LIFE CAPTURED IN ART The Mark Robson Collection of Twentieth Century British Art
LIFE CAPTURED IN ART The Mark Robson Collection of Twentieth Century British Art and other British Pictures (1890-1990) 13th-23rd November 2018
Front cover: Rupert Lee (1887-1959)
The Shell, 1918 [cat.20] Back cover: James Tarr (1905-1996)
HARRY MOORE-GWYN BRITISH ART
Washing Day [cat.18] Opposite page: Frank Runacres (1904-1974)
Bathers on the beach steps [cat.51] Contents pages: Christopher John Lawley (Born 1938)
Spring Flowers, Birmingham [cat.5]
Third Floor, 6 Mason’s Yard, St James’s, London SW1Y 6BU (Open Mon-Fri, 11.00am - 6.00pm, or at other times by appointment)
harry@mooregwynfineart.co.uk Tel:+447765 966 256 www.mooregwynfineart.co.uk
CONTENTS 04 09 19 29 39 49 65
Introduction Towns and cities Scenes from Rural Life Life and Death A Touch of the Surreal Sea, Sky and Land The Unknown Artist
Introduction It is probably every art dealer’s dream for one of their best and most interesting collectors to turn round and ask them to put together a catalogue of their complete picture collection. Mark Robson has lived his entire life near Kettering in Northamptonshire, and has been a collector for almost as long as he can remember. At the age of six or seven he was collecting anything he could find in the land: putting together groups of fossils, bottles, coins and unusual local stone. The latter would in time have an influence on Mark’s eventual choice of career as founder of one of the Midland’s most highly thought of and successful suppliers of specialist stone for the building industry.
An important early influence was Mark’s grandfather who owned a piano shop and would take him to sales and help him buy large boxes of unsorted bric-a-brac. In time Mark honed his eye to create the extraordinary collection that decorated his house: oriental ceramics, unusual antique toys, sculpture, painted furniture, marbles, middle eastern rugs and of course modern British pictures. The latter has become the most absorbing field for Mark in the last decade and a half of his time as a collector. The first work he bought in this vein was Barbara Vincent’s striking seascape Westward Ho! (cat.49), a work by an artist who is virtually unknown today and simply acquired by Mark (as always) in response to his immediate instinct as to its undoubted quality. I met Mark in the
[Fig.1] Barbara Vincent
Westward Ho! [cat.49] 4 | LIFE CAPTURED IN ART
[Fig.2] Felicity Charlton (1913-2009)
The Tea Room [cat.31]
early 2000s and the initial works he bought from me included James Tarr’s A Tractor in a Field in a Chiltern Valley and several works by Ethelbert White, the beginning of what would surely in time become the finest private collection of that artist’s early work. These works marked the beginning of a collection that if on first appearance appears eclectic is nevertheless linked together by a number of common threads. Firstly, pretty well every picture in Mark’s collection was painted by a British artist working in the period from about 1900 to 1970. The essential Britishness of them is a central characteristic, whether in seeing a quintessentially British scene through the eyes of an artist who is engaged (even if subtly) with inter-war modernism, as in the rural landscapes of Ethelbert White, or reflecting the same period’s tendency towards the whimsical and idiosyncratic: take the
strange harbour forms of Harry Hoodless, the Hitchcockian tea room scene of Felicity Charlton or the untamed undulation of James Tarr in his depictions of his Chiltern landscape. The second common characteristic of Mark’s collection is that every work was selected on its merit without the slightest concern as to whether the painter was well-known or not. That is not say that in amongst the collection are better known names; Charles Ginner, one of the great figures of the Camden Town Group, is represented by his wonderful wartime view of Pimlico Houses. He also owned a characteristically quirky John Craxton cat and snail and a fine early David Gentleman watercolour of the estuary at Mistley, but the fact that such artists were well-known played no part in why they were selected for the collection. Instead much of this catalogue reads as a document of unjustly neglected British artists
LIFE CAPTURED IN ART | 5
from the last century. This is not to say that they had unsuccessful careers, more that their crucial contributions to British art occurred elsewhere: as highly influential teachers, designers, commercial artists and illustrators. Amongst them are a notable number of art school principals, many frequently cited as central influences on better known artists of future generations. Figures in this category include Clifford Hanney, who ran the Crewe School of Art in the middle of the last century, John Hammond Harwood in Gloucester, Osmund Caine in Twickenham and Francis Hortsmann who ran the design department of Mackintosh’s influential Glasgow School of Art in the late 1940s. Another characteristic is that with very few exceptions, Mark’s collection is one of representational art. The extent to which realist art of the last century has been neglected by both commercial and academic art worlds alike is brilliantly illustrated in the recent National Galleries of Scotland exhibition, True to Life, British Realist Painting in the 1920s and 1930s. And yet amongst this category could arguably be placed some of the most distinctive and highly regarded British painters of the twentieth century, including: Lucian Freud, Stanley Spencer, Paul Nash and Eric Ravilious. Despite this, both auction houses and art fairs continue to give due credibility to only a handful of these painters. In the 1980s and even in early 1990s you could find a landscape by James Tarr, for example, holding its own in a mainstream sale at
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Sotheby’s or Christie’s and yet now you are hard pressed to find a comparable work anywhere. Hopefully Mark’s collection goes some way to suggest why this should be nothing short of a real shame and adds to the compelling argument that has always existed in redressing this imbalance in British art of the twentieth century. Harry Moore-Gwyn
[Fig.3] Clifford Hanney, RWA (1890-1990)
The Potter [cat.25] [Fig.4] opposite Francis Horstmann (1906-1968)
Work and Play [cat.4]
TOWNS AND CITIES
[Fig.5] opposite Charles Ginner, ARA (1878-1952)
The Unscathed Tree, Pimlico, 1942 [cat.3] 9
Sir John Arnesby Brown RA (1866-1955)
Brown was born in Nottingham, training at the school of art there before entering the studio of the painter Andrew McCallum. He studied at the Herkomer School in Bushey between 1889 and 1892, and first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1890. He moved to St Ives in the early 1890s and first visited Norfolk in 1896. Here he developed the style and subject matter of painting for which he is best known: impressionistic rural landscapes of the East Anglian countryside, frequently depicting cattle. Such scenes established him as one of the most highly regarded landscape painters of his day, a Studio article in 1917 observing that …” 10
they combine two of the most fundamental interests of the great majority of English people: love of the country and love of animals”. He was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1903 and a full member in 1915. He was knighted in 1938.
[cat.1] Road Sweeping, Early Morning, Oxford High Street
Brown’s work before his training in Bushey is very rare and markedly different in both subject and execution to his more familiar, earthy landscapes. However street scenes of evening and early morning are quite common in his work at that date, the most obvious comparison to the present work being his Early Evening in
Nottingham City Centre of 1887, with a similar blending of his figures with the dark background of the street. In 1892 he revisited the idea in his panel painting Waiting to Hear the Results, returning again to the streets of Nottingham with a new found technical confidence, no doubt resulting from his time studying in Bushey.
