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.

Peter Watson and Francis Bacon

As work on Watson’s biography continues, one thing which is becoming apparent is the importance to Bacon at certain points in the development of his reputation of his link with Peter Watson. It is unknown when they actually met. They moved in the same part of the London art world and may well have met during or shortly after the War through the introduction of someone like Lucian Freud. Watson had supported Freud financially since he was very young and the close friendship between Freud and Bacon could easily have led Bacon to Watson. Watson’s flat at 10 Palace Gate was a sort of mecca for young British artists, many of whom visited him there to see his collection of art and to gain access to his collection of foreign art magazines such as Cahiers d’Art and Minotaure. An alternative possibility is that Watson met Bacon through Graham Sutherland, who was a great friend of Watson’s and Bacon’s. In any event, Watson made an important contribution to Bacon’s reputation by getting his friend, Robert Melville, to write a serious piece on Bacon for the very last edition of Horizon, which came out in December 1949. By this time, Bacon’s work had been treated by the art press with a mixture of horror and bewilderment; Melville’s piece was supportive and measured.

Then in 1954 Watson, who was a member of the relevant committee, was probably responsible for bringing to the ICA, which he had helped to support since its earliest days, the idea of holding a small Bacon retrospective. When this took place in 1955, it was the first ever attempt publicly to review Bacon’s painting as a whole. Many more retrospectives were to follow.

It is easy with hindsight to forget that Bacon’s later status as one of the most important British artists of the 20th century was far from being a foregone conclusion in the 1950’s and needed effective promotion. Watson undoubtedly did less than David Sylvester, but it is high time that his contribution was acknowledged. I am told by those who knew Bacon that Peter Watson was one of the very few people whom he always spoke well of, as did Lucian Freud.

Please click on this link if you would like to register for pre-publication information on Peter Watson biography

Posted Friday, December 28th, 2012, filed under: 20th century British art, Francis Bacon, Graham Sutherland, Lucian Freud, Peter Watson

John Luke

Very excited to see that the Ulster Museum in Belfast has a big John Luke show. He is one of the most extraordinary British artists of the 20th century and I encourage anyone who can get to Belfast to go. There is also a separate Luke drawing exhibition on at the Naughton Gallery at Queen’s, which is nearby, so the 2 shows can be combined. I will report further in January after I have been.

Link to Ulster Museum John Luke Exhibition

Link to Naughton Gallery: John Luke A Hidden Archive

Posted Friday, December 21st, 2012, filed under: 20th century British art, John Luke

Algernon Newton

There is a small show of his work on at the Daniel Katz Gallery in Old Bond Street at the moment, which is worth catching. Newton’s work appears occasionally in the sale room. It is not, and can never have been, fashionable, but it is painting done by a serious, trained artist and merits attention on that basis.

Throughout the mid-century there were a number of artists working away in the British Isles in a skilled, traditional fashion, although in Newton’s case, the traditional painting skills were being put to some slightly subversive purpose. His pictures are superficially calm representations of landscapes and townscapes (never people except diminutive figures). Yet there is some sort of agenda on the painter’s mind. The viewer reads the pictures as something more than realistic representations. The weather is emphasised; the calmness is eerie rather than simply calm; there is some sort of symbolism in the broken trees, the morning light, the flash of lightning. In terms of technique, the pictures have benefited from a study of artists like Canaletto. Newton was a serious artist; it just isn’t clear what he was being serious about.

The most obvious comparison would be with Tristram Hillier’s fine work. I prefer that: the menace is clearer. It is still subtle, but in Hillier’s case the subtlety has in many cases been channelled through a religious angst which we can follow.

The Peculiarity of Algernon Newton, Katz Gallery, 28 November-21 December 2012

Posted Friday, December 14th, 2012, filed under: 20th century British art, Algernon Newton, Tristram Hillier

175 Years at the RCA

I went to this at the weekend and would urge you to go if in the area. For those with an interest in 20th C British art, it is a great treat. Sculpture by Moore and pictures by Hockney, Auerbach, Bawden, Ravilious, Minton etc etc. By the latter is the enormous and very rarely seen Death of Nelson, owned by the RCA. Towards the end of his life, Minton took to painting what can only be described as old-fashioned history paintings and this huge picture will come as a mighty shock to those used to his earlier work.

