Walter Sickert but what about his friend and contemporary, Laura Sylvia Gosse. Sylvia who ? Let me set the record straight.
The Artist’s Mother by Laura Sylvia Gosse
Sylvia Gosse was actually born Laura Sylvia Gosse but was always known by her Christian name, Sylvia. She was born in London on February 14th 1881, the youngest of three children. She had an elder sister, Teresa Emily and an elder brother, Philip Henry.
Edmund Gosse by John Singer Sargent
Her father, Edmund Gosse was a poet, literary critic and librarian of the House of Lords. Her mother was Ellen Gosse (née Epps), an artist in the Pre-Raphaelite circle who had studied under Ford Madox Brown, and whose sister, Laura Theresa, an aspiring artist, had married Lawrence Alma-Tadema.
Fountains at Pernes Les Fountaines, Provence by Laura Sylvia Gosse
Sylvia’s family home in Delamere Terrace was in the London borough of Paddington, and was always inundated with people from both the art and literary world with visitors such as the great writers of the time, such as Henry James, Thomas Hardy, Robert Louis Stevenson and Rudyard Kipling. In early childhood, Sylvia loved to paint and draw and her favourite subject being her pets. At the age of thirteen, Gosse went to an art school in France, where she stayed for three years and she recounted that it was there that she felt she belonged. She returned to England and studied at the St John’s Wood School of Art. In 1906, aged fifteen, she enrolled at the Royal Academy Schools.
The Gossip by Laura Sylvia Gosse
One of the frequent visitors at the Grosse household was the artist Walter Sickert and it was during one of his visits that he began talking to Sylvia and looked at her artwork. He was captivated by her work and obvious artistic talent and suggested she learn the art of etching. Sylvia began to attend Sickert’s evening classes at the Westminster School of Art and in 1909 went as a pupil to his new art school, which he ran with Madeline Knox at 209 Hampstead Road, London. Sickert’s dual role with Knox at the art school ended when Knox resigned following Sickert’s illness, and having had to run the school singlehandedly. Sickert approached Sylvia Gosse, his pupil, to see if she would accept the position as associate director.
Rowlandson House – Sunset by Walter Sickert (1911)
Walter Sickert rented Rowlandson House in Camden Town from 1910–14, during his time with the Camden Town Group. This summertime depiction of the building looks north up Hampstead Road from the back garden, the time of day nearing twilight, which Sickert has indicated by daubs of pink and mauve in the pale sky. The trees in the far background form the edge of Mornington Crescent Gardens.
Walter Sickert by Sylvia Gosse(1923-25)
Sylvia was made co-director of the Rowlandson House School but did this position alongside Sickert put them on an equal footing? As a woman in an artistic world which did not always value them, it became clear during her time at Rowlandson House, that her relationship with the Camden Town Group which she was ineligible to join, being a female, despite Sickert being its leader, was not even-handed. According to Kathleen Fisher, Gosse’s biographer and friend, who wrote Conversations with Sylvia. Sylvia Gosse – Painter, 1881-1968, Sylvia Gosse taught the less-able students at Rowlandson House, as Sickert would grow bored and impatient and dismiss them. The School became known as the Sickert and Gosse School of Painting and Etching. Silvia served as co-principal from 1910 until it closed in 1914 and during that period, she taught some of the classes and took over responsibility for the practical organisation and finances. Sylvia Gosse had an independent income, and without her financial backing the school would have closed much sooner.
The school which Gosse and Sickert jointly ran until 1914 when it closed. During those years, Gosse’s own painting career also began to progress. Sylvia Gosse could be described as being slightly introverted (or was she just shy?) and was not known as a very sociable person. One of her pupils, Marjorie Lilly recalled Sylvia, saying:
“…she might appear at Number 15 [Fitzroy Street] on At Home days, but rarely; being very shy, she always chose the most inconspicuous corner she could find, looking harassed and hunted, and hardly spoke…”
Despite this she was always very supportive of her fellow artists and completely dedicated to Sickert.
Chateau Dieppe by Layra Sylvia Gosse (c.1925)
La Place Saint Jacques by Laura Sylvia Gosse (c.1920)
Grande patisserie, Place Nationale, Dieppe, France by Laura Sylvia Gosse (1930)
Walter Sickert had always loved visiting France and would regularly travel to the Normandy coastal town of Dieppe. Sylvia often accompanied Sickert on his travels, notably when he stayed in Dieppe, and she had a small cottage near his home. Many of her paintings featured the French town.