Signed with initials and dated l.l.: AB/89 and inscribed l.r.: 4.30 am Oil on canvas, 14 ½ by 23 ¼ ins (37 by 59 cm)
Sylvia Pollak (1912-2004)
Pollak was a painter and designer, exhibition specialist and a writer on art. She studied at London University, the Bartlett School of Architecture, the Slade School of Art and in Paris and Vienna. She exhibited at the Artist’s International Association, the Women’s International Art Club, the Arts Council and provincially in the United Kingdom. She was a writer for The Studio and Architectural Design. She lived in London,
before moving to Suffolk after the Second World War. There she settled in Southwold, becoming a formative force in the Southwold Art Circle and exhibiting work primarily in collage. [cat.2] Fairground Signed l.r.: Sylvia Pollak and further signed and inscribed (verso) Mixed media on panel, 18 by 24 ins (46 by 61 cm)
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Charles Ginner ARA (1878-1952)
Born in Cannes, Ginner rose to become one of the most influential and pioneering members of the original Camden Town Group. The thick impasto of his landscapes and street scenes show a serious engagement with the work of the Post Impressionists, particularly of Vincent van Gogh. Working for a time in an architect’s office (from where he developed a particular talent for the depictions of buildings and architecture), he studied at the L’École des Beaux Arts in Paris, before settling in London in 1909. Following his membership of the Camden Town Group he became a member of the London Group in 1913 and of the Cumberland Market Group in 1914. During World War One he served in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps and the Intelligence Corps. He was a member of the New English Art Club and was appointed an associate of the Royal Academy in 1942. He was made a CBE for his services to British art in 1950, and the Arts Council of Great Britain held a major memorial touring exhibition of his work in 1953-54. [cat.3] The Unscathed Tree, Pimlico, 1942 Signed l.l.: C.Ginner Oil on canvas, 30 by 18 ins (76.5 by 45.5 cm)
This dramatic cityscape was painted from the back of Ginner’s Claverton Street home, with evidence of bombing clearly visible to the building on the immediate right hand side of the canvas, the tree emerging unscathed from beside the rubble. In the far distance can be seen the billowing smoke of the Battersea Power Station, a nod to the constant productivity and stamina of the war effort. Ginner moved to 66 Claverton Street in Pimlico in 1938, and the present work is one of a number of impressive and sharply observed views of the backs of the houses and streets he executed during his time living there. During World War Two Ginner worked as an Official War Artist, producing paintings that record the machinery of the many munitions factories, harbour scenes and views of London. A comparable view to this painting also depicting the backs of houses, Deserted Houses, Pimlico, is in the Imperial War Museum (inv.16760). 12
Francis Horstmann (1906-1968)
Horstmann won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art in the field of design and decorating. A highly versatile, painter, teacher, interior designer and calligrapher, he worked in the field of commercial art and design as well as a calligrapher on monuments, signs and official documents. He wrote a number of books on calligraphy and interior decoration and created wartime murals whilst head of the Brixton School of Building. In 1948 he was appointed to the prestigious post of head of design at Glasgow School of Art. He later moved on to be Vice Principal of the West of England School of Art in Bristol. [cat.4] Work and Play Watercolour, 21 by 12 ins (53.5 by 30.5 cm)
Horstmann’s many ideas and designs for murals include a set of the seasons and a busy idea for a lunette that encapsulates the spirit of the City of London. This work probably relates to one of Horstmann’s wartime mural schemes, adopting the same distinctive overhead vantage point and slightly slanted composition that can be seen in similar murals and designs from the period.
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Christopher John Lawley (Born 1938)
Born in Bloxwich, Staffordshire, Christopher (Frank) Lawley studied at the Fine Art Department of Durham University under Victor Pasmore, before teaching, alongside his wife Marjorie, at the College of Art in Newcastle. Since the 1970s, Lawley has been best known for his work as a gardener, and (along with his wife) custodian of the beautiful Herterton House, a sixteenth century National Trust farmhouse on the Wallington Hall Estate in Northumberland. The garden there is considered to be a masterpiece of its genre, 14
and is also celebrated in Lawley’s own book, Herterton House and A New Country Garden, published in 2015 by the Pimpernel Press. In a possible hint to his later career as a gardener, Lawley depicts the now (arguably) infamous Bull Ring in Birmingham (which had opened in the same year, 1962) as part of a celebratory riot of colour and warm spring light. Here, his focus on the abstract forms in the buildings, crowds and vehicles over and
[cat.5] Spring Flowers, Birmingham Signed, dated and inscribed with title (reverse of canvas): Frank Lawley/1962/Spring Flowers, Birmingham Oil on canvas, 26 ¼ by 35 ½ ins (67 by 90 cm)
above their precise detail shows the clear influence of his teacher Victor Pasmore whose work would become entirely abstract by the beginning of the 1960s.
James Boswell (1906-1971)
James Boswell was described by William Feaver in 1978 as “one of the finest English graphic artists of this century”. A committed Marxist, he graduated from the Royal College of Art in the early 1930s becoming a founding member of the Artist’s International Association, as well as working as a brilliant satirist in the manner of George Grosz and an early voice against the spectre of fascism. After the War, during which he executed some of his most extraordinary work depicting life with the desert army, he served as art editor of Lilliput and editor of the Sainsbury’s house magazine. For a period in the 1950s Boswell lived in Brighton. Public galleries who hold his work include the Tate Gallery and the British Museum. [cat.6] Mr Punch Watercolour over ink, 20 by 13 ½ ins (51 by 35 cm)
[cat.7] Going Home, Chalk Farm Road, Camden Town Signed l.r.: Boswell and further inscribed with title, signed and dated (reverse of board): James Boswell/7 Pembroke Ave/ Hove 3/ 1952 Oil on board, 22 ½ by 26 ¼ ins (57 by 67 cm)
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Terence Bliss (FL.1950S)
Original design work for the Festival of Britain remains very rare, with many of its murals now lost and most of the surviving design being in the Festival of Britain Archive in the National Archives in Kew. Bliss himself is listed in the “Who’s Who” of the Festival of Britain as a designer who worked on projects at the South Bank for the Festival itself. Bliss mostly worked in collaboration with the architect George Subiotto, who, as a partner of the firm Cadbury Brown was involved in aspects
[cat.8] Design for a Beer Vault for the Festival of Britain, 1951 Signed and dated: Terence Bliss/1951 Gouache, 14 by 34 ins (36 by 87 cm)
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of the cafe and restaurant design at the Festival site. The National Archives contain a series of designs (mainly collaborations between Subiotto and Bliss) that appear to relate to the present work, amongst them are one for “pub games”, a turntable cafe and a beer vault. As well as fulfilling a practical purpose this design is a bold and futuristic design applying 1950s style to traditional elements of the British way of life.
Sir Colville Barclay (1913-1997)
Barclay was a naval officer, keen amateur botanist and painter who studied at Eton and Trinity College, Oxford. He studied art at the Ruskin in Oxford under Albert Rutherston, later showing in mixed shows, including at the Royal Academy, the London Group and the Royal Society of British Artists. He contributed work to the London County Council Pictures for Schools scheme. His botanical interests bought him to Crete where he contributed a chapter to the 1980 guide, Flowers of Greece and the Balkans. In 1986, he wrote his own book on the subject, Crete: Checklist of the Vascular Plants. [cat.9] Unloading the Catch With a reclining female nude (to the reverse of the canvas) Signed l.r.: Barclay Oil on canvas, 36 Ÿ by 20 ½ ins (92 by 52 cm)
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SCENES FROM RURAL LIFE
[Fig.6] opposite James Bateman, RA, ARWS (1893-1959)
The End of the Day [cat.14] 19
Guy Seymour Malet RBA, SWE (1900-1971)
An English landscape and figure engraver, printmaker, watercolourist and oil painter, Malet lived for some of his life on the island of Sark and is known for his many views of the island. He studied in London at the New Art School and at the pioneering Grosvenor School of Modern Art under Iain MacNab. He exhibited widely, including at the Royal Academy, the Society of Wood Engravers (where he was elected a member in 1947) and the New English Art Club. He was also a member of the Royal Society of British Artists. He is well regarded as a talented and graphic poster designer from the 20
medium’s heyday in the 1930s, and is increasingly recognised as one of the most important British wood engravers of the inter war years, being honoured in a recent retrospective at the Ditchling Museum of Art and Craft in 2017-18.
[cat.10] Farm cottages
In this painting Malet infuses what could so easily be a mundane scene of rural life with a powerful sense of monumentality and grandeur. The strong sense of composition and bold outline also reflects the artist’s work in wood engraving. For many of Malet’s farming subjects in that medium, the artist was often attracted to
the remote unmechanised world of his home on the island of Sark. The punctuating of the landscape with a lone farmer or walking figure in amongst livestock, so evident in the present work, is a regular motif in his wood engravings, such as the extensive rural landscape, Farm on Sark of circa 1930.
