Wilfrid de Glehn
Wilfrid de Glehn 1870–1951
2017
www.messums.com 28 Cork Street, London W1S 3NG Telephone: +44 (0)20 7437 5545
Tales and Tableaux Between 1903 and 1904, Wilfrid de Glehn opened solo exhibitions in the United States, in Boston and New York. But it was not until early 1908 that his first one-man show opened in London at the Carfax Gallery. Titled Luminous Studies of Italy by a Talented Follower of Sargent, it included oils and watercolours inspired by his travels with John Singer Sargent to Val d’Aosta, Florence, Rome and the Campagna. Their stops included the Villa Aldobrandini at Frascati, where Wilfrid and Sargent painted the statue of Vertumnus, apparently working side-by-side. Wilfrid’s oil is included here (cat. no. 12), while Sargent’s watercolour study is now in Dublin (c. 1907, Hugh Lane Municipal Art Gallery). Both paintings depict the statue in the same light and from nearly the same angle: just one example of the creative correspondence Wilfrid enjoyed between 1904 and 1913, when he and Jane regularly joined Sargent on his European painting holidays. Sargent first met Wilfrid probably around 1895, after he began to work out of Edwin Austin Abbey’s Gloucestershire studio, preparing the first phase of his murals for the Boston Public Library. Abbey had developed the massive studio at Morgan Hall in Fairford after he was commissioned by the Library’s architects, McKim, Mead & White, to paint fifteen panels devoted to Arthurian legend for the library’s Book Delivery Room (installed, 1901). Abbey may have enlisted Wilfrid to assist on his Grail murals, or he may have drafted him specifically to help Sargent, but it is worth noting that in either case, Wilfrid would have been working with an artist who was new to this particular genre. Neither Sargent nor Abbey had real experience with history painting, and still less in conceiving large narrative cycles. Nevertheless, the architects wanted the Library to be an
international (read: European) “palace of the people”, with every interior depicting highpoints of European literature: Shakespeare, Dante, Cervantes, Molière, and so on. What is more, they wanted their vision realised by a consortium of the best painters available. The staircase and entry hall already boasted works by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, a Frenchman and perhaps the finest, most influential decorative painter of his era.
1. Two Models – Seated
charcoal and chalk 48 x 48 cms 19 x 19 in P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate, Atelier no. 703.
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2. Perseus Rescuing Andromeda from the Dragon, 1910–12
oil on canvas 92 x 71 cms 36 x 28 ins
P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate; Atelier no. 380.
Wilfrid was also somewhat inspired by Puvis de Chevannes, but unlike Augustus John, Frederick Cayley Robinson, Stanley Spencer or, for that matter, Sargent and Abbey, he was not influenced by Trecento and Quattrocento art. Instead, his decorative classicism was shaped by the French rococo (he and Lucian were keen collectors of French eighteen-century drawings), and by his training in fin-de-siècle Paris. Between roughly 1892 and 1897 Wilfrid was enrolled at the École des Beaux Arts, where he studied with Gustave Moreau, and possibly Elie Delauney.1 His pictures from this time, like Brittany, Early Evening (cat. no. 7), are typical of the subjects Moreau encouraged: atmospheric, even somewhat eerie genre scenes of rural Brittany and the Vendée. Despite his “decadent” subject matter, Moreau
3. Studies for Leda sanguine 37 x 51 cms 141⁄2 x 20 ins P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate, Atelier no. 1077.
was actually more orthodox than his later critics argued, especially in his teaching. While he expected students to leave his atelier with a firm grasp of history painting, he was not interested in fostering naturalism. In fact, he actively discouraged the theatrical paradigm of traditional history painting in which characters are depicted in equal proportion within a given ratio, and any event or emotion signified by frozen gestures and expressions. Instead, Moreau encouraged his students to paint stories as something emblematic, as layered
Photograph of a model by Wilfrid de Glehn
1 If Wilfrid entered the École des Beaux-Arts in 1891, he could have studied with both Elie Delaunay and Gustave Moreau. During this time there were three ateliers, one of which was run by Delaunay, who was Moreau’s close friend. After his death in October of 1891, Moreau immediately took on his students, formally becoming their chef d’atelier in January 1892.