Envermeu, France by Laura Sylvia Gosse (c.1920s)
The small town of Envermeu which lies ten kilometres east of Dieppe also featured in many of Sylvia’s paintings.
The Seamstress by Laura Sylvia Gosse
Many of the paintings of the Camden Town group focused on the subject of ordinary life, which often concentrated on the life of the poor and dispossessed, and how their life was one of boredom and squalor. Gosse tended to focus more on the hard-working women, such as the seamstress and the printer.
The Printer by Laura Sylvia Gosse (c.1915)
Sylvia’s painting, The Printer, which she completed around 1915 shows a woman labouring at a press.
The Nurse by Laura Sylvia Gosse
In her painting, The Nurse, we see her approaching her patient. In this depiction, we see her as she is reflected in a mirror above the sickbed. This is not a depiction that beautifies the nursing profession it is simply one that shows us an unglamorous workaday appearance of a nurse tending the sick.
Mrs Alexandra Russell by Laura Sylvia Gosse
During the 1920s and 1930s Sylvia’s paintings were on display at many of best-known commercial galleries. She was elected to the Royal Society of British Artists in 1930 and continued to support Sickert loyally until his death in 1942.
In 1951 Sylvia bought a bungalow in Ore, a large village in the urban area of Hastings, in the county of East Sussex. It was here that she planned to spend her last days painting, but alas, she suffered from cataracts, which made painting and sketching increasingly problematic. However, it was her belief that every painter should die with a brush in their hand, so despite her severely reduced vision, she still managed to visit exhibitions and help inspire young artists. She died in the Buchanan Hospital, Hastings on June 6th 1968 at the age of 87.
The blog today is about two talented early twentieth century painters who became lifelong friends and companions despite them having different ideas as to what was a “perfect” life. Ethel Sands preferred the life of a socialite and enjoyed lavish soirees and was reputed to be one of the most important hostesses in cultured English society in the early twentieth century. However, Nan (Anna Hope) Hudson was more introverted, and craved a quiet rural lifestyle in her beloved France and Sands and Hudson apportioned their time between England and France to accommodate their lifestyle preferences . The art historian Wendy Baron described them as:
“…two independent, individual women with many tastes and interests in common, whose mutual love and understanding rescued them from the loneliness of spinsterhood…”
Ethel Sands (c.1927)
Ethel Sands was born on July 6th 1873 in Newport, Rhode Island. She was the first-born child of Mary Morton Hartpence and Mahlon Day Sands who married in 1872. It was Mahlon’s second wife. His first wife Edith Mintum died of typhus in 1868 whilst on a sea voyage. Mahlon Sands was secretary of the American Free Trade League, as well as being a partner of his deceased father’s pharmaceutical importing firm, A.B. Sands and Company. Mary and Mahlon also had two young sons, Mahlon Alanson Sands and Morton Harcourt Sands, who were five and eleven years younger respectively than their sister Ethel. The three children were brought up in a well-to-do upper-class family household.
Still Life with a View over a Cemetery by Ethel Sands (1923)
When Ethel was eleven-years-old the family left America for what was supposed to be a short trip to England but, once there, decided to base themselves in London which they thought was a good base for onward travelling to the European countries. However, they kept their house in Rhode Island and would return there once every year
Tea with Sickert by Ethel Sands (1912)
Mary and Mahlon moved amongst the wealthy London society, such as the Rothschild family and politicians, such as Gladstone, the writer Henry James and the artist John Singer Sargent. They were also part of Edward VII, the Prince of Wales’ “Malborough House” social circle.
Mrs Mahlon Day Sands by John Singer Sargent (1894)
Ethel’s mother Mary was considered to be a famous Society beauty of the day who had her portrait painted by Sargent and Henry James based his heroic character “Madame de Mauves” on her in his novella which centred on the troubled marriage of a scrupulous American wife and a far from scrupulous French husband. Ethel Sands inherited a taste for socialising from her American parents.
Nan Hudson playing Patience at Chateau d’Auppegarde
Ethel Sands’ happy family life came to a shuddering halt when she was thirteen for in May 1888, her father, whilst out riding through Hyde Park, was thrown from his horse and died, aged 46. Ethel’s mother was now tasked with bringing up the family on her own.