Signed l.r.: Guy Malet Oil on canvas, 27 ½ by 35 ¼ ins (70 by 90 cm)
Ethelbert White RWS (1891-1972)
White trained at St John’s Wood School of Art between 1911 and 1912 where he made early contact with figures in the English avant-garde, including Mark Gertler and Nevinson, with whom he collaborated on a major (now lost) futurist painting for the Allied Artist’s Exhibition in 1913. He joined the London Group in 1915 and was chosen to exhibit in Charles Ginner and Robert Bevan’s influential Exposition d’un Groupe de Peintres Modernes in 1921. For the Beaumont Press he illustrated Herbert Read’s Eclogues in 1919 and several of the Impressions of the Russian Ballet in the 1920s. He had numerous one-man shows with the Leicester Galleries, and was an early member of the Artist’s International Association in the 1930s. He is regarded as a leading British wood engraver of the inter-war years, becoming a founder member of the English Wood Engraving Society in 1925. He was elected a member of the Royal Watercolour Society in 1934. He showed later in life at the Fine Art Society who gave him a memorial exhibition in 1979. A centenary exhibition of his work was held at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester in 1991. In the years following the First World War, White spent much of the winter months travelling across Europe, including making excursions to Spain, France, Italy, Cyprus, Malta and North Africa. The varied and patterned continental landscape provided perfect subject matter for his particular artistic language. The present work was exhibited at White’s first one-man show at the Leicester Galleries in 1929. In the bold, graphic landscape watercolours which White produced from the 1920s to the early part of the 1930s, the artist was able to apply what he had learned from his early engagement in modernism to the familiar subject of his beloved English countryside. They are arguably the finest works he would produce. Conceived in parallel with the work he was doing at the same date in wood engraving, they support Peyton Skipwith’s description of White as “a draughtsman with an engraver’s eye.”
[cat.11] The Viaduct Oil on canvas, 20 ½ by 23 ¾ ins (52 by 63 cm) Provenance: acquired directly from the artist’s wife, Betty; Private Collection, Canada Exhibited: The Leicester Galleries, Exhibition of Works by Ethelbert White, April 1929, no.31
[cat.12] The Deserted Farm Signed l.r.: Ethelbert White Watercolour with pencil, 11 ¼ by 14 ins (29 by 36 cm) Exhibited: The Fine Art Society, London, Ethelbert White (1891-1972), A Memorial Exhibition, 1979, no.33
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Gerald Cooper (1898-1975)
Cooper flew with the Royal Flying Corps during World War One, also piloting barrage balloons over France and Belgium. He studied at West Bromwich School of Art and then at the Royal College of Art from 1920 to 1923. He is most closely associated with Wimbledon School of Art where he taught from 1924, acting as its principal from 1930 to 1964. He exhibited some eighty works at the Royal Academy from 1930, the majority of these being flower pieces, executed with exquisite technical accuracy in the style of the seventeenth century Dutch Old Masters. He was married to the artist Muriel Minter (1897-1983). 22
Alongside James Bateman and Gilbert Spencer, Gerald Cooper led a distinctive revival in depictions of farming subject matter in mid 1930s British art, a number of which (including the present work) were exhibited to huge acclaim at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions throughout that decade. This is one of Cooper’s most impressive farm paintings and was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1935. The critic of The Sphere wrote of the present work in his review of the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition that year, noting how it: “Brilliantly captures the atmosphere of harvest time on the farm.” Winter, a companion piece to the
[cat.13] The Hay Wagon Oil on canvas, 37 ¼ by 54 ins (94.5 by 137 cm) Exhibited: London, Royal Academy, 1935, no.267 Literature: Patrick Eliot & Sacha Llewellyn, True to Life, British Realist Painting in the 1920s and 1930s, exhibition catalogue, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, 2017, p.72, under entry for cat.no.19
present work was acquired by the Corporation of Stoke from the Royal Academy in 1935 and is now in the Potteries Museum, Stoke-on-Trent.
James Bateman RA, ARWS (1893-1959)
[cat.14] The End of the Day Signed and dated l.r.: J.Bateman/1943 Oil on canvas, 24 ¼ by 29 ¼ ins (62 by 74.5 cm) Provenance: The Kendal Art Society Exhibited: London, Royal Academy, 1944, no.169; Kendal Town Hall, James Bateman 1893-1959 (Memorial exhibition), March 1960, no.19; Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal, James Bateman, RA, ARWS Centenary Exhibition, April-June 1993 (illustrated on the exhibition’s invitation)
Bateman was born into a Westmorland farming family and English rural life is at the heart of his work which frequently features life on a farm and depictions of working aspects of the English countryside. Such works were highly popular in Royal Academy exhibitions during the 1930s where their somewhat nostalgic tone struck a chord with the uncertainty of the period. No fewer than three works by Bateman were acquired by the Chantrey Bequest for the Tate Gallery in 1928, 1935 and 1936, an almost unequalled number for an artist of this period. Bateman originally studied
sculpture at Leeds School of Art, subsequently winning a scholarship to the Royal College of Art. An injury during active service in World War One made him turn to painting. He studied at the Slade and was a Rome Scholarship finalist in 1920, later teaching at Cheltenham and Hammersmith schools of art. He was a member of the New English Art Club, an associate of the Royal Watercolour Society and was elected as a full member of the Royal Academy in 1942.
Bateman’s finest paintings are characterised by a remarkable sense of stillness and a satisfying tone that perfectly captures the season and the time of day. The present work is a particularly good example, with not one of the rambling farmyard’s incidental details left unobserved in this fine evocation of a farm’s day’s end. One of the artist’s major exhibition paintings, this painting was executed in the middle of the Second World War (from which it is a world away in character), a year after he had been elected as a full member of the Royal Academy in 1942. 23
Eileen M.Watts (FL.1930-1950)
Watts lived in Buckhurst Hill, East London where she enjoyed a successful career as both painter and illustrator. Her illustrative work included a series of biblical picture books for children in the late 1930s for the Bookano Living Picture Series, including The Birth of Jesus and his Early Life, Jesus in Galilee and the pop-up book The Story of Jesus. Her work after World War Two included illustrations to children’s’ books by the author Michael Felmersham: The Mary Jane Book and Mary Jane and The Magic Ring (both 24
from the late 1940s). As a painter she exhibited inventive scenes of everyday life at the New English Art Club and at the Royal Academy where she showed two paintings in the late 1930s: Café, St Tropez in 1938 (no.610) and Boule Players, St Tropez in 1939 (no.169). Watts, a London artist and herself a Royal Academy exhibitor in the late 1930s, would have been well-aware of the farming and rustic subjects exhibited to huge success at its summer exhibitions by
[cat.15] The Horse Fair Signed: Eileen M.Watts Oil on panel, 29 ½ by 41 ½ ins (75 by 105.5 cm)
the likes of Gilbert Spencer, James Bateman and Gerald Cooper. Watt’s interpretation of this subject is altogether less worked and more graphic than those artists, evidence of her skills as a successful illustrator.
John Hammond Harwood (1904-1980)
Harwood was educated in Ripon, Yorkshire and studied at Harrogate School of Art (1921-4) and the Royal College of Art (1924-8), under William Rothenstein. He was appointed principal of Gloucester School of Art (1939-45), before running Sheffield College of Art (1945-64). He was a member of the Sheffield Society of Artists and illustrated books in the Puffin series of books. He exhibited a number of works at the Royal Academy from the 1930s to the 1960s, including coastal scenes (particularly
Dorset) and views of the Cotswolds from his time living in nearby Gloucester. He also showed regularly at the Sheffield Society of Artists, the London Group and the New English Art Club. The graphic, undulating rural landscape in the present watercolour strongly anticipates the work of Harwood’s near contemporary at the Royal College of Art, Eric Ravilious, whose work was only just coming into its full maturity at around the same date. The dramatic motif of the
[cat.16] The Haycart Signed and dated l.r.: J.H.Harwood/1936 Watercolour, 14 by 17 ½ ins (36 by 44.5 cm)
central haycart, evidently pleased the artist and he used it again in his landscape Derbyshire Farm, which he painted in the middle of the war in 1943.
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James Tarr (1905-1996)
Tarr was a near contemporary of Bawden and Ravilious at the Royal College of Art and it is their richly graphic vision of the English landscape that touches on some of his most successful work. Following time as a prestigious Royal College of Art scholar (1928-29), Tarr taught at Colchester School of Art, then in Hull and Derby before settling in High Wycombe where he became principal of the School of Art there. Many of his finest works focus on the undulating landscape of the surrounding Chiltern Hills. He exhibited publicly at the Royal Academy 26
and the Royal National Eisteddfod, where he won first prizes for landscape and portrait in 1930 before going on to win the first prize for landscape for a second time in 1932.
