Jonathan Grant Galleries
Sydney Lough Thompson
Sydney Lough Thompson Oxford, New Zeland 1877 - 1973 Concarneau
Sydney Lough Thompson’s Brittany I loved the place because the highly coloured sails of the fishing boats set against the blue sea gave tremendous scope for strong colours.1 S L Thompson 1939
Written by Jonathan Gooderham & Grace Alty ISBN: 978-0-473-26517-5 Published October 2013
Jonathan Grant Galleries 280 Parnell Road P.O. Box 37-673 Auckland 1151, New Zealand T: (64) 9 308 9125 F: (64) 9 303 1071 E-mail: jg@jgg.co.nz
www.jonathangrantgalleries.com
1
L.Booth, ‘The 1939 Canterbury Society of Arts’, Art in New Zealand, June 1939, Vol.XI No.4, p.172
Market Place Brittany Oil on canvas 38 x 46 cm Signed lower right
Brittany is essentially the land of the painter. It would be strange indeed if a country sprinkled with white caps, and set thickly in summer with the brightest blossoms of the fields should not attract artists in search of picturesque costume and scenes of pastoral life. 2 With a large sum of money settled on him by his father, Sydney Lough Thompson left New Zealand for London on the S.S. Taluna on August 25 1900. There he enrolled at the Heatherly School of Art. However, the technical perfection demanded of the school’s pupils only seemed to have the effect of making the young artist reluctant to paint. Thompson left England in 1901 to study in Paris at the Académie Julian and took classes with Gabriel Ferrier and William-Adolphe Bouguereau. The French school had little influence on Thompson’s art; instead, he found inspiration in Constable and Turner in England, the French Impressionists and Paul Cézanne in France. Thompson left the crowded studios of Paris and the Academie Julian in 1902 in search of enlightenment. Like so many of his contemporaries, Thompson embarked on a Grand Tour of Italy. An educational rite of passage for many privileged young men, the Grand Tour afforded exposure both to the cultural legacy of classical antiquity and the Renaissance. Thompson travelled with a group of American students and made his way to the major artistic and historical sites of Italy. It was on the journey back to Paris that Thompson arrived in Brittany, intending to stay only a few months. Many artists (including Frances Hodgkins, a contemporary of Thompson’s) favoured the area for the wealth of subjects. The wild and rocky coastline of Concarneau was painted in 1886 by Monet and in the same year Paul Gauguin spent time in the small village of Pont-Aven. Artists also flocked to the area to persue the theme of the ‘primitive ideal’, a nostalgic belief in a pre-modern world, which idealised the past and nature. The market scene was a favourite subject for artists who responded to its ‘picturesque charms’. Women in peasant dresses evoked a sense of nostalgia for these artists who lamented the onslaught of modernisation. The idyllic fishing villages and the peasant way of life were a sharp contrast to the industrial cities of London and Paris. Thompson was one of the first New Zealanders to join the artists’ colony of Concarneau. He concentrated his artistic practice on figure studies retaining the dark tonalities that he had learned as a student from Petrus van der Velden. Thompson soon began painting outdoors and his landscapes and village market scenes captured the luminosity of the French countryside and the life of the villagers in Concarneau. Thompson would often set up his easel and paint in the market square of Concarneau, capturing the light and activity of the market en plein-air. A sense of realism pervades the illustrated work, Market Place Brittany. Quick brushstrokes highlight the immediate foreground and frame the three figures to the left in the composition. A horse stands idly by as the hustle and bustle of the market place unfolds around it. Thompson’s ability to combine colour and light in his work gives the scene a sense of immediacy. He was enthralled by the rural life that Concarneau provided and this is clearly evident in the series of works he produced in the small fishing village.
