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.

Queer British Art at the Tate and Queer Saint

The new show opening at Tate Britain to mark 50 years since the relaxation of the laws relating to homosexuality folowing the Wolfenden Report inevitably brings to mind the great supporter of gay artists in the 1940s and 1950s, Peter Watson.

Watson only really started to focus on British art when he was forced to return to London from Paris in 1939. Then, trapped by the War in the UK for the duration, and needing to fill the arts pages of Horizon with something, he started to focus on local talent. Previously he had supported gay artists in Paris, like Pavel Tchelitchew and Christian Berard, but now he got to know and support in different ways Francis Bacon, John Craxton, Robert Colquhoun and Robert Macbryde, all gay, and also met ( although didn’t particularly support) John Minton and Keith Vaughan.

In those represssed days for the gay community, the ability for young gay artists to seek support from one of the richest and most generous young men in England was a godsend. Craxton, for example, got huge help from Watson, culminating in Geoffrey Grigson’s monograph on his work, all paid for by Watson, in 1948. The Roberts stayed with him in his flat in Palace Gate during the War when they came down from Scotland, until he paid their rent in a flat of their own. Bacon was to benefit from a piece in Horizon and later from his first ever retrospective at the ICA in 1955, facilitated by Watson. In addition, of course, Watson bought pictures by these artists.

Posted Sunday, April 2nd, 2017, filed under: Francis Bacon, Horizon, John Craxton, John Minton, Robert Colquhoun, Robert Macbryde

Sir John Rothenstein and Zsa Zsa Gabor

Zsa Zsa Gabor died recently. In September 1952 she visited the Tate as preparation for a film she was making about Toulouse-Lautrec, to be called “Moulin Rouge”. Her PR agents no doubt saw this as an opportunity to get some good publicity for her and for the film and they brought a cameraman. John Rothenstein, subject of my forthcoming book, was Director of the Tate at the time. He showed her round the Gallery and many photos were taken.

An article on the visit then appeared in the October edition of a not very highbrow magazine called “Illustrated”. All hell broke loose, with questions being asked in Parliament as to how the Tate could have been used in this way for an actress to promote herself. Even the Court was said to be not amused. The particular picture which generated this reaction showed the actress with one leg raised high off the ground and resting incongruously on the base of a statue by the Northern Irish sculptor, FE McWilliam.

All will be revealed in the book.

Posted Thursday, March 23rd, 2017, filed under: John Rothenstein

Lucian Freud, John Minton, Jamaica

A holiday at The Jamaica Inn prompts thoughts about which artists have painted on the island. The 20th century British artist most closely associated with Jamaica in my mind is John Minton. He first came by boat to Kingston with his then boyfriend, Ricky Stride, in 1950. They apparently met on the boat two British Jamaican residents, Peter and Alice Blagrove, and stayed with them for a while.

Was there something of a gay community here in the 1950s? We went today to Noel Coward’s house, Firefly, and also saw Ian Fleming’s Goldeneye, now part of a hotel of the same name. All sorts of gay names seem to have been over the years ( Cecil Beaton, Truman Capote, Angus Wilson), including Peter Watson, who visited in 1949 and 1950, staying at the Myrtle Bank Hotel in Kingston. One of those rare collectors of 20th Century British and Irish art in 1950s Northern Ireland, Tommy MacGeough Bond of The Argory, also came and stayed.

Minton’s pictures of Jamaica certainly come up for sale quite often, as do Noel Coward’s. Freud came as well in the 50s, but there only seem to be two pictures known by him with local subjects, one fittingly portraying a bunch of bananas similar to the one I can see from the verandah of my room now. The frontispiece which Freud contributed to James Pope-Hennessy’s “The Baths of Absolom” in 1954 also looks very much like a Caribbean subject.

Winston Churchill stayed at The Jamaica Inn in the 1950s and painted from it as well.

Posted Tuesday, March 14th, 2017, filed under: 20th century British art, John Minton, Lucian Freud

Peter Watson at Sotheby’s

At Sotheby’s Erotic art sale on 16th February lot 10 is a major picture by Pavel Tchelitchew called Bathers. This was owned by Peter Watson and I helped with the catalogue entry.

Posted Saturday, January 28th, 2017, filed under: Peter Watson

John Rothenstein

Research is almost complete. The diaries from 1939 to 1964 have been read and the first draft of the book is about to be delivered to the publisher. The cover photo has been chosen and the book’s title. Now it needs editing and the illustrations gathering, so still plenty of work to do.