[cat.17] A Tractor in a Field in a Chiltern Valley Watercolour, 9 ½ by 12 ½ ins (24 by 32 cm)
This is a fine example of one of Tarr’s stylised and wildly undulating depictions of the Chiltern countryside and probably dates from the 1940s. In breaking the rolling landscape by placing an abandoned tractor at the edge of the field, Tarr points to the ever-important role of mankind and man’s mechanisation on the shape and form of the British landscape.
[cat.18] Washing Day Oil on board, 28 by 36 ins (71 by 91.5 cm)
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LIFE AND DEATH
[Fig.7] opposite Norman Clark (1913-1992)
An Afternoon Conversation [cat.26] 29
Camilla Alexander (FL.FROM C.1930S)
Camilla Alexander painted portraits and figure paintings and exhibited through her local East Kent Art Society and elsewhere from the early 1930s. This spectacular mural painting reflects the strong influence of the Arts and Crafts Movement. It was in the artist’s own house until her death, subsequently being sold as part of her estate.
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[cat.19] Arcadian Landscape Gouache on panel in three sections, 45 ½ by 114 ins (116 by 290 cm) (overall)
Rupert Lee (1887-1959)
Lee’s diverse career took him through the fields of painting, sculpting and printmaking to exhibition organising, becoming chairman of the London International Surrealist Exhibition of 1936. Born in Bombay, he entered the Slade School of Art in 1911 where he studied as part of the great pre-war generation of artists there, including Stanley Spencer, C.R.W.Nevinson and Paul Nash. Nash became a close friend and he later collaborated as a wood engraver with Nash and his brother John on work for the Sun Calendar Yearbook and the Poetry Bookshop. His fine portrait of Paul Nash is at the National Portrait Gallery. In World War One he served with the Machine Gun Corps, suffering shell shock following the March retreat of 1918. He exhibited widely and was elected president of the London Group in 1927. [cat.20] The Shell, 1918 Watercolour, 9 ¾ by 7 ¾ ins (25 by 19.5 cm) Literature: Denys Wilcox. Rupert Lee, Painter, Sculptor and Printmaker, Sansom & Co., 2010, p.46-47, illustrated fig.34 (p.48) and on the book’s front cover
Lee’s Wartime masterpiece, The Shell was executed using ideas from the artist’s sketchbooks and is his own tribute to the ordinary “fighting Tommy”. The work contains elements of cubism and a bold stylisation which contribute to create an iconic work by an artistsoldier fighting on the Western Front. Denys Wilcox has written of the present work: “Overall the painting is a near perfect symbol of the March retreat of 1918, portraying the ever resilient, battle-weary, Tommy on the run and at breaking point.” (op.cit.p.47).
[cat.21] Cat, 1919 With the artist’s studio stamp (l.r.) Watercolour, 6 ¾ by 8 ins (17 by 20 cm)
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John Craxton RA (1922-2009)
Craxton was born in London into a distinguished musical family: his father being the notable teacher, pianist and editor Harold Craxton, his sister the oboist Janet Craxton. He studied at Central School of Art and Goldsmith’s College and in 1942 became friends with Graham Sutherland, an important early influence. He travelled to Greece with Lucian Freud in the mid 1940s as well as sharing a studio with him. Often labelled a Neo-Romantic, Craxton himself rejected the term, referring to himself as an Arcadian. Craxton settled in Crete in 1960, and his paintings of the island capture the spirit of the Greek landscape in his own highly individual way, with changing influences that ranged from William Blake, through Cubism to abstraction. He was elected a Royal Academician in 1993 and was subject of a biography by Ian Collins published by Lund Humphries in 2011 and a retrospective at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge in 2013-14. He is also widely known for his evocative illustrations to the work of Patrick Leigh Fermor. [cat.22] A Painted Harpsichord Signed and dated on the inside of the lid.: Craxton/76 Oil on a harpsichord made in the 1970s by John Barnes of Edinburgh, 230 cm long, 91 cm high, 90 cm wide Provenance: The Scottish Baroque Ensemble Literature: Ian Collins, John Craxton, London, 2011, p.131, illustrated in colour, pl.168
By the mid 1970s Craxton was short of money and he chanced upon a commission from the Hope Scott Trust to decorate a harpsichord that had been made by the Edinburgh maker John Barnes for the Scottish Baroque Ensemble. Having studied an instrument made by the Ruckers Family of Antwerp in Traquair House on the Scottish borders, Craxton applied his own version of that harpsichord’s marbling effect (in his case more of a leopard skin pattern) to the instrument’s case. On the inside of the instrument’s lid he created a characteristically abstract landscape, incorporating clouds, wind, rocks and trees into a dynamic design that is only visible when the instrument’s lid is open.
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[cat.23] Detail of the inside of the harpsichord lid
Maurice Feild (1905-1988)
An English painter and teacher who was closely associated with the Euston Road School, Feild taught with other members of the group at Camberwell School of Art at the end of World War Two, later joining the Slade at the invitation of Sir William Coldstream. Sir Lawrence Gowing has described Feild as “among the unsung influences on British painting”. Feild studied at the Slade in the 1920s before teaching at The Downs at Colwall, Great Malvern in the 1930s. A retrospective of his work was held at the Upper Grosvenor Galleries in 1970. A highly regarded teacher he taught a significant number of English painters from the later part of the century, amongst them Kenneth Rowntree, Lawrence Gowing, Anthony Fry and Francis Hoyland. [cat.24] The Artist’s Wife Seated on a Bed Signed and inscribed (reverse of canvas): M.Feild/interior Oil on canvas, 18 ¾ by 14 ½ ins (47.5 by 37 cm) Exhibited: East Kent Art Society, Canterbury, early 1930s
This beautifully atmospheric interior scene depicts the artist’s wife in the couple’s then home in the Malverns where they lived in the 1930s when Feild was teaching at The Downs in Colwall. The subject matter strongly reflects Feild’s Slade training, as well the influence of painters of the Camden Town Group, whilst the work’s subtle soft focus looks forward to painters of the Euston Road School slightly later in the same decade.
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Clifford Hanney RWA (1890-1990)
Born in Publow near Bristol, Hanney became a prominent figure in the Bristol art scene in the earlier part of the twentieth century, studying at the Bristol Municipal School of Art, being elected a member of the Royal West of England Academy in 1923 and becoming one of the founder members of the New Bristol Art Club in 1933. He subsequently moved to the North of England, becoming principal of Crewe School of Art for the majority of the 1940s and briefly serving as president of the Oldham Society of Artists. Hanney and his wife, the painter Eireen Hutton-Seed, also maintained strong associations with art in Cornwall and the West Country, often staying in the area for prolonged periods and where they came to know Arthur Hayward (who painted their portraits) and met Herbert Truman and Stanhope Forbes. [cat.25] The Potter Signed l.l.: Clifford Hanney Oil on canvas, 21 ½ by 18 ins (54.5 by 45.5 cm)
The sitter in Hanney’s sensitive portrait of a potter at work is unidentified, but the architecture in the picture’s background may suggest she is one of the students at an art school where Hanney taught, possibly Crewe, where he worked throughout the 1940s. Hanney was particularly attracted to night scenes and the particular way evening light coloured a painting’s subject. As well as the present portrait, another notable example of a fine nocturne by the artist is his Coronation scene, Coronation Time: The Flood-Lit Tower of Bristol University painted in 1953 and now in the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery.
34
Norman Clark RWS (1913-1992)
Clark studied at Central School of Arts from 1920-30 where his teachers included William Roberts and Bernard Meninsky and at the Royal Academy Schools, where he excelled, winning the gold medal in painting, the Edward Stott Scholarship and the Landseer Prize for mural decoration. He was also a Leverhulme scholar. The prime focus of Clark’s quirky and idiosyncratic vision as an artist centred on the countryside and people of Sussex, particularly the village of Hurstpierpoint, where he settled in 1947. Whilst in Sussex, Clark joined the staff of Brighton School of Art, where he taught for much of his working life. He exhibited widely, at the Royal Academy, the Royal Watercolour Society (where he was elected a full member in 1960) and locally at the Society of Sussex Painters and the Sussex Watercolour Society. [cat.26] An Afternoon Conversation Signed l.r.: Norman Clark Oil on canvas, 19 by 13 ½ ins (48 by 34 cm) Exhibited: Whitechapel Gallery, Pictures for Schools, January-February 1954
A fine example of one of Clark’s humorous, illustrative period pieces, probably depicting an event he recalled or imagined on the roadside of his native Sussex. Clark wrote of his art: “Much of my work has been concerned with the human figure…whenever I draw from memory it is always a human being that appears. Characters from the past seem to pose for me in my mind, some of them being deceased relatives, some never seen before.” Fittingly the present work was shown in one of Whitechapel Gallery’s Pictures for Schools exhibitions in the early 1950s.