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4. The Enchanted Forest, 1901
oil on canvas 137 x 86 cms 537⁄8 x 337⁄8 ins signed lower left P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate; Atelier number 200.
expressions of an event or outcome that the viewer could actually sense. 2 By 1899, not only had Wilfrid incorporated Moreau’s close-framed “contemplative immobility” into the mermaids, allegories and classical subjects he exhibited at the Royal Academy and elsewhere, but this quality was further enhanced by the direct observation he honed through working with Sargent. When Wilfrid and Lucien opened their Goupil show in London, Sargent wrote the
6. Three Studies of Female Nudes sanguine 36 x 51 cms 141⁄8 x 201⁄8 ins P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate; Atelier number 788.
introduction for the catalogue, and one critic pointed out that such support might have seemed a mere benediction from artist to follower were it not for the fact that Wilfrid was apparently no mere acolyte. In fact, unlike Sargent, Wilfrid was not ‘a realist, not even perhaps an idealist’, but in works like Leda and the Swan and Mermaid and Seagulls, he had proven instead to be ‘a tasteful… poet’.3 In 1903, Wilfrid and Sargent sailed for the United States. After several months in Boston, where he assisted Sargent
5. The Enchanted Forest, 1907
etching; no. 4 of 6 20 x 15 cms 8 x 6 ins P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate, Atelier no. 1195b.
2 See Peter Cooke, “Gustave Moreau and the Reinvention of History Painting” in The Art Bulletin, 1 September 2008, Vol. 90(3), pp. 394–416. 3 “Two Minor Exhibitions” in The Standard, 30 January 1899.
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7. Brittany – Evening, 1893
oil on canvas 49 x 73 cms 19 1⁄4 x 287⁄8 ins signed and dated lower right P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate, Atelier no. 228.
his sense of expression and his way of looking at nature from working ‘side by side with the great man’, his best pictures nevertheless favoured romanticism over realism. Moreover, if this romantic naturalism could be appreciated apart from Sargent (who was indifferent to the picturesque), then Wilfrid’s ‘undeniable talent would probably receive unstinted praise.’5 4 “Art Notes”, in The Observer, 23 February 1908. 5 P. D. Konody, “Art Notes” in The Observer, 29 May 1910.
8. Model Relaxing in a Chair, Arms Outstretched sanguine 36 x 51 cms 141⁄8 x 201⁄8 ins P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate, Atelier no. 1042.
and exhibited his own work, they moved onto New York, where Wilfrid was introduced to Jane Emmett, a close friend of Stanford White (of McKim, Mead & White). Just before his wedding to Jane in the spring of 1904, Wilfrid mounted a successful exhibition at Durand-Ruel, New York, where critics described him as ‘a dashing virile painter’, who had once been Abbey’s assistant, but was now ‘Sargent’s great friend.’ A few years later, when his solo show at Carfax opened, critics drew more direct parallels, deeming him ‘the only artist living among us that makes Sargentism at second hand at all tolerable’ 4, a backhanded compliment if ever there was one. Subsequently, however, this same critic (who was possibly P. D. Konody) noted that if Wilfrid developed
9. Seated Model – Two Poses sanguine 30 x 41 cms 113⁄4 x 161⁄8 ins P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate, Atelier no. 854.
10. Sunset – Suffolk River
oil on canvas 64 x 76 cms 25 x 30 ins P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate, Atelier no. 64.
11. Coutances
oil on canvas 64 x 76 cms 25 x 29 7⁄8 ins signed lower left P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate, Atelier no. 249.
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12. The Statue of Vertumnus, Frascati, 1907
oil on canvas 77 x 64 cms 301⁄8 x 25 ins signed and dated lower left P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate; Atelier number 356. Exhibited: London, Carfax Gallery, 1908, no. 22. New York, Hirschl and Adler Gallery, Wilfrid Gabriel de Glehn, Paintings and Watercolours, 1989, no. 6. New York, Spanierman Gallery, Wilfrid de Glehn, John Singer Sargent’s Painting Companion, 1997, no. 41.
