a private paradise
Lionel Bulmer ● Margaret Green
a private paradise by Ian Collins English Impressionism in general and the New English Art Club in particular were practically invented on the East Anglian coast at Walberswick and Southwold. And of all the artists who headed eastward in the distant wake of Philip Wilson Steer and his friends and followers of the 1880s, perhaps a pair of kindred painters who worked here for 30 successive summers, from 1960 to 1990, have come closest to the spirit of the pioneers and the place.
Margaret Green 2. Walking on the Sea Front, Seaton Carew oil on board 27 x 48 cms 10 3⁄4 x 183⁄4 ins Atelier no. 169
Margaret and Lional Bulmer with artists’ model
Margaret Green and Lionel Bulmer came from opposite ends of the country and in other senses grew up poles apart. She was the daughter of a Teeside steelworker, he was the son of a London architect. But both had the great good fortune to find their creative talents, most notably in draughtsmanship, nurtured at home from the start. Margaret was still a promising secondary school pupil when Lionel was drafted into the war. They met at the Royal College of Art when it had been relocated by the bombing of London to the Lake District. Here in the magical landscape of the Romantic poets Margaret and Lionel fell (instantly, totally, permanently) in love.
Lionel Bulmer 3. Swans by the Bandstand, 1952 pen and wash 35 x 45 cms 13 3⁄4 x 17 3⁄4 ins Atelier no. 1120L
Margaret Green carried off hearts and prizes at the RCA immediately after the war’s end, but for her there was only ever one possible partner once she had set eyes on him. Happily he returned the feeling in full. They felt no need of marriage – though that formal seal would finally be set, in 1991, when Lionel was dying – as from the outset they simply shared everything. Despite the remaining contrasts in their characters, their friends came to refer to them as a single entity – MargaretandLionel.
Lionel Bulmer 4. The Railway Station
pen and wash 35 x 45 cms 13 3⁄4 x 17 3⁄4 ins Atelier no. 1091
It is very rare for two artists to live and work together in perfect harmony. One normally smothers the creativity of the other, who has to tend to the chores and the children. The names of the giftedbut-forgotten wives of celebrated male artists are too many to mention (but Mrs Eric Ravilious, Mrs John Nash and Mrs Cecil Collins are but three, albeit from an older generation, whose lives overlapped with those of Margaret and Lionel and who could themselves have had brilliant careers). It may be just possible for the spouse of a famous painter to have a studio in the corner of a large house, but MargaretandLionel worked happily from corners of the same small table. For they followed the Royal
Lionel Bulmer 5. Parking in the Forecourt, 1952 pen and wash 35 x 46 cms 133⁄4 x 18 1⁄8 ins Atelier no. 1120M
Lionel Bulmer and Margaret Green: Bright Confident Mornings On 8 May 1945, London turned the lights back on. Floodlights shone on St Paul’s and on Nelson’s Column, while Leicester Square and Piccadilly came alive as neon signs flashed like tropical fish through the formerly blacked-out evenings. Londoners now strolled about safely at night, free to stop and be entranced by the glow of newly stocked shop windows. Nevertheless, for most, daily life remained a struggle. Apart from the massive building reconstruction that was still needed to rehouse thousands, rationing was actually increased, and heat remained scarce. After visiting postwar London, the American literary critic Edward Wilson wrote: “How empty, how sickish, how senseless everything suddenly seems the moment the war is over! We are left flat with impoverished and humiliated life that the drive against the enemy kept our minds off ”. And a contemporary entry from Chancellor of the Exchequer Hugh Dalton’s diary despondently read: “Never bright confident morning again”. When Lionel Bulmer and Margaret Green followed the RCA’s return to Chelsea, they lived and painted the realities of this recovery period, which lasted far longer in Britain than in any other Allied country. Their work captured everyday life in London as a series of modest, self-contained victories, and for all the dim, shabby sense of making do, there is an even stronger sense of what endured: hope.
overleaf: Lionel Bulmer 15. The May Picnic oil on board 92 x 137 cms 36 x 54 ins Atelier no. 1025 Margaret Green 16. In the Park oil on board 64 x 71 cms 25 x 28 ins Atelier no. 241
Lionel Bulmer 24. The Unmade Bed pen and ink 31 x 34 cms 121⁄4 x 133⁄8 ins Atelier no. 1174 Margaret Green 25. Sleeping watercolour 36 x 51 cms 14 x 20 ins Atelier no. 226 Lionel Bulmer 26. Early Morning, Walking Past the Fruit Cage oil on canvassed board 50 x 61 cms 195⁄8 x 24 ins Atelier no. 028
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