Nan Hudson c.1908
John Singer Sargent had encouraged Ethel to concentrate on her art and she took his advice for in 1894 when she was twenty-one, she decided to go to spend time in Paris to study painting. Ethel began her artistic education at the Académie Carrière in Paris. Her early paintings featured highly coloured still-life works and interior depictions. Sands first exhibited her work in an exhibition held at the Salon d’Automne, Paris in 1904. It was in 1894, whilst an art student that she met her lifelong partner Anna (Nan) Hope Hudson.
The Lamb Inn, Wallingford by Nan Hudson (1912)
Anna Hudson, best known as Nan Hudson, was born on September 10th 1869 in New York City. Her father was Colonel Edward McKenny Hudson, who died in 1892 at the age of sixty-seven; her mother had died in 1878 when Nan was just 9 years old. Having lost both parents, twenty-three year old Nan was left a large inheritance which was the result of her grandfather’s success as a partner of a banknote engraving organization, which later merged to become the American Bank Note Company. Now, a young woman of independent means, was able to choose her own future. She had developed a love of painting and decided to follow this love and decided that Paris offered the best opportunity to further her artistic knowledge. In the early days of living in the French capital she met Ethel Sands, a fellow American and art student who became her lifelong friend and companion.
Nan and Ethel studied together in 1896 at the studio of the French painter Eugène Carrière and then from January 1897 Nan also took classes with the Flemish painter Henri Evenepoel. The friendship between Ethel and Nan, which started as study friends, soon blossomed and before long, they became inseparable. This closeness is somewhat astonishing as the two women had totally different personalities. While Ethel Sands found life in London, with all its social distractions, irresistible, Nan Hudson preferred the quieter existence in Paris and the French countryside. However, they managed to compromise, dividing their time between France and England to satisfy both their yearnings, alternating periods of painting with travelling, socialising and entertaining.
Miss Hudson at Rowlandson House by Walter Sickert (c.1910)
The writer Virginia Woolf, in her diaries, described Nan Hudson as being dour and upstanding who was always stylishly dressed while the artist Walter Sickert, in a letter to the pair, described Nan as being the radiant and dashing horsewoman of a young man’s dreams. In 1910 Walter Sickert completed a portrait of Nan Hudson, standing hand on hip and looking directly at the viewer, and captures her independent spirit and flair. The painting was given the title Miss Hudson at Rowlandson House.
Portrait of Ethel Sands by Walter Sickert (1914)
After Nan and Ethel had made a trip to Venice, Nan completed a painting entitled Giudecca Canal and she had it exhibited at the Salon d’Automne in 1906. It was liked by the critics and greatly admired by Walter Sickert. At first, he did not realise that the work was by her but once he found out he contacted her offering her advice on painting for the future. This initial letter to her resulted in a long-running correspondence between them and genuine friendship that lasted for many years. In 1907 Sickert invited both Nan Hudson and Ethel Sands to join the Fitzroy Street Group, which he had just formed and meetings were held in his studio in Fitzroy Street, to the north of central London. The reason for this invitation could be because he admired their work or cynics would say it was more to do with their financial and social status both of which Sickert wanted to “explore”. Both women accepted the invitation. Their main purpose of the group was to explore contemporary styles and methods, which they believed would challenge the conventional traditions of the New England Art Club. It was to be the establishing of the first artists’ collective.
In 1911 many of the Fitzroy Group Group’s members, including Walter Sickert, formed the nucleus of the new Camden Town Group, and by November 1913 the Fitzroy Street Group had ceased to exist. Unfortunately for Ethel and Nan the Camden Town Group was only open to male artists and so neither Nan or Ethel were not invited to join this new group. However, in 1913, a new grouping was formed known as the London Group. The London Group was formed by a merger of the Camden Town Group and the English Cubists, later known as the Vorticists. It was the coming together of radical young artists who were defying the stranglehold which the Royal Academy had on exhibiting new works of art. The group was open to both male and female artists and Ethel Sands and Nan Hudson became founder members.
The Visitor by Nan Hudson
Up till this time Nan Hudson had only exhibited her work in Paris at the Salon d’Automne but through Ethel Sand’s contacts within the London art scene she began to show her work in London and exhibited her work at the New English Art Club, the Allied Artists’ Association and the Leicester Galleries.
