The Oldie May issue 413

Page 69

EXHIBITIONS HUON MALLALIEU WALTER SICKERT Tate Britain, 28th April to 18th September Let me begin by getting the nonsense out of the way. Walter Sickert was interested in the Camden Town murder and claimed to have been told the identity of Jack the Ripper, but he was no more the Ripper than Patricia Cornwell, who has made a long career writing about violent death, is the Boston Strangler. Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942)

was the German-born son and grandson of Danish artists, and had English and Irish maternal ancestry. He was a pupil of and assistant to Whistler, protégé and champion of Degas, and lover of the grimier areas of London, as well as Venice and Dieppe where he spent much time. In effect, he was a cosmopolitan artist with a streak of Yorkshire grit in the mix. A witty and perceptive critic, he had wide-ranging sympathies. He was not just the champion of Continental impressionists and modernists. He admired good work soundly based on draughtsmanship – ‘Line is the language of design’ – wherever he found it. He

SHEFFIELD MUSEUMS TRUST / LEEDS ART GALLERY / BRIDGEMAN IMAGES / FITZWILLIAM MUSEUM, CAMBRIDGE

Walter Sickert Left: The Trapeze (1920). Below: L’Hôtel Royal, Dieppe (1894). Below right: Self-portrait (c 1896)

praised Victorian narrative painters and Birket Foster’s well-drawn peasant children as well as Van Gogh and Wyndham Lewis. For this reason, like Whistler and Degas, he revered Charles Keene as the greatest English artist of the 19th century. Sickert’s own influence in encouraging the British to follow Continental developments was as great as that of Roger Fry (although as critics they were not invariably kind to each other). His teaching was invaluable to the following generation. For a while, his late work, often derived from press photographs, was regarded as a decline. It is now seen as his most forward-looking, prefiguring as it does the practice of Francis Bacon and Gerhard Richter. I remember being strongly impressed by the Hayward Gallery show of late work in 1981-82, which was a manageable size. Given the Tate tendency to immenseness, this show of over 150 works – ‘the biggest London retrospective in 30 years’ – is a little worrying. However, that is small-scale compared with the recent exhibition at the Walker Gallery, Liverpool, boasting 300 paintings and drawings together with work by Sickert’s third wife, Thérèse Lessore. The laudable aim here is to illuminate all sides of his career: paintings and etchings, theatres and music halls, portraits and nudes, and the light and atmosphere of Dieppe and Venice. It is to be hoped that the organisers live up to another Sickert dictum: ‘Nothing is wasted and nothing can be spared.’ Fittingly, it is a collaboration between the Tate and the Petit Palais, and it will go on to Paris from October until next January.

The Oldie May 2022 69


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Articles inside

Getting Dressed: William Dalrymple and Olivia

5min
pages 92-97

Ask Virginia Ironside

5min
pages 98-100

Crossword

3min
pages 89-90

Taking a Walk: Blean Woods

3min
pages 87-88

Overlooked Britain: Park Lane’s Animals in War

6min
pages 82-84

How the British made the

6min
pages 80-81

On the Road: Maurice Gran

4min
pages 85-86

Bird of the Month: Common

2min
page 79

Exhibitions Huon Mallalieu

2min
pages 69-70

Drink Bill Knott

4min
page 73

Golden Oldies Rachel Johnson

4min
page 68

Television Frances Wilson

4min
page 66

Music Richard Osborne

3min
page 67

Film: Downton Abbey

3min
page 64

History David Horspool

4min
pages 61-62

Bad Relations, by Cressida

5min
pages 59-60

Chums: How a Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took Over the UK, by Simon Kuper

4min
page 56

Circus of Dreams Adventures in the 1980s Literary World, by John

4min
pages 57-58

English Gardening Eccentrics by Todd Longstaffe-Gowan

4min
pages 54-55

The Palace Papers, by Tina

6min
pages 48-50

Elizabeth of York: The Last White Rose, by Alison Weir

5min
page 53

Small World Jem Clarke

4min
page 47

Readers’ Letters

8min
pages 44-45

Country Mouse Giles Wood

4min
page 37

The Doctor’s Surgery

3min
page 43

Postcards from the Edge

4min
pages 38-40

Town Mouse

3min
page 36

Media Matters Stephen Glover

4min
page 35

Never too old for netball

4min
pages 32-34

The genius behind Casablanca Nick Brown

6min
pages 30-31

The first child star, William

4min
page 29

How to buy a picture

6min
pages 26-28

My two dads Allegra Huston

6min
pages 22-23

Branston, king of pickles

4min
pages 24-25

The Old Un’s Notes

9min
pages 5-8

Are You Being Served? turns 50 Roger Lewis

7min
pages 14-15

The joy of dropping out

3min
page 21

1950s school segregation

4min
page 11

Long live oldie Luddites

4min
pages 16-17

Gyles Brandreth’s Diary

4min
page 9

Grumpy Oldie Man

4min
page 10

The Bomber Harris recipe

7min
pages 18-20
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