2
H. Blackburn, Breton Folk: An Artistic Tour in Brittany, London, 1880, p.3. Quoted in King, J. Sydney Lough Thompson: At Home and Abroad, Robert McDougall Art Gallery, 1990, p.51
Arrival of the Fishermen, Concarneau Oil on canvas 45 x 53 cm Signed lower left Title inscribed on original label verso
You cannot possibly do better than choose Concarneau in Brittany as a pitch for your easel. Whether you intend to paint marines, landscapes, interiors, or figures that is the place for you; if you want, on the other hand, to laze away a month or two, Concarneau affords you every facility for so doing. 3 Sydney Lough Thompson made his base in Concarneau for the first time in 1902. His works of this period are filled with vibrant hues of colour that brilliantly capture the local light. He would return to Brittany again and again throughout his career defying the conventional techniques of the time and painting en plein air in the markets and harbours. He would regularly set up his easel in the market place or on the quayside and capture the scene with quick strokes of his paintbrush. Thompson was enthralled by the picturesque surroundings of Concarneau. He described his experience of the small fishing village to his fellow New Zealanders on his return to Christchurch in 1905, recalling; quaint fisherfolk, with their picturesque boats, and in the other villages characteristic types particularly valuable to figure painters.4 Thompson’s first sojourn in Concarneau was a vital period in the development of his artistic career. He completed several major works during this period, including Harvest, Brittany (Aigantighe Art Gallery, Timaru) and Dublin Bay (University of Canterbury). Thompson’s colour palette also evolved during this period. He started to move away from Van der Velden’s subdued palette in favour of lighter colours, making use of vivid blues and greens. Thompson abandoned the tightly controlled technique that he had learnt in Canterbury, instead opting to adopt a more impressionistic style, representing form through light and colour. This stylistic experimentation was influenced by the painting of Cézanne, whose work Thompson had seen in Paris. The effects of painting en plein-air are clearly visible in the illustrated work, Arrival of the Fishermen, Concarneau. The painting depicts a group of fishermen returning to the quayside with their morning’s catch. Short, sharp brushstrokes combine to create multiple layers, creating the shape of the mast and sails of the small fishing boats. Thompson’s rapid application of paint is clearly visible in the sky as he worked furiously to capture the effect of light on the scene. Touches of bright blue accentuate not only the water, but also the foreground figures whose forms are deftly picked out in cobalt blue. In this work Thompson presents the viewer with a familiar scene from the 19th century fishing village of Concarneau in a Post-Impressionistic style.
3
4
Frank L. Emmanuel, “Letters to Artists, Brittany as a sketching ground”, The Studio, IV, 1894, p.180. Quoted in King, J. Sydney Lough Thompson: At Home and Abroad, Robert McDougall Art Gallery, 1990, p.29 The Weekly Press, 11 April 1906, p.35
Drying Sails, Tunny Boats in Concarneau Harbour Oil on board 36 x 45 cm Signed lower right, titled verso
… sometimes in one day 2 or 300 tunny boats would arrive and that meant between 1400 to 2000 fishermen from all parts of the coast living crowded on the wharfs and in the cafés. Men excited by having made a big catch or by not having caught anything. 5 Sydney Lough Thompson married Maude Ethel Coe at St Mary’s Church, Irwell, Canterbury, on 28 March 1911 and shortly afterwards the couple left for Europe, intending to spend several years abroad. After a brief stop over in England the Thompsons arrived in Paris in September of that year. There Thompson resumed his studies, this time under Lucien Simon in Paris, who it appears also had a seminal influence on the work of Frances Hodgkins. Thompson also attended the Académie Colarossi and took anatomy classes at the École Nationale Supérieure des beaux-arts. The Thompsons met several New Zealand artists including Frances Hodgkins, Owen Merton and Cora Wilding. The Parisian art scene provided Thompson with the opportunity to immerse himself in the art trends of the time. He was greatly influenced by the work of Paul Cézanne and the ever-increasing power of the Post-Impressionist movement. Thompson relocated to Concarneau in 1913 with his wife, Ethel, and set up home at La Glacière, where the couple lived intermittently between 1913 and 1919. Thompson concentrated on creating small studies of the harbour, focussing on his technique and limiting his subject matter. These smaller studies illustrate Thompson’s ability to fluently handle and register light and atmospheric effects by predominantly tonal means, akin to the plein-air sketches of British Impressionists.6 Thompson was inextricably drawn to the harbour and the townspeople of Concarneau. The lives of the fishermen and their boats would play out on his canvases. Through his use of bold brushstrokes and vivid colours, Thompson highlighted the link between the villagers and the harbour, the boats and the sea. This fascination is clearly visible in the illustrated work, Drying Sails, Tunny Boats in Concarneau Harbour. Thompson’s bold use of colour is used to dramatic effect: vivid green brushstrokes frame the hull of the boat in the immediate foreground - whilst its sails, picked out in yellow, dry in the afternoon sun. The masts of the tunny boats are framed against a bright blue sky. In this painting Thompson most certainly succeeded in his aim of creating a vision of an age-old unchanging landscape.
