Slade School of Art – my daily art display

Clara Klinghoffer. Part 3.

Marriage and travels.

Lucien Pissarro by Clara Klinghoffer (1928)

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

Upon Reflection by Clara Klinghoffer (1919)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Harriet Cohen by Clara Klinghoffer (1925)

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

Portrait of a Girl in a Fur Hat by Clara Klinghoffer

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

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

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

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

The Old Troubador by Clara Klinghoffer (1926)

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

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

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

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

………to be continued.

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

Clara Klinghoffer- 20^th century English artist

and

Clara Klinghoffer: the girl who drew like Raphael and Leonardo

Mary Adshead – the great muralist.

The artist I am showcasing today, Mary Adshead, was an exceptionally gifted person. She was an artist who moved seamlessly between easel painting and murals. She was a portrait painter. She painted on furniture and glass. She was a postage stamp designer. She was a book illustrator and devised and designed advertisements and stage sets but will probably be best remembered as a muralist.

Mary was born in Bloomsbury, London, on February 14th, 1904. She was the daughter and only child of Stanley Davenport Adshead and Annie Adshead. Her father was a well-known neo-Georgian architect and talented amateur watercolourist, who trained in Manchester and London and for four years was clerk of works for the vast mansion at Rosehaugh, Argyll, during which time he met his wife, Annie, who was the village school mistress. In 1909, Stanley became Associate Professor of Civic Design at the University of Liverpool, and in 1912 became the Lever Professor of Civic Design. He moved back to London in 1914 and became the first Professor of Town Planning at University College, London, and remained there until his retirement in 1935.

From the age of six, Mary was determined to become an artist and spent much of her time drawing and she produced many sketchbooks of cartoons and illustrations to stories. The family would spend their summer holidays in the New Forest. Her mother and father’s relationship was often stormy and Mary found herself acting as a go-between, passing messages from one parent to the other. At the age of twelve, she attended Putney High School and remained there for three years. At the age of fifteen she went to Paris with her mother and both lived in a hotel in the French capital for six months whilst Mary attended the Lycée Victor Dury.

Ludus Pro Patria by Puvis de Chavannes (c.1883)
This painting which is housed at the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, replicates the central portion of a mural, Ludus Pro Patria (Patriotic Games), which was installed in the stairwell of the Musée de Picardie in Amiens, France

Whilst in Paris she visited many of the famous art galleries and was greatly influenced by the murals of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes. In the Autumn of 1921, when she was seventeen years old, her father took her to meet Henry Tonks the principal at the Slade School of Art, which was part of the University College, London, where Stanley Adshead was a professor. Henry Tonks, a former surgeon, had a reputation for being very harsh with his students and a fierce taskmaster. Mary brought along a portfolio of work which she had put together whilst in Paris but Tonks was not impressed. However through a lot of arm-twisting by her father Tonks agreed to allow her to enrol on his art course. This was a great relief to Mary and her father who, because he was a professor at the UCL, would not have to pay for his daughter’s tuition.

Poster artwork; Country joys on Londons Underground, by Mary Adshead, 1926

During the early phase of her course Mary did not work as hard as she should and was happy to hang out with a set of wealthy girls who looked on the art and course as simply a pleasant hobby. Soon she realised that she was wasting valuable time and began to knuckle down and Tonks began to be very impressed with her work. Mary and fellow student, Rex Whistler won the joint first prize in the Slade’s Summer painting competition in 1924 and as a result, when their time at the Slade came to an end, Henry Tonks arranged for them to undertake a joint mural commission at the Highway Boys’ Club in London’s East End.

Mary Adshead 1926 mural:
A Tropical Fantasy:
for Charles Reilly’s Dining Room
Mural (panel 1 of 6)

Once she had completed that commission, more followed and her next one, in 1924, was to create a mural based on a desert island theme, which became known as A Tropical Fantasy. It was commissioned by Charles Reilly, the professor of architecture at Liverpool University, and one-time colleague of Mary’s father. It is now housed at the Liverpool University Victoria Art Gallery. It is one of just a few of her murals to survive. That same year she completed a large mural entitled The Housing of the People, which was exhibited at the 1924 British Empire Exhibition at Wembley.

Bank Underground station, advertising mural by Mary Adshead which was situated next to escalator (1926)

She designed posters for the Underground Group and London Transport in the period 1927-37 and also carried out decorative works at Bank and Piccadilly Circus Underground Stations.

One of her most lauded and often considered as her finest work was a commission she received in 1928 from Lord Beaverbrook, the millionaire Canadian-British newspaper publisher and politician, for a mural to cover the walls of his dining room at his Newmarket House, Calvin Lodge. He had decided that the mural should depict scenes of Newmarket life such as the horse racing and the fair and should depict his well-known and famous friends and it was that last instruction which was to be the stumbling-block to this project.

An English Holiday – The Puncture by Mary Adshead (1928)

The resultant panels, collectively titled An English Holiday, were true masterpieces combining humour with an insight into a life of privilege and elegance. They were described at the time as being in ‘the manner of English 18th-century sporting prints and acquatints. The paintings were packed with activity.

In Village Inn, a gentleman cyclist flirts with a country maid. In another one we see Arnold Bennett playing the harmonium for a crowd of gypsies. In another we see Lady Louis Mountbatten waiting by her car, the tyre of which had punctured and is being offered assistance by a swaggering, bearded character who looks very much like the painter Augustus John. More bizarrely Churchill is depicted astride an elephant. All of the characters are making their way to the Newmarket racecourse to meet Lord Beaverbrook.