Throughout a long career that continued decades after Sargent’s death, Wilfrid never diminished, still less denied, what he owed him; Sargent directly influenced his style, technique and palette. Before 1895, when the two men most likely met, Wilfrid painted tonal landscapes and genre studies, demure mermaids and romantic studies of his sister Rachel, any of which could be mistaken for works by Oswald von Glehn, his uncle. By 1899, however, Wilfrid’s style had shifted definitively towards the colour and brushwork Sargent brilliantly
14. Reclining Model on a Sofa watercolour 32 x 53 cms 123⁄4 x 20 7⁄8 ins P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate, Atelier no. 1002.
borrowed from Velásquez and Manet and developed into his enduring transatlantic Impressionism.
13. Study for a Portrait of Louy, 1919 pencil 37 x 29 cms 143⁄8 x 113⁄8 ins signed
P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate, Atelier no. 610.
While Wilfrid remained Sargent’s follower in style and execution, he nevertheless maintained a distinctly different focus. For example, his chicly static portraiture is actually closer in tradition to that of Lawrence or Gainsborough, and unlike Sargent, Wilfrid had none of the on-the-spot realism that captured the specific or ephemeral. His eye for architecture was documentarian, and his sense of landscape was scenographic. (If he had not become a successful portraitist, he could have been a brilliant theatrical designer.) In fact, as both Laura Wortley and Jane Hamilton have noted, if Wilfrid’s success depended on his relationship to Sargent, critics of the time nevertheless deemed him
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15. Portrait of Lawrence Alexander “Peter” Harrison, 1925
oil on canvas 83 x 60 cms 325⁄8 x 235⁄8 ins signed lower right; inscribed and dated verso P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate, Atelier no. 168.
Etty, or even the highbrow mischief of the Windmill Theatre, and he enjoyed using photography to explore distinct plays of light and poses that the model could only hold briefly. A classical education gave him a solid understanding of antique narrative and motif, and his interest in theatre and opera may have helped his sense of grand manner aesthetics. But it is the combination of Moreau’s “beautiful inertia” and plein-air painting that give Wilfrid’s pictures a unique tension between formal decorative intent and the sparkling here-and-now.6 As a genre, decorative classicism peaked in the 1930s, and 6 Jane Hamilton, In Search of a Golden Age: Works from the Studio Estate of Wilfrid & Jane de Glehn (Studio Publications: London) 2008, p. 26.
16. Olive Trees, Corfu, 1909
watercolour and gouache 41 x 51 cms 161⁄8 x 201⁄8 ins P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate, Atelier no. 479.
the best of Sargent’s followers. Moreover, he excelled at classical subjects and Arcadian landscapes, genres in which Sargent showed little or no interest. By splicing Moreau’s instruction for history painting with the command of plein-air painting he developed with Sargent, Wilfrid developed an approach to decorative painting that captured classical subjects, particularly the sexy Ovidian ones, in a glossy Arcadia quite distinct in contemporary decorative painting, such as Spencer Gore’s fauvist fantasies for the Cave of the Golden Calf nightclub (c. 1912, now lost). Overall Wilfrid’s glamourous nudes have more in common with Junoesque figures from Ingres, William
17. Palms at Antibes, 1918 watercolour 41 x 48 cms 16 x 19 ins P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate, Atelier no. 468.
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18. The Rainbow, 1938
oil on canvas 50 x 61 cms 195⁄8 x 24 ins signed lower right P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate, Atelier no. 84.
his most ambitious works of this period assert both the importance of classical narrative and the ideals of plein-air painting. Exhibited at the Royal Academy to acclaim, The Poet, Accompanied by Some of the Muses, Seeks Inspiration from Nature and L’Age d’Or are both set in a Parnassus that is actually present-day Provence or the Alpes-Maritimes. From the beginning of his career, critics noted that Wilfrid’s naturalism was subject to his taste for the antique.7 As his work matured, he continued to explore the paradox of using direct observation to capture the
20. Provence
oil on canvas 54 x 73 cms 211⁄4 x 283⁄4 ins P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate, Atelier no. 264.
non-existent in paintings that blend ancient myth and modern landscape: an approach that is unrelated to Sargent’s work and, in terms of decorative art, is distinct in modern British painting. Andrea Gates Director
19. Umbrella Pines: Montaignes des Maures watercolour 41 x 51 cms 16 x 20 ins P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate, Atelier no. 1255.