5 6
Thompson, S.L.“Artists in Brittany”, Undated Manuscript in possession of Mme. Y.A. Thompson King, J. Sydney Lough Thompson: At Home and Abroad, Robert McDougall Art Gallery, 1990, p.51
A Bashful Bretonne Oil on canvas 45.5 x 38 cm Signed lower right
His chief charm was his daring technique. No-one before him had ever painted with such large brushstrokes. This we all thought wonderful in those days. 7 When Sydney Lough Thompson left New Zealand in 1911 to seek his fortune abroad he was regarded by many as the leading painter of portraiture in the Dominion.8 His reputation as a figure and portrait artist was firmly established through a series of successful exhibitions at the Canterbury Society of Arts between 1906 and 1911. Critics declared Thompson to be New Zealand’s best portrait painter.9 The British art representative in Christchurch even compared Thompson’s masterly ability to that of the great British portraitist, John Singer Sargent.10 Thompson found numerous sitters for his portraits, including members of prominent land-owning families in Canterbury, New Zealand. His reputation as that country’s pre-eminent portraitist secured him the highest price ever given by the Canterbury Society of Arts for a work by a New Zealand painter. Thompson continued painting portraits after he left New Zealand and he completed several figure studies during the early 1900s. His models were typically women and children, who posed for the artist as a way of earning extra money. For Thompson, as well as his bourgeois audience, fisherfolk symbolised the age-old virtues of simplicity and harmony of life, brought about by their close relationship with nature and in particular the ocean. Thompson’s portrait of a young woman, A Bashful Bretonne, reflects his fascination with this theme. The brighter colours and confident brushwork are characteristic of his figure studies around 1912/1913, an important period of development for the artist. During this period his works display a new impressionist concern for light and an interest in bold and adventurous colour use. In the painting illustrated, A Bashful Bretonne, Thompson pays homage to the ’primitive ideal’ by drawing the viewer’s attention to the young girl’s cultural heritage. He pays particular attention to her dress and the intricate details of the carved panelling, two indicators of her class and cultural background. Small quick brushstrokes capture the rosy hue of her cheeks. The intricate details of her dress are picked out in bold swathes of orange. Thompson has depicted the young woman’s gaze averted, thus making her an ornate object to be admired. Her depiction is both delicate and daring, bold and reserved, a combination which attests to Thompson’s ability as one of New Zealand’s finest portrait painters.
King, J. Sydney Lough Thompson: At Home and Abroad, Robert McDougall Art Gallery, 1990, p.37 Ibid.p.69 The Press, 31 May 1907,p.8 10 King, J. Sydney Lough Thompson: At Home and Abroad, Robert McDougall Art Gallery, 1990.p.69 7 8 9
Waiting in the Shade, Concarneau Oil on board 36.5 x 44.5 cm Signed lower left
… the eye wanders back to sleepy horses on a sunlit quay, yellow and orange fishing boats … a Brittany orchard in the full flood of spring blossom … or a glimpse of the dreamy Mediterranean through a vine-weathered pergola.11 The Great War in 1914 had a profound effect on the Thompson family. Sydney and Ethel had planned to return to New Zealand in June of 1914, however, when news broke of the outbreak of war in July the family remained in Concarneau. They anxiously awaited news from Paris and Thompson even offered his services as an interpreter in Nantes, but he was turned down. He had a young family to care for and with the war reaching a stalemate in the north of France, the Thompson family decided to remain in Concarneau. It was not until the end of the war that Thompson was again able to focus on painting. He had not exhibited any of his works during the war and his last recorded exhibitions were in 1913 in Auckland and Wellington, and with the Royal Academy in London. Thompson resolved to establish himself as a professional artist and exhibited 59 works at the Galeries Georges Petit, a leading gallery in Paris. The exhibition opened to critical acclaim in December 1920. The local newspaper, Le Figaro, recognized Thompson’s artistic talent and hailed him as a vibrant painter, gay, truthful, full of life who has rendered in broad lively strokes all the aspects of Concarneau.12 One of France’s leading critics, Louis Vauxcelles, praised Thompson’s work stating; He is vigorous, and yet delicate and full of nuances. His harmonies are very much his own. And he has a distinct sense of values.13 Thompson exhibited at Georges Petit’s again in 1923 and he won numerous awards at the Salon des Artistes Francais where he exhibited regularly between 1922 and 1933. Thompson not only established himself as a successful artist in France, but also in New Zealand. He and his wife and children returned to New Zealand in 1923 and 1933, strengthening their ties to their homeland. Thompson’s grasp of modern painting secured his title as one of New Zealand’s pre-eminent artists of the time. In 1923 he exhibited a number of his works in the country’s major centres and introduced New Zealanders to the advances made by the Post-Impressionist movement. Exemplifying Thompson’s ability in the Post-Impressionist movement is the illustrated work, Waiting in the Shade, Concarneau. Rapid brushstrokes pick out the forms of two horse-drawn carts waiting in the shade. This scene was most probably painted near the docks of Concarneau harbour, where fishermen would load their day’s catch on to waiting carts. The work is reminiscent of Thompson’s earlier darker colour palette, influenced so heavily by Van der Velden. The work, however, maintains its luminous quality by the introduction of vivid greens and blues into the palette. The Concarneau light is also elegantly captured and mastered in this composition by Thompson’s en plein-air technique.