Château d’Auppegard by Nan Hudson
At the start of the First World War, Hudson and Sands went to France and helped set up a hospital for wounded soldiers near Dieppe. This was forced to close but Nan Hudson continued to nurse both in England and in France until autumn 1918. During the spell in Normandy during the war Nan Hudson fell in love with the area and after the war in 1920, she bought the Château d’Auppegard. It was a seventeenth-century house with a grey slate gabled roof which lay about ten miles inland from Dieppe in the Normandy countryside. This became their dream home and she and Ethel Sands spent the summers together and devoted much time and energy in its restoration and decoration. The two women renovated the dilapidated dwelling, even commissioning murals from the Bloomsbury artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant for the loggia.
A Dressing Room by Ethel Sands
Nan Hudson completed a painting depicting her beloved chateau which is now part of the Tate collection. She used a restricted palette of cool tones. The depiction is typical of her later works when she tended towards landscapes with an element of architectural interest. From 1926 onwards Nan concentrated on depicting rural landscapes found around the outskirts of Dieppe and the commune of Auppegard. Many other landscape works came from the extensive touring around France in the Spring and early Autumn done by her and Ethel Sands.
Honfleur Harbour by Nan Hudson
Very few of Ethel Sands and Nan Hudson’s paintings survived the Second World War. Ethel Sands’ house in London was destroyed following a direct hit on it during the Blitz which obliterated much of both of their work. As well as this, Château d’Auppegard itself sustained extensive damage from bombing and looting that followed, when many drawings and paintings, including a collection of works by Sickert and Augustus John, were stolen, never to be seen again. It is very likely that paintings by the Ethel and Nan were therefore lost too. Ethel and Nan returned to Auppegard in May 1946 and were horrified to witness the devastation of their beloved home. One visitor to the chateau was Vanessa Bell who visited them in that September and she wrote about what she witnessed first-hnd:
“…The house has been terribly damaged by a flying bomb which exploded near. They have managed to repair the worst things and when one drives up to it [it] is still very lovely. But inside only the dining room is usable, and they have hardly any furniture and just enough for themselves. Poor old things – as they say, they are too old to begin all over again and they certainly do look very aged and decrepit…”
Still Life with Picture of the Madonna by Ethel Sands
However. the two occupants of the chateau, both then in their seventies, would not be defeated by the devastation and set about trying to repair it. Age finally defeated them as far as renovating the chateau and Nan began to worry about its fate once she and Ethel had died. In the end they decided to give the house over to a young friend of theirs, an amateur painter, Louis le Breton, on the understanding that it would eventually be bequeathed to the French nation. He, like the two owners of the chateau, shared their passionate love of the house and they felt sure that after they had died, his love of the Auppegard property would be preserved and cherished. Hudson and Sands continued to live at the château within a specially adapted self-contained apartment but their careful planning for the future of the building came to naught when Louis le Breton pre-deceased both of them, dying suddenly in the garden at Auppegard in March 1957.
Still Life with Books and Flowers by Ethel Sands
Nan Hudson became too ill to live there and was cared for initially by her life-long companion, Ethel and latterly at a nursing home in Kilburn, London, dying just a few months later in September 1957 aged eighty-eight.
Auppegard Church from the Chateau by Ethel Sands
Her funeral was held at Auppegard and she was buried in the churchyard facing her beloved château.
Ethel Sands died on March 19th 1962, aged eighty-eight.
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 Sariby 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.
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’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 allcoarseness, 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.
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 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 TheTimes 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 withthe 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:
“…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:
Evelyn Dunbar was born in Reading on December 18th, 1906. She was the fifth and youngest child of William Dunbar and Florence Dunbar (née Murgatroyd). William Dunbar was a Scotsman who originally came from Cromdale, Morayshire. In 1913, when Evelyn was seven-years-old the family moved to Rochester in Kent where her father established himself as a draper and bespoke tailor. Evelyn’s mother Florence was a keen gardener and amateur still-life artist and a Christian Scientist and soon Evelyn became one and remained one throughout her life.
Portrait of the artists mother, Florence, on a bentwood rocking chair, by Evelyn Dunbar (c.1930)
Evelyn Dunbar won a scholarship to attend the Rochester Grammar School for Girls. From there she enrolled on a two-year art course at the Rochester School of Art, in 1925 and in 1927 attended the Chelsea School of Art remaining there until 1929. That year, she won a scholarship to attend the Royal College of Art where she studied until 1933 at which time she graduated as an ARCA (Associate of the Royal College of Art). Students at the Royal College of Art were encouraged by Sir William Rothenstein, College Principal and Professor of Painting, to find commissions for their work and engage socially with influential art world figures.