35
Richard Platt (1928-2017)
Platt studied at the Royal College of Art where he was a prize winner before going on to exhibit throughout the 1950s at the Royal Academy, the New English Art Club and the London Group as well as at numerous commercial art galleries. He also participated in the prestigious British Art 1900-1955 exhibition that toured Scandinavia in the mid 1950s. He had a one-man show at the Leicester Galleries in 1956. Platt was naturally attracted to the everyday, scenes mundane to many eyes and yet the source of inspiration for much of his best work which included Coronation Decoration from 1953 (now in the Government Art Collection, inv.2462) and Funnels, Grimsby (Bradford Museum and Art Gallery, inv.1958-007). In about 1960 Platt abandoned painting altogether pursuing a successful career as a musicologist that included significant research into English music of the eighteenth century. [cat.27] The Final Journey Signed l.l.: Platt Oil on canvas, 35 ¾ by 28 ins (91 by 71 cm)
The unconventional nature of much of Platt’s subject matter took him to scenes that included the washing of fish, mending nets, boiling crabs and the filling of a shell oil tanker. Many of these subjects also appear in his fine lithographs from the 1950s. Like Reginald Brill, the artist whose work is most closely comparable to Platt at this date, sometimes he chose the most unlikely of subjects. One such example is this funeral scene, a wonderful snapshot of one of life’s most important events, focussing on detail that ranges from the seemingly banal to the profound, throughout never distracting from the essential poignancy of the scene itself. 36
Thomas Saunders Nash (1891-1968)
Nash’s style is closely associated with his exact Slade contemporary and hero Stanley Spencer. Like the work of both Spencer (particularly his early work) and his brother Gilbert (with whom Nash briefly shared lodgings) his primary influences were the Italian primitives, particularly Giotto. Something of Giotto’s purity is evident in Nash’s work - always inventive in composition and frequently tackling highly dramatic religious subject matter. Nash exhibited widely particularly at the New English Art Club and was represented by the Redfern Gallery, who gave him his first one-man show in 1926 and exhibited over 150 of his pictures. The Contemporary Art Society acquired two of his works in the early 1930s for the collections of the Harrogate Art Gallery and the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastleupon-Tyne. A major retrospective of his work was held at the Reading Museum and Art Gallery in 1980. Nash was never afraid of tackling serious religious subject matter in his best work, which included his Crucifixion from 1930 in the Laing Art Gallery and The Sword of the Lord of Gideon from 1932 in The Wilson Art Gallery in Cheltenham. The colour study for this important finished painting depicting the ascent of Moses on Mount Sinai was exhibited at Nash’s retrospective at the Reading Art Gallery in 1980 (no.17).
[cat.28] The Ascent of Sinai
[cat.29] Harlech Castle
Signed and dated l.r..: T.S.Nash/1949 Oil on metal, 23 1/2 by 34 1/2 ins (60 by 88 cm)
Signed l.r..: T.Nash and further signed, inscribed and dated (reverse of board) Harlech Castle/By Tom Nash/ October 1936 Oil on board, 14 ½ by 18 ins (37 by 46 cm) 37
A TOUCH OF THE SURREAL
[Fig.8] opposite Augustus Lunn
House under construction [cat.34] 39
Richard Eurich RA (1902-1993)
Primarily known for his highly evocative and powerful seascapes, frequently depicting the Solent coast in southern Hampshire, Eurich worked as a prominent war artist to the Admiralty in Second World War, his best known work probably being his dramatic depiction of the evacuation of Dunkirk, Dunkirk Beaches of 1940 which is in the Imperial War Museum. Born in Bradford, Eurich studied at Bradford School for Arts and Crafts, completing his training at the Slade under Henry Tonks in the mid 1920s. With the support of Sir Edward Marsh and Eric Gill, he held his first oneman show (entirely of pencil drawings) at
the Goupil Gallery in 1929. In 1933 he had the first of fifteen exhibitions at the Redfern Gallery. He was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1942 and a full member in 1953. He was also a member of the New English Art Club and an honorary member of the Royal Society of Marine Artists.
Dorset House (formerly Gibraltar Lodge) at the junction of Pound Road and Silver Street in Lyme Regis. It is one of the earliest works the artist exhibited with the Redfern Gallery, with whom he would enjoy a highly successful twenty five year partnership. The painting just pre-dates Eurich’s own time living in the Dorset coastal town between 1932 and 1933.
Eurich’s early work frequently possesses a mysterious narrative quality that can lend his subject matter a particular sense of surrealism. Painted in 1930, only just after the artist had decisively turned his focus from drawing to painting in oil, the present work depicts a house now called
[cat.30] Scene on a Street, Lyme Regis Signed and dated l.l.: R.Eurich/1930 Oil on canvas, 16 by 20 ins (41 by 51 cm) Provenance: with Redfern Gallery, London, 15 November 1932; T.W.Spurr, Bradford Exhibited: Morecambe, British Institute of Adult Education, Art and Technical School, Loan Exhibition of British and French Paintings, June 1939; Manchester, Altrincham Libraries Museum and Art Galleries, no.14; Lyme Regis Museum, Serendipity, Nov 2014March 2015
40
Felicity Charlton (1913-2009)
Charlton was born in Bristol and studied at the West of England College of Art in the mid 1930s. There she met her future husband Evan Charlton whose distinctive, quirky, brand of surrealism is also evident in her work. She showed widely in both private and public exhibitions, including at the Royal West of England Academy, the Royal National Eisteddfod and Howard Roberts Gallery, Cardiff. A major retrospective was held of her work (alongside that of her husband) at the Newport Museum and Art Gallery in 1981 and a further one in 1993. She was also included in the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea’s recent display in their
Twentieth Century Artist Series, Journeys and Visions, highlighting the relationship between British and European Surrealist artists in the mid twentieth century, her work being shown alongside that of Henry Moore, Paul Nash, Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth. The Tea Room is composed in the typical, darkly surreal almost Hitchcokian style that characterises the best of Charlton’s work. Full of mysterious narrative detail, from a couple (perhaps) in the midst of a painful break up, to two ladies enjoying an afternoon coffee, Charlton herself peers out at the viewer from a table to the
[cat.31] The Tea Room Titled, inscribed with artist’s address, signed and dated on label to the reverse of the board: Felicity Charlton/1954 Oil on board, 20 ¼ by 24 ins (51.5 by 61.5 cm)
back of the picture’s centre, in a nod to a device so common to Renaissance and Baroque painters. The work is also a true early 1950s period piece, from the clothes and hats of the tea room’s customers to the distinctive Formica tables of its interior. 41
Harry Hoodless (1913-1997)
A painter who specialised in oil and tempera, Hoodless was born in Leeds and studied at the art college there and at the Royal College of Art where his teachers included Edward Bawden and Eric Ravilious. He later taught at Norwich School of Art and the Laird School of Art in Birkenhead where he was principal. Hoodless’s work maintained a strong association with Liverpool and the Wirral, particularly his iconic dockyard scenes, chronicling the machinery, debris and 42
decay of the docks in a surreal manner which recalls the work of Edward Wadsworth and Tristram Hillier. He was a member of the Liverpool Academy and the Wirral Society of Artists, and he is represented in a number of northern public collections including the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool and Williamson Art Gallery, Birkenhead at both of which he also exhibited in group exhibitions in his lifetime.
[cat.32] A Seaside Still Life Signed and dated l.r.: Hoodless/85 Oil on board, 20 by 24 ins (51 by 61 cm)
A seamark (also known in its two word form “sea mark”) is a general name for a navigational mark that helps to guide maritime traffic into harbours, as well as identifying positions of channels or hazards (such as wrecks) in shallow waters. The seamark itself, together with other items of marine equipment and detritus, such as barrels, driftwood and iron grates help lend Hoodless’s dockside an otherworldy, almost extra-terrestrial air.
