At Ightham Mote yesterday my eye was drawn to a portrait of the American, Charles Henry Robinson, who saved the house in the 1950s. It was by an artist identified as David Smary. Competently painted in the 1950s/60s, I assumed he would turn out to be a known portrait painter. But a Google search reveals literally nothing except this one picture. Who was he?
Why History?
In 1976 I arrived from my country grammar school at the Historical shrine of Peterhouse. At the time, although the smallest of the colleges of Cambridge, it had the highest number of History dons.
The study of History was taken seriously and the effect on me was to be lifelong. The key people for me were Maurice Cowling and Brian Wormald. Sitting in front of these strange, intense men reading an undergraduate essay was profoundly challenging. Historical writing involved seeking to understand the reality behind why men acted in the way they did; and that reality was hugely complex and not to be confused with the descriptions of it in the work of historians. For those writing about the past always have an agenda. The identification and evaluation of that agenda is part of the reader’s challenge. The effort to abandon – or at least admit to – that agenda is part of the historian’s challenge.
Looted Art
I went to a lecture at the London Jewish Cultural Centre last night. The chairman was David Glasser, who is chairman of the Ben Uri Gallery, and the main speaker was Howard Spiegler, a New York lawyer who specialises in acting for claimants. David Lewis, the chairman of the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, also spoke.
The scale of the art seized illegally by the Germans before and during the War beggars belief. The task of getting any of it back into the hands of its rightful owners is also mind-boggling in its legal and practical complexity.
I have encountered the fringes of this vast world in my Watson research, as the contents of his Paris flat were seized in December 1940. The role of the Paris art dealers in helping the Germans to find valuable collections and then helping them to dispose of the modern pictures they didn’t want is a murky tale. An account of the process insofar as it affected Watson will be in the book.
Debora Arango
I have just returned from a trip to America. In the Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte is an extraordinary exhibition of pictures by the Colombian artist, Debora Arango (1907-2005). These are striking and disturbing pictures. The obvious English analogy is the work of Paula Rego. Many pictures are shockingly confrontational depictions of figures, particularly women, suffering at the hands of others. Some are openly political, others Feminist and others straightforward paintings of her friends. One of those excellent exhibitions where one arrives with no knowledge (I hadn’t heard of her) and leaves with a hunger to know more about her life and work and to know something of the mid century politics of Colombia.
Norman Fowler and Nevis
Just returned from the beautiful Caribbean island of Nevis. There on 23rd March 1971 Norman Fowler was found dead in what may have been mysterious circumstances.
The Old Bath Hotel, now restored as Government offices
The attraction of the old hotel, one of the oldest in the Caribbean, was that it had in a special bath house in the grounds hot spring water available for bathing, although any longer than a short period risked the bather’s health. So it is quite possible that Fowler, aged about 44, simply stayed in the hot water too long and expired. By the time he died it is thought that he had sold the vast majority of Watson’s amazing art collection. More detail in the book….
A extended version of this article, under the title ‘Who was Norman Fowler?’, appeared on April 12th 2013, in the local St Kitts and Nevis newspaper, SKN Choice Times. This included some additional biographical detail on Fowler.
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Peter Watson and Horizon
On 1st February 2013 I gave a lecture at the Sotheby’s Institute in Bedford Square, under the auspices of the Burlington Magazine, about the art contributions to Horizon. This is a very brief synopsis. A transcript of my lecture is available on request.
Founded at the end of 1939, Horizon was funded by Watson. The initial editors were Cyril Connolly and Stephen Spender and Watson produced most of the art contributions. Over the 120 issues that were produced until Connolly got too bored to carry on editing the journal at the end of 1949, the art contributions covered a wide range of material. During the War, when foreign writers were impossible to access, Watson relied on English commentators, such as Herbert Read, Robin Ironside, Geoffrey Grigson and so on. He also included pictures by his young artist friends, such as Freud, Craxton, Colquhoun and Macbryde. Spread across the 10 years there appeared articles about Francis Bacon, Louis le Brocquy, Eduardo Paolozzi and so on, as well as articles by British artists, such as pieces by Ben Nicholson, Graham Sutherland and John Piper.