Compositional Study for The Pleasures of Life at Morley College by Charles Mahoney (1930)
Cyril Mahoney, known as Charles Mahoney, had been Visiting Painting Tutor at the RCA since 1928 and had carried out a commission to paint a thirty-foot long mural, entitled The Pleasures of Life, at the Morley College for Working Men which he and colleagues completed two years later. In his memoir Since 50, Men & Memories 1922-1938, the first two names that appear on William Rothenstein list of top Royal College of Art students were Henry Moore and Charles Mahoney – the list continues with the names of other leading lights such as Eric Ravilious, Edward Bawden, Barnett Freedman Edward Le Bas, and Evelyn Dunbar.
Mural by Evelyn Dunbar at Brockley County School for Boys
In 1932, Mahoney was offered a commission to decorate Brockley County School for Boys (which is now the Prendergast School for Girls) in South London, and following an appeal from Rothenstein for students to experiment further with mural painting, Mahoney chose three of his senior students to assist in the project, Evelyn Dunbar, Mildred Eldridge and Violet Martin. The subjects of these proposed five arched-top panel murals were to illustrate tales from Aesop’s Fables. The painting of this set of murals was not completed until 1936.
An English Calendar by Evelyn Dunbar (1938)
During Mahoney’s work with Evelyn on the mural their relationship intensified and he became her lover. Mahoney and Evelyn shared a studio in South End Road, at the southern end of Hampstead Heath. Besides painting and sketching, they had another shared interest, that of plants and horticulture. Mahoney’s love of horticulture resulted in an amusing warning from Evelyn who wrote to him:
“…Don’t ever have too big a garden, or with your avidity for making the names in the catalogue come true, you’ll never touch a brush or a pencil…”
Whilst working on the Brockley murals Evelyn accepted another commission. Near neighbours to Evelyn Dunbar and Charles Mahoney were Catherine and Donald Carswell, authors and journalists. Donald Carswell had put together a series of short travel stories, to be published by Routledge & Sons, under the title, The Scots Week-End and Caledonian Vade-Mecum for Host, Guest and Wayfarer and needed an illustrator to produce accompanying illustrations.
Evelyn Dunbar: Pen and ink vignettes from The Scots Week-End and Caledonian Vade-Mecum for Host, Guest and Wayfarer (1936)
They approached Charles Mahoney who recommended Evelyn. She agreed to the commission and produced twenty-five pen and ink vignettes, the frontispiece and dust jacket for the miscellany.
Evelyn Dunbar: Pen and Ink frontispiece to The Scots Week-End and Caledonian Vade Mecum for Host, Guest and Wayfarer (1936)
For Evelyn, it was not a labour of love and she wrote to Mahoney about her struggle to complete the commission asking for some moral support:
“…can you tell me why it is that whenever I get going on these blooming Scotch illustrations with vigour and spontaneity all my spontaneous and lively feelings completely desert me, and I am left clutching an unwilling, unwieldy pen, scratching at laborious and second-rate expressions of stereotyped and 5th rate (so it seems to me) ideas? I’m trying my best and I mean to get over it, but jobs of that kind seem to mesmerise me into a kind of stupidity and inability. Write me a few comforting and inspiring lines…”
With the success of the travel book more commissions came from the Routledge publishing house. One of them was for the book, Gardeners’ Choice which comprised of the history, characteristics and cultivation advice for forty garden plants. The book was illustrated in pen and ink, and was jointly written and illustrated by Dunbar and Mahoney.
Design for June for the Country Life 1938 Gardeners Diary by Evelyn Dunbar
More work came their way when the magazine, Country Life, commissioned Dunbar to compose their Gardener’s Diary 1938, a monthly journal and appointments book which contained literary texts chosen by Evelyn and illustrated with her pen and ink drawings.
In 1941 Dunbar collaborated with author, Michael Greenhill by providing pen-and-ink illustrations for his book, A Book of Farmcraft. It was a basic primer of husbandry for those who had little or no knowledge of farming. Michael Greenhill was an instructor of recruits to the Women’s Land Army at Sparsholt Farm Institute, near Winchester, Hampshire. Many of Evelyn’s illustrations, differentiated between the right way of undertaking some agricultural task and the wrong way. For the illustrations, Evelyn used Sparsholt recruits as her models.