[cat.33] The Seamark, Liverpool Signed and dated l.l.: Hoodless/1955 Tempera on board, 24 ¾ by 36 ¾ ins (63 by 93.5 cm) Provenance: Purchased for the Paten & Co Art Collection at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 1955 Exhibited: London, Royal Academy, 1955, no.700
43
Augustus Lunn (1905-1986)
Alongside Edward Wadsworth, John Armstrong and Joseph Southall, Lunn led the revival in the interest in tempera painting in Britain in the first part of the twentieth century. Through Lunn's work, the medium was developed from one that was perceived as old fashioned to one that could hold its own at the heart of the avant-garde. Having studied at Kingston School of Art (where he also later taught) he continued his training at the Royal Academy Schools and went on to win the Edwin Abbey Mural Scholarship. He 44
showed at the New English Art Club, the London Group and the Royal Academy, as well as commercially at the Cooling Galleries and with Michael Parkin, who gave him a solo show a year before his death in 1985. Lunn’s work of the 1930s shows something of the influence of Paul Nash’s surrealist phase as well as the paintings of John Armstrong. Like both those artists, his art is characterised by ingenious use of architecture, as in the present painting,
[cat.34] House under construction Signed and dated l.l.: Augustus Lunn/37 Tempera on panel, 12 by 15 ins (31 by 38 cm) Exhibited: New English Art Club, 1937, no.xx
which appropriately depicts a building site, perhaps supporting his own statement on the nature of painting: “I am never interested in recording a scene. I want to reconstruct.”
Edward Rogers (1911-1994)
[cat.35] A Surrealist Still Life Signed (reverse of board): Rogers/1957 Oil on board, 11 by 8 ž ins (28 by 22 cm)
Originally from Ely in Cambridgeshire, Rogers did not start painting full-time until 1937, initially as a painter of portraits and landscapes. However it was the International Surrealist Exhibition of the year before in 1936 that would have
the most lasting influence on the style that he would develop in the next two decades. In the 1960s his work embraced abstraction and he executed colourful and attractive geometric abstract oils and cutmetal reliefs. He also worked as a sculptor.
He showed at the Belgrave Gallery and the Drian Gallery in London, and had a retrospective at the Victoria Art Gallery in Brighton in 1968.
45
John Armstrong ARA (1893-1973)
Armstrong’s work ranges from film and stage set designs to book illustrations, murals and paintings in tempera, gouache and oil. After Oxford University, Armstrong studied at St John’s Wood School of Art (1913-14) returning briefly to his studies following service in World War One. His first one-man show at the Leicester Galleries was held in 1928. In the 1930s Armstrong was a significant member of Unit One, a group formed by his fellow artist Paul Nash to promote modern art, architecture and design. The group had a significant role in organising the International Surrealist Exhibition in 1936, and it is perhaps for this reason that Armstrong’s work takes on a strongly surrealist quality from the 1930s. Despite this, his work conjures up his own imaginative world and a particular twist on classicism that holds a place of its own in British art and Armstrong himself did not like being labelled a surrealist. Armstrong’s distinguished career as a designer included a large body of work for Alexander Korda’s productions in the 1930s including Henry VIII, The Scarlet Pimpernel and Rembrandt, as well as the whimsical English ballet Façade. 46
In The Seer, a solitary contemplative female figure leans on a classical column and stares out onto a seemingly endless empty sea beyond. Painted in 1955, a year of great turmoil for Armstrong, it is one of a number of works from the period that dwells on the subject of voyage and departure. The primary inspiration for such work was the end of the marriage to his second wife Veronica Sibthorp in the same year and the move from Lamorna in Cornwall where the couple had lived for the previous ten years. Armstrong’s split from Veronica was a particularly antagonistic and unhappy one, exemplified by a number of relationships she had had, including one with the Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas. Armstrong was nevertheless able to direct his feelings into a series of great and monumental works of which The Seer is one. The artist returns here to the distinctive and original brushwork seen in his paintings of the mid 1940s, whilst maintaining oil, which had replaced tempera in about 1950, as his medium of choice. I am grateful to Jonathan Gibbs for his assistance in cataloguing this painting.
[cat.36] Sailors and Girls, design for the American bar in the Royal Hotel, Scarborough, 1935-6 Signed with initials l.r.: JA Gouache on board, 7 ¼ by 21 ½ in (18.5 by 54.5 cm) Provenance: The Artist’s Estate Literature: Andrew Lambirth et al., John Armstrong: The Complete Paintings, London, 2009, p.166; British Murals and Decorative Painting 19201960, Sansom & Co, 2013, pp 276-289
Tom Laughton commissioned Armstrong to paint a mural for the American bar in the Royal Hotel, Scarborough in the mid1930s. The mural no longer survives but is recorded in this white on blue study. ‘Although there is something of the flavour of Christopher Wood and Edward Burra about it, this intricate linear decoration has a formidable crispness and structure to it, a pictorial logic, which is Armstrong’s own,’ (Andrew Lambirth, British Murals & Decorative Painting 1920-1960, Sansom & Co, p.277). I am very grateful to Paul Liss for his assistance and for allowing the reproduction of this catalogue entry.
[cat.37] The Seer Signed and dated l.l: John Armstrong/1955 Oil on canvas, 24 by 16 ins (61 by 41 cm) Provenance: Annette Armstrong; with the New Grafton Gallery, London; Emscote Lawn collection Exhibited: the New Art Centre, London, 1977, John Armstrong, no.4; Fermoy Art Gallery, King’s Lynn, 1977, John Armstrong Paintings, no.8 Literature: Andrew Lambirth et al., John Armstrong: The Complete Paintings, London, 2009, no.531 47
SEA, LAND & SKY
[Fig.9] opposite David Gentleman (Born 1930)
Boat in Mud Berth in Long Grass. Mistley, 1955 [cat.45] 49
Edgar Hereford (C.1886-1953)
Hereford formed part of an important small circle of artists that existed around Charles Rennie Mackintosh following the Scottish artist’s move to Port-Vendres near Collioure on the Mediterranean coast of southern France. Hereford probably first knew Mackintosh through drinking with him (as well as with the Scottish colourist J.D.Ferguson amongst others) at the Blue 50
Cockatoo in Chelsea in the early 1920s. At this date Hereford shared lodgings at 28 Draycott Gardens with the painter Rudolph Ihlee, and the two artists travelled to Collioure together in 1922. Here they linked again with Mackintosh, painting distinctive stylised landscapes of the surrounding French countryside that reflect something of his influence whilst
[cat.38] St Paul de Fenouillet Signed l.r.: Edgar Hereford Oil on canvas, 19 ¼ by 23 ½ ins (49 by 60 cm)
remaining refreshingly distinct in their own right. Although comparable to Ihlee’s work, Hereford’s is perhaps even tighter in execution and dramatic in its sense of contrast. Hereford also exhibited work in London, particularly at the New English Art Club in the mid 1920s and in the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.
I am grateful to Robin Crichton, former president of the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Association in Roussillon, for suggesting that the present work depicts a hamlet called Cosprons which is over the hill from Port Vendres on the way to Banyuls.
[cat.39] Cosprons, near Collioure, Southern France Signed and dated l.l.: Edgar Hereford/1925 Oil on canvas, 19 ¼ by 23 ½ ins (49 by 60 cm)
51
Cecil Hugh Twiselton (1891-1981)
Twiselton was a significant force in the Leicester art scene, one of the most thriving and active provincial British art centres from the middle part of the twentieth century. A painter as well as a sculptor in wood he was a member of the Leicester Sketch Club, serving as its president in 1937-38 and again in 194445. He was also a member of the Leicester Society of Artists, where he exhibited from the mid 1960s to the late 1970s both as a painter in oils and as a carver and sculptor. 52
Twiselton’s powerful depiction of the rolling dunes at Tenby on the Pembrokeshire coast is a fine period piece of the 1940s. Clearly aware of other artists of the same era, the painter has honed his influences, amongst them Paul Nash, John Nash and Eric Ravilious, into a highly distinctive style of his own.