11 King, J. Sydney Lough Thompson: At Home and Abroad, Robert McDougall Art Gallery, 1990, p.73 12 Le Figaro, 8 Décembre 1920, Quoted in King, J. Sydney Lough Thompson: At Home and Abroad, Robert McDougall Art Gallery, 1990, p.62 13 King, J. Sydney Lough Thompson: At Home and Abroad, Robert McDougall Art Gallery, 1990, p.62
Market Day, Pont-Croix
Oil on board 51 x 61 cm Signed lower right Titled on original exhibition label verso #7
… the luminous quality of his colouring and atmosphere, with his skilful handling of groups of figures in movement reveals personal talent.14 Pont-Croix is a small medieval town situated between Douarnenez and Audierne on the scenic road that winds its way towards the Pointe du Raz. The town is known for its historic architecture and its magnificent church, The Monastery Church of Notre-Dame de Roscudon, which was built in six stages over five centuries. The Gothic style church was constructed out of granite and its distinctive porch was first completed in the 14th century. Large stained glass windows are one of the main architectural features of the church, and were constructed between the 15th and 20th century. 15 The architecture and atmosphere of the small village undoubtedly enthralled Thompson. Looking at nature and the past were a recurrent theme in Thompson’s painting. The theme, known more universally as the ‘primitive ideal’, recurred regularly throughout his body of work and saw him painting markets, harbours and historic churches whilst exploring the small villages of Brittany and Provence. Here he experimented with a lightened colour palette in response to the brilliance of the local light. Thompson also introduced a tighter compositional order in his work, by painting the block-like shapes of buildings to create the illusion of depth and grandeur. These features abound in the illustrated work, Market Day, Pont-Croix. Thompson explored the picturesque village of Pont-Croix and entranced by its famous church, he immediately began to paint it in oils. Interlocking planes of colour draw the viewer’s attention to the iconic stained glass window of the church. Thompson creates scale in the work by bringing the large shapes of the buildings into the foreground, dwarfing the horse and cart. He creates an idealised image of the past, and the figures depicted are dressed in traditional clothing, exemplifying their cultural heritage. He excludes any sense of the modern world in this image, instead focusing on the communal life of the villagers depicted, with horses, carts, calves and produce on their way to the market, gathered outside the iconic Monastery Church of Notre-Dame de Roscudon.
14 15
King, J. Sydney Lough Thompson: At Home and Abroad, Robert McDougall Art Gallery, 1990.p.62 “Pont-Croix”. Office Municipal de tourisme. Accessed October 3. http://www.pont-croix.fr
Blue Tunny Boats, Concarneau Oil on canvas 38 x 46 cm Signed lower right
Concarneau has an irresistible picturesqueness that attracts artists so strongly that it used to be known as the town ‘of thirty studios and thirty sardine factories’ . . .16 Thompson relocated to a studio next to the Atlantic Hotel on the quay near the entrance to the Concarneau harbour in 1921. From there he could observe the daily bustle of the port. Rejecting studio practice, he painted out of doors at the port, concentrating on capturing colour and movement, and developing his technique by working systematically on increasingly large formats. One prevailing theme in Thompson’s work from this era was the return of the fleet of fishermen to the harbour. This over-arching theme included the depiction of the boats entering the port, the sardine fishermen counting their catch, the tunny boats in the harbour with their distinctly coloured sails, horse-drawn carts awaiting their cargo and townsfolk eager to view the day’s catch. Thompson would complete paintings such as Blue Tunny Boats Concarneau, along the quayside overlooking the harbour. His efforts to capture the different tonalities of light and colour are clearly evident in such paintings as Blue Tunny Boats Concarneau. The tonal harmonies of the sails with the ocean and the sky, a touch of red in the middle ground to add depth to the work, and the luminosity of the sky, combine to create a canvas that depicts Thompson’s painterly ability. Impressionistic spontaneity abounds in this painting, with its broad brush strokes and bold use of colour. The majority of Thompson’s Concarneau scenes were painted before 1933. When he returned to the village in 1937 he was bitterly disappointed with the modernisation of the small fishing harbour. He felt it had lost its charm and he even described the village as a little uglier.17 The absence of the sardine and tunny boats added to Thompson’s dismay and he changed his artistic focus to ‘the land’, choosing to paint churches and farmsteads.