7 ‘Quand bien même l’enseignement d’un maître comme Gustave Moreau n’aurait eu pour résultat que de susciter en quelques jeunes artistes le goût ... Avec des tendances tout à fait contraires, M. Wilfrid de Glehn [sic] en est un excellent exemple.’ in Revue Bleue, vol. 37, issue 2, p. 799 (1900).
21. Classical Idyll before the Baôu of Saint-Jeannet, 1943
oil on canvas 66 x 92 cms 26 x 36 ins signed and dated lower right P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate; Atelier no. 377.
22. Study for ‘Echo’, 1931
oil on canvas 58 x 71 cms 225⁄8 x 28 ins P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate; Atelier no. 237.
23. Le Bahou de St Jeannet, Morning, 1936
oil on canvas 56 x 71 cms 22 x 28 ins P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate; Atelier no. 69.
24. La Gaude: Study for ‘Soir Antique’, 1934
oil on canvas 57 x 71 cms 221⁄4 x 28 ins P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate; Atelier no. 69b.
25. Le Muy, Roque Brune, Les Montaignes de Maures
oil on canvas 57 x 72 cms 223⁄8 x 281⁄2 ins P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate; Atelier no. 233.
26. Gattieres & Carrosses
oil on canvas 59 x 92 cms 231⁄4 x 361⁄4 ins P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate; Atelier no. 297.
27. Carros, Vallée du Var, Provence
oil on canvas 46 x 61 cms 181⁄8 x 24 ins P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate; Atelier no. 108.
28. Ariadne in Naxos, 1941
oil on canvas 57 x 72 cms 221⁄4 x 283⁄8 ins signed and dated lower left P rovenance : The Artist’s Family. Exhibited: London, Royal Academy, 1941, no, 169 as “Ariadne in Naxon: design for a decoration for “The Coming of Spring”. L iterature : Jane Hamilton, “In Search of a Golden Age”, Marlow: Studio Publications, 2008, no. 11, p. 23.
left:
29. The Stream at Kennack, Cornwall, 1922 watercolour 30 x 38 cms 113⁄4 x 15 ins signed lower right P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate; Atelier no. 1360.
above:
30. Misty Day – Ground Swell on the Cornish Coast watercolour 30 x 51 cms 113⁄4 x 201⁄8 ins P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate, Atelier no. 1180.
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31. Study for Three Sirens on a Rock, 1940
oil on canvas 76 x 64 cms 29 7⁄8 x 25 ins signed lower left P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate; Atelier no. 358.
32. Normandy River Landscape
oil on canvas 63 x 76 cms 243⁄4 x 29 7⁄8 ins P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate, Atelier no. 61.
33. The Bathers
oil on canvas 54 x 65 cms 213⁄8 x 253⁄4 ins P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate, Atelier no. 252b.
above:
34. Andromeda
oil on canvas 64 x 56 cms 25 x 217⁄8 ins P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate, Atelier no. 219.
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35. Three Bathers
oil on canvas 61 x 51 cms 24 x 201⁄8 ins P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate, Atelier no. 324.
36. Two Seated Nudes
oil on canvas 46 x 62 cms 181⁄4 x 241⁄4 ins P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate, Atelier no. 98.
37. Cupid and Psyche – A Study, 1925
oil on canvas 64 x 76 cms 25 x 29 7⁄8 ins P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate; Atelier no. 366.
38. Interior Scene with Vase of Roses and Porcelain Figure Groups on Table
oil on canvas 46 x 61 cms 181⁄8 x 24 ins P rovenance : The Artist’s Family.
39. Wittenham Clumps, Vale of the White Horse, Wiltshire
oil on canvas 51 x 76 cms 201⁄8 x 301⁄8 ins P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate, Atelier no. 364.