[cat.40] Sand Dunes at Tenby, West Wales Signed and dated l.l.: C.H.Twiselton/47 Oil on board, 22 by 29 ½ ins (56 by 75 cm)
John Nash RA (1893-1977)
The brother of Paul Nash, John was self taught before exhibiting his early landscapes to huge acclaim at the Dorien Leigh Galleries (alongside that of his brother) in 1913. He was a founder member of the London Group in 1914 and later of the Cumberland Market Group. He served in the Artists’ Rifles during World War One and his painting “Over the Top” in the Imperial War Museum is one of the most memorable and iconic works relating to the Great War. After the War he exhibited widely, including at the Goupil Gallery and the Leicester Galleries and was a prolific printmaker, producing fine botanical woodcuts and illustrating numerous literary periodicals, calendars and magazines. He was elected a full member of the Royal Academy in 1951, and that institution also gave him a major retrospective in 1967. He was awarded a CBE in 1964. The art historian Eric Newby has said of his work: “If I wanted a foreigner to understand the mood of a typical English landscape, I would show him Nash’s best watercolours.” [cat.41] Dead Fir Tree, Rendlesham Signed l.l.: John Nash Oil on canvas, 27 ¼ by 28 ins (69 by 71 cm) Provenance: acquired by the present owner from the Phoenix Gallery in Lavenham
Nash’s work is characterised by an almost obsessive interest in the shapes and forms of trees, at times imbuing them with a supernatural quality at other times depicting them as almost living, moving animal forms. This depiction of a dead, gnarled fir tree was observed on a visit to Rendlesham Forest, several miles to the north of Nash’s Suffolk home.
53
Edward Bawden RA (1903-1989)
[cat.42] The Engine House, Cornwall Signed and dated l.r.: Edward Bawden/1960 Watercolour over pen and ink, 18 ½ by 23 ins (47 by 58.5 cm) Provenance: with the Fine Art Society, New Bond Street, in 2004 Exhibited: London, Royal Academy, 1961, no.838
A painter, illustrator, printmaker and graphic artist, Bawden is regarded as one of the most popular British artists of the twentieth century, widely known for the designs he made for the likes of Shell, Fortnum and Mason and London Transport. He studied at the Royal College of Art where he also later taught and was an official War Artist in World War Two. He is most closely associated with his fellow student and exact contemporary Eric Ravilious, Paul Nash referring to the pair of artists as “an extraordinary outbreak of talent”. The two painters were also part of the important 54
Essex community of artists living in and around the village of Great Bardfield in Essex. His many murals include schemes for Morley College and for the Festival of Britain in 1951. He is considered to be one of the most talented exponents of linocut in the medium’s history, through works such as Brighton Pier, which are frequently created on a startlingly impressive scale. He is represented widely by public galleries in the United Kingdom and was elected a full member of the Royal Academy in 1956. He was the subject of a major recent retrospective at Dulwich Picture Gallery.
Bawden was particularly fascinated by the wild landscape of Cornwall in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Indeed all six of his Royal Academy exhibits in 1961 (including the present work) were Cornish subjects, including three of the De Lank river and quarry in North Cornwall and another of a Cornish granite quarry. The almost unique blend of heavy industry and rugged landscape, as strongly evidenced by the present work, proved understandably irresistible to the artist’s visual imagination.
Walter Hoyle (1922-2000)
He was born in Lancashire and studied at Beckenham School of Art and then at the Royal College of Art from 1940 where he studied under Edward Bawden – a figure who would become the most enduring influence on Hoyle’s career as an artist. The two became close friends and Hoyle later moved to Great Bardfield where he became part of the important artistic community there, working with and alongside Bawden. His work is held by the Tate Gallery. From 1964 until 1985 he taught at Cambridge School of Art where he was instrumental in reviving interest in printmaking.
Braintree is situated close to the Suffolk border a few miles to the east of Great Bardfield, with Hoyle’s home at Great Saling situated just in between. The scene perfectly captures the sparse, windswept quality of the artist’s own part of East Anglia.
[cat.43] Old Oak Tree near Braintree, Essex Watercolour, 15 by 22 ¼ ins (38 by 57 cm)
55
Osmund Caine (1914-2004)
Caine was born in Manchester and studied at Birmingham School of Art, where following the War (where he served in the Military Police) he returned to the city, teaching life drawing at Birmingham School of Art. He later moved to London, teaching at the Kingston School of Art and then at Twickenham School of Art, running the school for some twenty years. As well as shows in Britain and France, including the Royal Academy and the 56
New English Art Club, a retrospective exhibition was held at Orleans House Gallery, Twickenham in 1998. He was also a talented stained glass designer and his work includes windows in St Gabriel’s Church, Cricklewood and St Cuthbert’s Church, Copnor. Perhaps his greatest, if somewhat unlikely, claim to fame is that he is accredited with having invented the bikini. In his 1938 work Bathing Beach, Caine conceived of the two part bathing
[cat.44] Scandinavian ships docked in Teignmouth estuary Signed and dated l.l.: Osmund Caine/1955 Watercolour, 15 by 21 ¾ ins (38 by 55.5 cm)
costumes to make his female sitters appear more decent to the exhibition-going public. This was a full eight years before they were believed to have been invented.
David Gentleman (Born 1930)
David Gentleman is one of the most successful artist-designers of the post-war period. He studied at the Royal College of Art in 1950, where his tutors included Edward Bawden and John Nash, before establishing a career as a lithographer, watercolourist, illustrator and designer on projects that have included designs for postage stamps and wine labels to the hundred-metre long panels at Charing Cross Station, one of the most eye catching and memorable murals on the London Underground System. His numerous book illustrations have included a series of his own publications amongst them David Gentleman’s Britain and related books on India, Italy, Paris and London. His work is widely represented in public collections, amongst them Tate Britain, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the British Museum and The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. His eightieth birthday was celebrated with a retrospective exhibition at the Fine Art Society in 2010. Gentleman’s early work from the 1950s is very rare and shows something of the influence of Bawden and John Nash who had taught him at the Royal College of Art, as well as a stylised rendering of the patterns of landscape that is reminiscent of his early work in linocut. Mistley is on an estuary on the Essex/Suffolk border on the banks of the river Stour a few miles downstream from Constable country.
[cat.45] Boat in Mud Berth in Long Grass. Mistley, 1955
[cat.46] Quayside with lamp, boat and timber yard, River beyond
Signed l.r.: David Gentleman Watercolour, 15 ¼ by 21 ¾ ins (39 by 55 cm) Exhibited: David Gentleman at Eighty, Fine Art Society, New Bond Street, March-April 2010, no.43
Signed l.r.: David Gentleman Watercolour, 15 ¼ by 21 ¾ ins (39 by 55 cm) Exhibited: David Gentleman at Eighty, Fine Art Society, New Bond Street, March-April 2010, no.42
57
Henry Collins (1910-1994)
Collins studied at Colchester School of Art and at Central School of Art in London. He served in the War with the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers and worked as a designer on the Festival of Britain in 1951. He taught at St Martin’s in London and was co-founder of the Colchester Art Society along with John Nash and Cedric Morris. Collins worked with his wife Joyce Pallot as part of a highly successful husband and wife team of mural designers and creators, their 58
work taking them to the GPO Tower, IBM and Shell Centre in London and as far afield as the Jamestown Festival USA, Brussels and Japan. Collins’s engaging and appealing watercolours frequently depict harbour and coastal scenes employing a colourful play of the abstract forms of his subject matter. Such works point to the enduring appeal of his highly regarded work as a muralist.
[cat.47] Essex Harbour Signed l.l.: H.Collins Watercolour, 20 by 27 ¾ ins (51 by 70.5 cm)
Robert Buhler RA (1916-1989)
Born in London to Swiss parents, Buhler studied in Zurich before returning to London in the 1930s to continue his studies at St Martin’s School of Art and the Royal College of Art. The subdued tones of his landscapes and townscapes reflect the influence of the Euston Road Group, many of whom he came to know when visiting his mother’s Charlotte Street bookshop. He exhibited at the
Leicester Galleries, Agnew’s and the Leger Galleries. He also showed at the New English Art Club from 1945 and the Royal Academy, where he was elected a full member in 1956. He was a wellrespected teacher at art schools including Wimbledon and Chelsea, as well as the Royal College of Art where he was part of the staff from the 1940s.