16 Thompson, S.L. Pictures of Brittany and Provence, Armagh Street Gallery, Christchurch, 1934. Quoted in “Sydney Lough Thompson (1877 – 1973)”, Survey, no. 14 (1976): 3-6 17 Ibid. p.37
Summer in the Farmyard, Canterbury Gouache 35 x 49 cm Signed lower right
The influence of Mr Thompson was felt not only in art circles, for the success of his exhibition made a strong impression on the public, which hitherto had never appreciated the work of its own painters as much as it deserved.18 Thompson returned to New Zealand with his young family in 1923 after a series of successful exhibitions in Paris. In Christchurch, on 27 November, a civic reception was held to honour his artistic achievements. New Zealand critics of the time reported on his success with national pride and fanfare and proclaimed Thompson as one of New Zealand’s three most distinguished sons, the others being Rutherford and Mellor.19 After a succession of solo exhibitions in New Zealand and Australia, which dazzled the buying public, Thompson was regarded as one of New Zealand’s most celebrated artists. 20 Thompson held two solo exhibitions, the first in Christchurch in December 1923, followed by another in Auckland. Major public institutions acquired numerous works from both exhibitions; The Auckland City Council acquired Patient Horses (Auckland Art Gallery Toi O Tamaki), The Academy of Fine Arts in Wellington bought a work with the same title as well as Last Rays, Cale de La Criée (Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa) and the Dunedin Public Art Gallery was gifted a work entitled White Horse on the Quay, Concarneau in 1924. Horses were a favourite subject for Thompson. He captured them waiting at the docks in Concarneau or in the dappled shade of trees in market squares. The illustrated work, Summer in the Farmyard, Canterbury, explores Thompson’s fascination with this theme in a New Zealand setting. Painted in gouache, the work depicts Thompson’s ability to capture the distinctive Canterbury light. The intensity of the New Zealand light and its effect on the artist is clearly evident in the composition. He used smaller, more deliberate brushstrokes to indicate the light streaming through the macrocarpa trees. Touches of white accentuate the branches, while the ground beneath appears washed out through Thompson’s rendering of the crisp clear Canterbury light. This tightly painted quality illustrates Thompson’s progression from his less restrained Concarneau works. His masterly ability to capture the atmosphere of a scene is clearly evident in this composition. Thompson returned to Europe in 1925, but economic and political uncertainty in the region forced the family to move back to New Zealand in 1933. After returning to New Zealand, Thompson served as vice president of the New Zealand Society of Artists (1934), president of the Canterbury Society of Arts (1935–37), a member of the Committee of Management of the National Art Gallery, Wellington, and a member of the Christchurch City Council’s Art Gallery Committee. He lectured and exhibited widely, and was awarded an OBE in 1937. Thompson would become one of the most celebrated artists of his time in New Zealand. He was also one of the first New Zealand-born painters to develop a professional career, but unlike Frances Hodgkins and Raymond McIntyre he did not cut his ties with New Zealand or attempt to define himself within the context of modern British art. From 1948 until his death at Concarneau on 8 June 1973, Thompson often travelled between France and New Zealand, working as a professional artist whose paintings had great public appeal. Sydney Lough Thompson never lost his delight in painting and his last work was completed shortly before his 90th birthday. Moore, William,“The Revival in New Zealand”. Quoted in King, J. Sydney Lough Thompson: At Home and Abroad, Robert McDougall Art Gallery, 1990, p.71 Weekly Press and Referee, March 1925. Quoted in King, J. Sydney Lough Thompson: At Home and Abroad, Robert McDougall Art Gallery, 1990, p.70 20 Ibid. p.70 18
19
Sydney Lough Thompson in the studio at La Digue, Concarneau, c.1922. Reproduced courtesy of the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu.
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FA10.2013
Jonathan Grant Galleries