40. Autumn Elms, Stratford Tony, Wilts
oil on canvas 64 x 77 cms 251⁄4 x 301⁄8 ins P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate, Atelier no. 47.
41. Jane de Glehn Painting by the River Avon, c. 1942
oil on canvas 51 x 76 cms 201⁄8 x 29 7⁄8 ins signed lower right P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate, Atelier no. 292.
42. Palladian Bridge at Wilton Park
oil on canvas 50 x 76 cms 195⁄8 x 29 7⁄8 ins P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate, Atelier no. 269.
43. Fishing on the Avon
oil on canvas 56 x 72 cms 217⁄8 x 281⁄8 ins P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate, Atelier no. 243.
44. Sketch of Trees
oil on canvas 64 x 77 cms 251⁄8 x 30 3⁄8 ins P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate, Atelier no. 240.
45. Walnut Tree
oil on canvas 56 x 72 cms 22 x 281⁄8 ins P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate, Atelier no. 242.
46. Portrait of Barbara Tebbit in a Blue Frock, 1926
oil on canvas 113 x 78 cms 441⁄2 x 301⁄2 ins P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate, Atelier no. 217.
47. Portrait of Jane de Glehn – Seated in a Chair
oil on canvas 91 x 61 cms 357⁄8 x 237⁄8 ins P rovenance : The Artist’s Studio Estate, Atelier no. 375.
Chronology 1870
Wilfrid Gabriel von Glehn born in Sydenham, London
1915–16
Wilfrid and Jane volunteer at Red Cross hospital, Arc-en-Barrois, France
1873
Jane Erin Emmet born in New Rochelle, NY
1916
Wilfrid joins Royal Garrison Artillery; Treviso; Family von Glehn change name by deed poll; Jane in Cambridge
1880–90 Wilfrid trains at Brighton College; the Royal College of Art; and the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris 1891
Edwin Austin Abbey hires Wilfrid for Boston Public Library commission.
1917–1918 Wilfrid in Caporetto; Versailles; with Jane in Antibes
1895
Jane trains with William Merritt Chase and others at the Art Students League, New York
1920s
1897
Jane trains with Raphael Collin at the Atelier Vitti, Paris
Travels to New York; Cornwall; Sussex; AlpesMaritimes and Provence; Wilfrid shows at DurandRuel, NY and Vose Galleries, Boston
1923
1900
Wilfrid elected to NEAC
Wilfrid elected ARA; travels to Cornwall; Cannes; Alpes-Maritime (annually until 1929)
1901
Wilfrid exhibits at Goupil Gallery
1925–30
1903
Wilfrid and Jane engaged; New York and Connecticut
Sargent dies; Cornwall; South of France; USA; Wilfrid shows at Barbizon House, London
1932
Wilfrid elected RA; Wilton; USA
1935
Wilfrid has retrospective at Knoedler; South of France
1939
Grantchester; WWII declared
1904
Wilfrid exhibits at Durand-Ruel, NY; marries Jane; Cornwall; Brittany; Paris; Venice (with Sargent); 73 Cheyne Walk; Wilfrid elected RP
1905–7
Normandy; Brittany; Val d’Aosta – Florence – Frascati – Rome (with Sargent)
1941–42
73 Cheyne Walk destroyed; move to Stratford Tony, Wiltshire
1908–10
Wilfrid exhibits at Carfax Gallery and DurandRuel, Paris; Corfu and Florence with Sargent.
1947–48
Wilfrid refuses nomination to PRA; South of France, USA
1911–13
Wilfrid shows with Goupil Gallery; US; Spain (with Sargent); Wilfrid shows at FAS; Paris; Northern Italy with Sargent
1951
Wilfrid dies at Stratford Tony
Wilfrid in Boston; WWI declared; Wilfrid joins Artists’ Corps
1961
1914
1952–1960 Jane travels to USA; Scotland; photographed by Cecil Beaton Jane dies at Stratford Tony
CDXXVI
ISBN 978-1-910993-18-7 Publication No: CDXXVI Published by David Messum Fine Art © David Messum Fine Art
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Detail from no 22. Study for ‘Echo’
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