[cat.48] Chicken Coops and Vegetable Gardens Oil on canvas, 11 by 14 ¼ ins (28 by 36 cm) Provenance: London, Royal Academy, 1950, no.287; Piano Nobile Fine Paintings
59
Barbara Vincent (Born 1921)
[cat.49] Westward Ho ! Signed and dated l.l.: Barbara Vincent/1956 Gouache
Born in London, Vincent was the daughter of the well-known composer Thomas Dunhill. She studied at Guildford School of Art in 1939 before joining the Women’s Land Army. Following the end of the War she returned to London, studying at Camberwell School of Art. She married Michael Vincent in 1947, and the couple moved to Devon where Barbara established a studio, exhibiting locally and was given her first solo show at the Burton Art Gallery in
Bideford in 1964. She became a fine exponent of the linocut medium, making over a hundred between 1972 and 2000 in a style that shows something of the influence of Edward Bawden. She also worked as a graphic artist, designing covers for magazines and periodicals as well as Christmas cards. A monograph on her work, Barbara Vincent-Linocut Prints was published by West Quarter Publications, Exeter, in 2003.
Vincent writes in her diary for 5th January 1956: “…a heavenly sharp walk across the Burrows in windless winter sunlight. Walk to Westward Ho ! and lean on the sea wall with sketch book to note the strong arm of the wall embracing the blue pebble ridge and protecting the motley group of jagged roofs and cold walls of little houses behind. Could this be a picture ?” (see Hannah Wingrave and Paul Vincent, Barbara Vincent – Linocut Prints, West Quarter Publications, 2003, pp.82-82)
60
Barry Evans (Born 1923)
Best known as a mural painter and illustrator, Evans studied at Kingston School of Art and in the early 1940s at the Royal College of Art. His work as an illustrator included Lilliput, Picture Post and covers for The Economist. He also
designed record sleeves and posters for the British Tourist Authority. His extensive work as a muralist included work for the Festival of Britain (Farming Pavilion and Dome of Discovery) and work as far afield as Jamaica, Tel Aviv, Brussels and Detroit.
[cat.50] A Tropical Island Landscape Inscribed, signed and dated (reverse of panel): Painted for/ Peter and Marion Cole/ for their wedding/ by Barry Evans A.R.CA. M.S.I.A./ August 1953. Tempera on panel, 7 ½ by 9 Ÿ ins (19 by 23.5 cm)
61
Frank Runacres (1904-1974)
Runacres studied at St Martin’s School of Art and the Slade, continuing his studies at the Royal College of Art under Sir William Rothenstein, where he was a contemporary of Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and Edward Bawden. He is known for his rolling landscapes of the Kent and Sussex countryside, his Thameside river views and for his engaging beach scenes and coastal views, many of which depict scenes near Plymouth in Devon. He was a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy and his work was also shown at Manchester City Art Gallery, Leicester Galleries and New English Art Club. For many years he was a visiting teacher at the Hornsey School of Art. Bustling beach scenes like the present work account for some of Runacres’s most appealing work from the later 1950s and early 1960s. In the same year that this painting was executed he exhibited two further beach subjects at the Royal Academy: Beach Scene with Bather (no.427) and The Groyne (no.423)
[cat.51] Bathers on the beach steps Signed and dated l.l.: F.Runacres/1962 Oil on board, 55.5 by 42 cm (21 ¾ by 16 ½ ins)
62
Kenneth Rowntree (1915-1997)
A highly versatile painter, illustrator, teacher and artist in collage and murals, Rowntree has been described by Alexandra Harris as “one of the most appealing British artists of the mid twentieth century”. He studied at the Ruskin in Oxford and then at the Slade. In World War Two he was one of the most prolific contributors to the Pilgrim Trust Recording Britain project and was an official war artist. He held his first oneman show at the Leicester Galleries in 1946, and was for a period a member of the Great Bardfield community of artists in Essex, persuaded to move there by his
friend Eric Ravilious. He taught at the Royal College of Art in the 1950s and was appointed professor of Fine Arts at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1959. His centenary exhibition, organised jointly by Liss Llewellyn and MooreGwyn Fine Art was held at the Fry Art Gallery, Saffron Walden and Pallant House Gallery, Chichester in 2015.
[cat.52] A Greek Landscape Gouache on Greek newspaper, 17 ¼ by 12 ¼ ins (44 by 31 cm) Provenance: John Barkes
[cat.53] Northumberland Barns Acrylic on board, 23 ¾ by 22 ¼ ins (60.5 by 56.5 cm) Literature: John Milner, Kenneth Rowntree, Lund Humphries, 2002, p.66, illustrated (pl.62) Exhibited: New Art Centre, London, Kenneth Rowntree, June 1975, no.3; Tyne and Wear Museums, Kenneth Rowntree: paintings, drawings and collages, December 1976-January 1977, cat no.53; Davies Memorial Gallery and Oriel 31, Welshpool, Kenneth Rowntree, June-October 1992, cat no.55 63
THE UNKNOWN ARTIST
[Fig.10] opposite Scottish School (c.1925)
A Fairytale Castle [cat.56] 65
[cat.54] English School (mid 20th Century)
Dog in a rustic landscape Watercolour, 7 ½ by 5 ¾ ins (19 by 14.5 cm)
[cat.55] English School (c.1960)
A Rainy Day in London Oil on board, 23 ½ by 19 ¾ ins (60 by 50 cm)
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This accomplished and freshly painted oil was executed by this so far unrecorded woman artist of the mid twentieth century who lived in Portland Place in Central London. The subject may suggest she was a good amateur artist, at one time taking painting classes in another artist’s studio.
[cat.56]
[cat.57]
Scottish School (c.1925)
Miss Imogen Nicholls (working c.mid twentieth century)
A Fairytale Castle Gouache and watercolour with gold paint, 47 ½ by 21 ¼ ins (121 by 54 cm)
The Artist’s Studio Signed with monogram u.r.: IN Oil on board, 11 ¾ by 13 ¾ ins (30 by 35 cm)
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MOORE-GWYN FINE ART LIMITED BRITISH ART Third Floor, 6 Mason’s Yard, St James’s, London SW1Y 6BU (Mon-Fri -11.00 am-6.00pm, or at other times by appointment) or by appointment, near Burford, West Oxfordshire harry@mooregwynfineart.co.uk +447765 966 256 www.mooregwynfineart.co.uk
Moore-Gwyn Fine Art Limited was founded by Harry Moore-Gwyn in 2007 and specialises in paintings, drawings and sculpture by British artists, with a particular focus on the period from c.1870 to the middle part of the twentieth century. Dealing primarily through fairs and catalogues we opened our first London gallery in Mason’s Yard in St James’s in April 2018. We also work by appointment from our base near Burford, West Oxfordshire. We have exhibited at many of the leading London art and antique fairs including Olympia, the BADA Fair, Art Antiques London, the British Art Fair at the Saatchi Gallery and the Grosvenor House Art and Antiques Fair. Moore-Gwyn Fine Art has also participated in specially curated selling shows at the Shepherd W&K Galleries in New York. The business has also been involved in the loan and sale of works of art to numerous important public and private collections ranging from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York to the British Museum in London and the Deutsche Bank collection. We are a member of the British Antique Dealers’ Association and the Cotswold Antique Dealers’ Association.
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Harry Moore-Gwyn studied at Oxford University and Christie’s Education before gaining a place on the Graduate Trainee scheme at Sotheby’s London. Dealing independently since 2000 (and as Moore-Gwyn Fine Art Limited since 2007) he has established a reputation in the field of Modern British painting and drawing with a particular interest in unsung artists of the period. He has also written extensively on art, publishing catalogues on (amongst others) Sir George Clausen, Sir William Orpen, and Graham Sutherland. His work as a curator has included Kenneth Rowntree (Pallant House Gallery, Chichester and Fry Art Gallery, Saffron Walden) the catalogue of which (also co-written by Harry) was nominated for the 2016 Berger Prize for British Art History. He has also curated: Laurie Lee (Royal Geographical Society for the Works on Paper Fair), Conquest of the Skies (Science Museum (for the Works on Paper fair)), Walter Bonner Gash (Alfred East Gallery, Kettering) and in 2018 the first major retrospective for thirty years on the British painter Henry Lamb at the Salisbury Museum (travelling to Poole Museum in 2019). His catalogue for the show, Henry Lamb: Out of the Shadows was published by Paul Holberton in the summer of 2018.
Opposite page: Harry Hoodless (1913-1997)
The Seamark, Liverpool [cat.33]
HARRY MOORE-GWYN BRITISH ART