Posted Saturday, January 28th, 2017, filed under: John Rothenstein

Gerard Dillon at the Ulster Museum

I visited this super show last week in Belfast. Just one room, but carefully chosen by someone with an eye for Dillon’s important works. So each picture is a substantive work; there is no padding with minor works. As ever, for me the show preached to the converted. I have no doubt that Dillon was a considerable artist; possibly limited by his subjective emphasis on his own neuroses, but producing exceptional work around that large theme, encompassing life and death and of course the dilemma of the gay man in the hostile culture of his time. His reputation cries out for wider consideration in the British art world rather than being treated solely as a Northern Irish artist.

Great credit to the Ulster Museum for putting this on.

Posted Monday, August 15th, 2016, filed under: 20th century British art, Gerard Dillon

Edward Bawden at the Fry Art Gallery

A new show opened at Saffron Walden on Saturday of early Bawden watercolours. How beautiful they are. Best when they don’t have images of human beings in them, which most don’t, they are a glorious example of Bawden’s ability in watercolour. The Fry Art Gallery is a tremendous place and as ever must take great credit for putting on this lovely little show.

Posted Monday, August 1st, 2016, filed under: Edward Bawden

Constance Morton

I just bought a delightful picture by her, of farm buildings in watercolour with pen and ink. Unframed. The internet says not much more than her dates. Anyone know more about her?

Posted Thursday, June 23rd, 2016, filed under: Uncategorized

⋅ Jankel Adler ⋅ Eileen Agar ⋅ John Aldridge ⋅ Adrian Allinson ⋅ Michael Andrews ⋅ Edward Ardizzone ⋅ Arthur Armstrong ⋅ Frank Auerbach ⋅ Michael Ayrton ⋅ Francis Bacon ⋅ Wilhelmina Barns-Graham ⋅ Edward Bawden ⋅ Adrian Berg ⋅ Basil Blackshaw ⋅ David Bomberg ⋅ Louis le Brocquy ⋅ Jean Bullock ⋅ Edward Burra ⋅ George Campbell ⋅ Prunella Clough ⋅ Geoffrey Clarke ⋅ William Coldstream ⋅ Cecil Collins ⋅ Robert Colquhoun ⋅ John Craxton ⋅ Alfred Daniels ⋅ Alan Davie ⋅ Gerard Dillon ⋅ William Gear ⋅ Wilfred Dudeney ⋅ Richard Eurich ⋅ Hans Feibusch ⋅ Lucian Freud ⋅ William Gear ⋅ Mark Gertler ⋅ William Gillies ⋅ Beatrice, Lady Glenavy ⋅ Duncan Grant ⋅ Richard Hamilton ⋅ John Hayward ⋅ Thomas Hennell ⋅ Patrick Hennessy ⋅ Paul Henry ⋅ Barbara Hepworth ⋅ Josef Herman ⋅ Patrick Heron ⋅ Derek Hill ⋅ Tristram Hillier ⋅ Roger Hilton ⋅ Ivon Hitchens ⋅ David Hockney ⋅ Frances Hodgkins ⋅ Robin Ironside ⋅ Augustus John ⋅ David Jones ⋅ Karin Jonzen ⋅ Eric Kennington ⋅ Laura Knight ⋅ Peter Lanyon ⋅ Wyndham Lewis ⋅ Laurence Lowry ⋅ John Luke ⋅ Robert MacBryde ⋅ Sine Mackinnon ⋅ Norah McGuinness ⋅ William McTaggart ⋅ FE McWilliam ⋅ Bernard Meninsky ⋅ Oliver Messel ⋅ Colin Middleton ⋅ John Minton ⋅ Henry Moore ⋅ Cedric Morris ⋅ Rodrigo Moynihan ⋅ John Nash ⋅ Paul Nash ⋅ Christopher Nevinson ⋅ Algernon Newton ⋅ Ben Nicholson ⋅ Sir William Nicholson ⋅ Winifred Nicholson ⋅ Daniel O’Neill ⋅ Eduardo Paolozzi ⋅ Victor Pasmore ⋅ John Piper ⋅ Eric Ravilious ⋅ Alan Reynolds ⋅ Ceri Richards ⋅ William Roberts ⋅ Michael Rothenstein ⋅ Kenneth Rowntree ⋅ William Scott ⋅ Matthew Smith ⋅ Stanley Spencer ⋅ Gilbert Spencer ⋅ Rowland Suddaby ⋅ Graham Sutherland ⋅ Julian Trevelyan ⋅ Fred Uhlman ⋅ Leon Underwood ⋅ Keith Vaughan ⋅ Edward Wadsworth ⋅ Alfred Wallis ⋅ Evan Walters ⋅ John Ward ⋅ Carel Weight ⋅ Gerald Wilde ⋅ Kyffin Williams ⋅ Edward Wolfe ⋅ Bryan Wynter ⋅ Jack Yeats ⋅

20th Century
British and Irish Art

Art Commentator and Historian
Adrian Clark