Putting on Anti-gas Protective Clothing by Evelyn Dunbar (1940) Composite image of a woman being assisted into an anti-gas suit by another woman
Having looked at Evelyn Dunbar’s mural work and her interest in horticulture, floral paintings and illustrations, one has to remember that she is best known for her depictions of the activities of the Women’s Voluntary Service and the Women’s Land Army during the Second World War. In April 1940 Evelyn was appointed by the War Artists’ Advisory Committee, (WAAC), as an official war artist and later was the only woman artist to receive successive and continuous salaried commissions throughout the war. The WAAC tasked her with pictorially documenting civilian contributions to the war effort on the home front.
Milking Practice with Artificial Udders by Evelyn Dunbar
Land Army Girls going to Bedby Evelyn Dunbar
One of the most important tasks for women besides working in munitions factory was tending the land as so many male farm workers had gone to fight in the war. The first harvest which the Women’s Land Army was largely responsible for bringing in during the summer/autumn of 1940 led to Evelyn’s painting entitled Men Stooking and Girls Learning to Stook.
Men Stooking and Girls Learning to Stookby Evelyn Dunbar (1940)
One of Evelyn’s paintings, A Canning Demonstration, depicted some members of the Women’s Voluntary Service learning how to can and preserve the fruit which had been harvested that summer.
A Canning Demonstration by Evelyn Dunbar
A Knitting Party by Evelyn Dunbar (1940)
Another important task for the women, who volunteered their services, was to organise knitting “gatherings” at which the women would make blankets and comforters which could be sent to the troops. In her 1940 work entitled, A Knitting Party we see one such gathering. The setting is the drawing room of the Dunbar family home in Rochester, Kent, and it depicts some fifteen women, one of whom is Evelyn’s mother, Florence.
Portrait of Flying Officer Roger Folley in Flying Kit by Evelyn Dunbar
Whilst working for the War Artists’ Advisory Committee she encountered Roger Folley, who came from Lancashire and who had graduated from Leeds University. Roger was an “outdoor person” and spent his holidays and time after university working on farms and enjoying life outdoors hiking around the countryside. Having gained some experience working on farms combined with his two university degrees (B.Sc and B.Comm.) it qualified him to work as an agricultural economist and his first job was as Costing Officer at Sparsholt Farm Institute, near Winchester, where he first met Evelyn who had been posted there in 1940 to paint Women’s Land Army recruits at work.
Winter Garden by Evelyn Dunbar (1929-37)
Roger was a Royal Auxiliary Air Force volunteer and at the outbreak of war, was called up to serve in the RAF. He received his Flying Officer commission in 1941 and transferred from the Voluntary Reserve and became Flight Lieutenant Roger Folley RAF, serving as a navigator with 488 (NZ) Squadron. Friendship between Evelyn and Roger blossomed into love and the couple were engaged in February 1942 and married the following August
Pastoral, Land Girls Pruning at East Malling by Evelyn Dunbar (1944)
One of Evelyn’s and Roger’s great mutual loves was their commitment to the land and the careful management of its productivity. For Evelyn this premise was in line with her Christian Science beliefs which she continued to follow. She believed in the texts of the Old Testament that talked about a covenant between God and encompassed a covenant, frequently mentioned in the Old Testament, between God the Creator and mankind whereby the creator guaranteed the means of subsistence to mankind in return for mankind’s undertaking to cherish the land with love, intelligence and industry.
Potato Sorting, Berwick by Evelyn Dunbar
Evelyn often followed her husband when he was transferred to another military base and once he was stationed at RAF Charter Hall in Berwick. Whilst staying at the Scottish Borders, Evelyn made a sketch of women from the Women’s Land Army sorting newly dug-up potatoes.
Sprout Picking by Evelyn Dunbar
Much of the Land Girls’ work on the farm was back-breaking as can be seen by Evelyn’s painting entitled Sprout Picking.
Singling Turnips by Evelyn Dunbar
Turnip seeds are minute and they are scattered in ridges by seed-drill. However a few weeks after the seeds have been “mechanically” sowed, the seedlings will shoot up in their masses along with a profusion of weeds. To avoid the turnip shoots being choked by the weeds they have to be thinned out by hand and re-planted, known as “singling” – hence the title of the painting.