There are a number of large early works by Hockney, which I personally don’t like, but which are surely important. There is the famous picture of the teaching staff at the RCA in the 1950’s, all lolling around the staff room, with poor Minton sitting apart and looking forlorn. There are fascinating portraits of RCA principals, such as Old Etonian, Robin Darwin. There are 2 extremely interesting small black sculptures by Geoffrey Clarke.

Beyond the pictures are all sorts of designed things connected with RCA people over the years, including a Porsche.

Posted Tuesday, December 11th, 2012, filed under: 20th century British art, David Hockney, Edward Bawden, Frank Auerbach, Geoffrey Clarke, Henry Moore, John Minton, Robin Darwin, Royal College of Art

Rowland Suddaby

I bought at the recent Bonham’s sale in Knightsbridge a picture by Suddaby which complements one I already have. Because neither is like what one might call a “normal” Suddaby, nobody ever guesses the artist’s name.

Both are oils of flowers in a vase on a window ledge, with the window open behind the vase. This set-up enables the artist to explore a complex spatial combination involving elements of the room in which the vase is placed, the flowers in the vase and the nature of the vase itself, the curtains or other trappings of the window, and the scene through the window. In one case (right), the curtains are patterned as is the wallpaper and the scene through the window, beyond the flowers in the vase, is of more flowers. When the late John Craxton saw this picture in my kitchen, he was taken with the complexity of what the artist had sought to achieve. Even he failed to guess that it was by Suddaby.

Rowland Suddaby still life Rowland Suddaby still life
  Copyright: Suddaby estate


The latest purchase (left) focusses on a group of objects around the vase on the ledge or table pushed up to the window.

Both pictures seem to represent Suddaby experimenting and enjoying himself. His characteristic landscapes, instantly recognisable in the saleroom from their palette and style, are quite common. Nice enough but usually not adventurous.

Posted Tuesday, November 20th, 2012, filed under: 20th century British art, Rowland Suddaby

Adrian Allinson at Lord’s

During the One Day International between England and South Africa on Sunday I found myself in a part of the Pavilion at Lord’s that I don’t normally go in. And there I found a group of 20thC pictures of cricket subjects. The one that caught my eye was by that rather unacknowledged English painter, Adrian Allinson. Born in 1890, he went to the Slade. He died in 1959. The picture in Lord’s is called “Cricket at Etruria, Stoke on Trent” of 1955 and was given to MCC by that great cricket supporter, Sir William Worsley. The picture in style and subject resembles work by Julian Trevelyan of the Potteries.

Posted Thursday, September 6th, 2012, filed under: 20th century British art, Adrian Allinson

John Hayward stained glass

I was in St Michael, Paternoster Royal in the City for the first time today and there are the most wonderful stained glass windows at the East End of the Church by John Hayward, who died a few years ago.
John Hayward stained glass, St Michael Paternoster Royal

Posted Wednesday, July 18th, 2012, filed under: John Hayward

Scotney and Corsham

The Victorian National Trust house at Scotney was the home of the architectural historian, Christopher Hussey. There are some John Pipers to see (of Cuckmere as well as of the Castle), but a particular treat is to see 2 major works by the portraitist, John Ward, who died in 2007. Christopher Hussey gets the full-length treatment in a magnificent picture; his wife is presented in slightly smaller format towards the top of the stairs, but still an excellent picture.

Corsham Court was the home of the 4th Baron Methuen, who was a serious mid-20th century artist. Unfortunately, nothing by him is on display in the public rooms, which are full of splendid Old Masters, in amongst which his work would admittedly look a little odd.

Posted Tuesday, June 26th, 2012, filed under: 20th century British art, John Piper, John Ward, Lord Methuen

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