However, Lady Diana Cooper, a good friend of Lord Beaverbrook and who also appeared picnicking in one of paintings persuaded him not to install the murals. Her argument being that as he was so cantankerous and quarrelsome, he was bound to, sooner or later, argue with one or more of the people depicted in the murals and then he would be forced to look at their depictions every time he dined. He listened to her advice and returned the panels to Adshead and paid the two-thirds rejection fee.

The panels were reassembled and exhibited at the large Peter Jones Department store in Central London in 1930 before being rolled up and relegated to a cupboard in the Adshead’s house where years later all but three were destroyed by fire.

The Little Boy and his House by Stephen Bone and Mary Adshead

In 1929 Mary Adshead married the painter Stephen Bone, the son of the artist and etcher Sir Muirhead Bone. Stephen and Mary had been students together at the Slade. The couple went on to have three children, two sons, Quentin and Sylvester and a daughter, Christina. Mary and Stephen collaborated on a couple of children’s books, namely The Little Boy and His House in 1936, The Silly Snail and Other Stories in 1942 and The Little Boys and Their Boats in 1953 in which Mary provided the illustrations.

Chateau Poulet, near Forcalquier, Haute Provence by Mary Adshead

During their early married life, the couple made many painting and sketching tours during their travels through Europe. Mary received many commissions through her architect father and also through the good auspices of her father-in-law who was always singing her praises in his circle of artist friends. Her father-in-law, Muirhead Bone was well known for helping young aspiring artists such as Stanley Spencer, Gwen John and Cristopher Nevinson.

Morning after the Flood by Mary Adshead (1928)

Mary Adshead’s first solo exhibition was held in 1930 at the Goupil Gallery and included the painting The Morning after the Flood which is now part of the Tate collection. This decorative painting by Mary Adshead was characteristic of the style taught at the Slade Art School when she was a student. The tutors at the Slade had students set out figurative compositions that had connections with Biblical tales. This work was set the day after the Great Flood when Noah’s boat with his family and animals had come to rest on dry land. One art critic wrote that her figure painting combined a fashionable primitivism, loosely derived from Stanley Spencer with a fluency and humour rarely found among her contemporaries.

Her talent as a portrait artist can be seen in her 1931 self-portrait.

Portrait of Daphne Charlton,by Mary Adshead (c.1935)

Other portraits she completed include one of Daphne Charlton, the painter who studied at the Slade and who was a close friend of Stanley Spencer.

One of her favourites was one she did of her three children.

Victoria Pier, Colwyn Bay prior to demolition (pre-2017)

There is actually connection between Mary Adshead and her father and a place near where I live. The connection is the Victoria Pier Pavilion at Colwyn Bay, North Wales. The original pier was started in 1899 and was completed two years later. A 600-seat ‘Bijou’ theatre was built at the pier head in 1917 for the purposes of light entertainment. This original pavilion was completely destroyed by fire in 1922. This disaster forced the owners, the Victoria Pier Company, into bankruptcy and the pier was taken over by Colwyn Bay Urban District Council which arranged to re-build the structure. Eleven years later this second pavilion was destroyed by fire and a second blaze a few months later destroyed the theatre.

The mural decorations by Mary Adshead in the auditorium of Colwyn Bay Pier

Not to be deterred by these two disasters, the Colwyn Bay Urban District Council set about rebuilding, and the third pavilion was opened on Tuesday 8 May 1934 at a cost of £16,000. Now to the connection !

Inside Victoria Pavilion, Colwyn Bay with murals by Mary Adshead and Eric Ravilious

The third pavilion was designed by architect Stanley Davenport Adshead, Mary’s father, and Mary and Eric Ravilious were commissioned to paint some Art Deco murals for the interior of the pier building. The pier was badly damaged by the gales and sea in 2017 and started to collapse and it was decided to dismantle the whole structure.

Sections of murals from Colwyn Bay pier pavilion

The Art Deco murals created by Eric Ravilious and Mary Adshead, back in 1934, from inside the pavilion, have all been successfully removed and are currently awaiting restoration.

Stephen Bone, Mary’s husband, was a landscape painter and for a while was very successful but later the market for his work dried up and he became depressed and began to look upon himself as a failure. Stephen Bone died of bowel and liver cancer on 15 September 1958 at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London. He was just fifty-three years old.

Travelling with a Sketchbook by Mary Adshead

After the death of her husband, and with her children all grown up, Mary embarked on a tour of America. During the adventure she carried her sketchbook and filled it with drawings of her journey. When she returned to England she published a book about her travels entitled Travelling with a Sketchbook.

1952 8d Wilding definitive stamp designed by Mary Adstead

Between 1948 and 1963 she submitted designs for a number of Post Office stamp issues including the Universal Postal Union stamps of 1949, the Festival of Britain stamp of 1951 and four denominations of the Wilding definitive stamps of 1952, which featured the Dorothy Wilding photographic portrait of Queen Elizabeth II . Adshead’s design for the 8d, 9d, 10d and 11d were chosen.

In her latter years, lameness caused by painting off ladders hampered her work and life, but, ever purposeful, she would crawl where she could not walk with a stick, curious glances notwithstanding. Despite this affliction Mary Adshead remained an active working artist until the end of her life. She died in London on September 3rd 1995, aged 91.