Once the War finished, more international writers became available, writing about many foreign artists, such as Wilfredo Lam, Matta, Lipchitz and Henri Laurens. Big names from the international art world contributed pieces: Clement Greenberg and Sidney Janis from America; Daniel Kahnweiler from Paris; Douglas Cooper from the South of France; and even the legendary Bernard Berenson from I Tatti.
From 1946 onwards Watson was heavily involved in the development of the ICA and he started to use his contacts to help various artists get exhibitions there. His involvement with the ICA gradually replaced his interest in Horizon.
Horizon stands as a substantive record of the extent of Watson’s connections across the international art world. The significance of these connections is slowly becoming apparent.
Peter Watson and Denham Fouts
A biography of Fouts is about to be published by Arthur Vanderbilt. It will be interesting to see what is said about the relationship between Fouts and Watson.
They met in about 1933. Watson was in the throes of a relationship with a rich young American called Robin Thomas. Fouts was also American but not rich. He was also highly dangerous in an emotional sense. There are many descriptions of him. During the early stages of the War, Watson sent him off to America for safety with Watson’s great Picasso oil of La Femme Lisant (which Fouts duly sold). Fouts became very friendly with Christopher Isherwood, who describes him in detail in his Diaries. It became difficult for Watson to cope with him after Fouts returned to Paris from his Wartime stay in America and descended into hopeless drug addiction.
Those interested in getting a glimpse of what Watson chose not to tolerate should read the account of a meeting with Fouts in Michael Wishart’s autobiography, “High Diver”. He met Fouts shortly after the end of the War at Watson’s apartment at 44 Rue du Bac in Paris. Fouts was hooked on opium and Wishart’s description of what it was like to be around him shows how difficult he had become. Watson had to abandon the flat to Fouts and the owner of the flat, Comte Etienne de Beaumont, became increasingly exasperated at having his flat occupied by a drug addict. Watson hated drugs.
Fouts was eventually evicted from the flat and went to Rome, where he set himself up with a new companion called Tony Watson-Gandy. Fouts died in December 1948. Watson heard the news as he was about to set off for America and further amorous adventures which would inexorably lead to his own death a few years later.
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Richard Hamilton at the National Gallery
This is at first blush a curious exhibition for the National Gallery to put on. The Gallery’s permanent collection stops at some point in the late 19th century, I am guessing. When the Tate was created as a national gallery for modern art, one of the issues was when the National Gallery should receive things no longer considered “modern” – always a slippery concept. There is no doubt that Richard Hamilton won’t be entering the permanent collection any time soon.
What, then, is the rationale for his presence here rather than the Tate or even the Hayward Gallery (or the Barbican)? The information available at the gallery proposes that the artist had a long and close engagement with the Gallery’s collection and it is certainly the case that a number of the complex works show the influence of the work of various Old Masters. Hamilton was that rare thing amongst modern British artists: something of an intellectual. His approach to what he was trying to say therefore bore no resemblance to the productions of many practising artists. He thought about the past, grappling with those aspects of past work which he chose to engage with. This covered a surprisingly long span, from Renaissance artists to Marcel Duchamp. Although this does not necessarily justify his presence here in amongst the most formal collection of pictures which the nation possesses, it does soften the potential clash between the work of a contemporary artist and his grand surroundings. How different it would be if Tracey Emin had a show here!
As one looks at the works, art historical references abound. There are a number of different themes going on, as the helpful little free guide points out. It is not necessary to repeat them here. Suffice it to say that those who think contemporary art has to be trite and meaningless, and painfully commercial, will need to think again if they approach this show with an open mind. The repeated use of naked female models may cause eyebrows to raise, but there is plenty of substance to contemplate.
Harry Epworth Allen
For Christmas the John Basford book about Harry Epworth Allen. I love his work, particularly the landscape scenes of Derbyshire and Ireland. He often painted in tempera, which gives a smooth, silky feel to his stylised depictions of the countryside. Lived in Sheffield most of his life, which may have restricted his chances of making progress in the London art world. His work comes up for auction quite often.