A Land Girl and the Bail Bull by Evelyn Dunbar (1945)
One of the last paintings Evelyn completed for the War Artists’ Advisory Committee, depicting the Land Girls was entitled A Land Girl and the Bail Bull. It is a depiction of a Land Girl’s work with an outdoor dairy herd on the Hampshire Downs. The name “bail” in the painting’s title refers to the moveable shed, which can be seen in the centre of the middle-ground and is where the milking is done. The girl has to catch and tether the bull and we see her enticing the animal with a bucket of fodder whilst she hides the chain behind her, ready to snap on to the ring in its nose as soon as it is within her reach. The girl in the painting is modelled by Evelyn’s sister, Jessie .
The Cerebrant by Evelyn Dunbar
Once the Second World War had ended Evelyn and her husband went to live in Long Compton, Warwickshire, and they remained there for fifteen months. In 1946 The Oxford School of Art welcomed Evelyn as a part-time tutor and she combined this with her role as a visiting teacher at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art. Having these two teaching posts in Oxford and with her husband, Roger Folley, obtaining a position in the nearby University Agricultural Economics Research Institute, the couple decided to move home from Long Compton and re-locate to Enstone, Oxfordshire, in the spring of 1947. They made the Manor House at Enstone their home for next three years. In 1948, whilst living at Enstone, Evelyn completed a portrait of her thirty-five year-old husband Roger, entitled The Cerebrant. The setting for the work was his study on the top floor of The Manor House. It is a peaceful and relaxed portrait of her husband. He is depicted sitting down at a small table, which has various coloured books on it. One of the books is open and he is holding one of the pages in his right hand. He is looking towards his right, which is the direction the light is coming from. Folley is dressed casually in a green, short-sleeved, collared shirt. The painting was given that title by Roger Folley some fifty-seven years later when he presented it to Manchester Art Gallery in 2005. He had told one of his wife’s biographers that It was a celebration of Thinking.
Bailing Hay by Evelyn Dunbar (1943)
Roger Folley changed jobs in 1950 when he was appointed to the Department of Economics at Wye College, Kent. The new position meant Folley and Eveleyn had to move home and they leased an isolated house, The Elms, four miles from the Kent village of Wye, nestled in the hills of the Kent Downs. Dunbar would run informal art classes but still managed to travel once a year to Oxford to give an annual lecture at the Ruskin School. In 1953 a solo exhibition of her paintings was held at Withersdane Hall on the Wye campus.
Women’s Land Army Hostel by Evelyn Dunbar
Roger Folley was away in the Caribbean working for the government whilst Evelyn remained at The Elms. However their lease on the property was coming to an end and she had to organise a new home for her and her husband. Evelyn chose a more modern property in the village of Wye, which had once been a vicarage. She named it Tan House. It did not prove a good move and the couple were never happy there. It was smaller than they were used to and did not have a studio space for Evelyn. In 1958 Roger and Evelyn, could no longer endure the limitations of Tan House and moved to a farmhouse called Staple Farm, close to the village of Etchinghill, on the North Downs and in this home Evelyn had her own studio.
August and the Poet by Evelyn Dunbar (1960)
On the evening of May 12th 1960, whilst out walking in the woods around Staple Farm, Dunbar suddenly collapsed and died. One of Evelyn’s last paintings was Autumn and the Poet which she had started to paint ten years earlier and was still on one of her easels when she died. The figure of the poet, half-seated on the ground, was modelled by her husband. Unfortunately the painting was slightly smoke-damaged in a house fire in 2004, but was restored in time for the 2006 exhibition marking the centenary of Dunbar’s birth.
Roadworks by Evelyn Dunbar (Thought to have been produced while studying at Rochester School of Art in c.1926) sold in 2018 for £19,000.
Her main works were her oil paintings but she also left behind many portfolios of watercolours, drawings, pastels, sketches and other secondary work, most of which were not seen for many years after disappearing shortly after her death. The Times newspaper in its obituary of Evelyn Dunbar wrote:
“…Living a retired life in Kent, absorbed in country pursuits, Miss Dunbar did not often come before the public in mixed exhibitions, but her mural paintings and illustrations, with their peculiar authenticity of work inspired by the ruling passion, appealed strongly to those who knew it…”
Roger Folley remarried in 1961, and Evelyn’s works of art were distributed among family and friends.
I have only scratched the surface of Evelyn Dunbar’s life and the majority of the information was gleaned from a beautifully written series of blogs regarding this wonderful artist written by her nephew, Christopher Campbell-Howes, who has also published a book on her life an art work.
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.
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:
my daily art display 