Edwin Smith is renowned for being a photographer but few knew that he was a painter as well. His wife Olive Cook was a self taught painter and was educated at Benton End under Cedric Morris on weekends.
Edwin Smith – Self Portrait, 1970
He was born in Canonbury, Islington, London, the only child of Edwin Stanley Smith, a clerk, and his wife Lily Beatrice. After leaving school he was educated at the Northern Polytechnic, transferring to the architectural school at the age of sixteen. He then won a scholarship to the Architectural Association, but gave up his course and worked as a draughtsman for several years. He became a freelance photographer in 1935, working briefly for Vogue as a fashion photographer. However he concentrated his artistic efforts on subjects such as the mining community of Ashington in Northumberland, the docks of Newcastle, and circuses and fairgrounds around London.
In 1935 Smith married Rosemary Ansell, but the marriage ended in divorce two years later. A few years later Smith was living with Olive Cook, whom he married in 1954.
The Fry Gallery holds a great deal of Smith’s painted works and they are naive but I would say competent; I think there is something free and wonderful in them.
Edwin Smith – Stacking Peas with a view of Waveney Church, Norfolk
In this post I look at the artworks of events at Dunkirk in 1940. Some would have been sketched or observed on the day, others were painted with eye-witness reports and photographs. Many were finished in a studio in the weeks and months after.
On 10 May 1940, Germany invaded France and the Low Countries, pushing the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), along with French and Belgian troops, back to the French port of Dunkirk. A huge rescue, Operation ‘Dynamo’, was organised by the Royal Navy to get the troops off the beaches and back to Britain. ‡
‘Dynamo’ began on 26 May. Strong defences were established around Dunkirk, and the Royal Air Force sent all available aircraft to protect the evacuation. Over 800 naval vessels of all shapes and sizes helped to transport troops across the English Channel. The last British troops were evacuated on 3 June, with French forces covering their escape. Churchill and his advisers had expected that it would be possible to rescue only 20,000 to 30,000 men, but in all 338,000 troops, a third of them French, were rescued. Ninety thousand remained to be taken prisoner and the BEF left behind the bulk of its tanks and heavy guns. All resistance in Dunkirk ended at 9.30am on 4 June. ‡
When I saw the Richard Eurich picture below, the sea was so well painted it looked like glass. It was at an exhibition in the Queens House, Greenwich. It is a fantastic picture that viewed in a book or on the internet doesn’t comprehend. It was also used by the Navy as its Christmas card for 1940.
Richard Eurich – Withdrawal from Dunkirk, 1940
Charles Cundall – The Withdrawal from Dunkirk, 1940
John Spencer-Churchill – Dunkirk from the Bray Dunes, 1940
Below is a painting by Wilkinson who to my eye is the master of painting seascapes. He has a wonderful repertoire of boats and the lighting in this painting is a marvel. Though beautiful, it also shows the hellish chaos of the day.
Norman Wilkinson – The Little Ships at Dunkirk, 1940
The Little Ships at Dunkirk: June 1940, by Norman Wilkinson. The gently shelving beaches meant that large warships could only pick up soldiers from the town’s East Mole, a sea wall which extended into deep water, or send their boats on the beaches to collect them. To speed up the process, the British Admiralty appealed to the owners of small boats for help. These became known as the ‘little ships’. ‡
Newspaper with the small announcement under ‘War Artists’.
On Thursday, 7th March, 1940, three days before his 37th birthday, it was announced in the British papers that Edward Bawden and Barnett Freeman were to become Official War Artists on behalf of the British War Office.
In the first days of April, Ardizzone (Edward) and Bawden took rooms for a while in the hotel Commerce in Arras, fussed over by a shared batman. They enjoyed the local wine and hospitality, before being billeted separately. Arras was dour, small and grey, It was also the GHQ for the British Army in France. †
Arras in France is just over fifty miles away on a map, from April to May the retreat to Dunkirk was rapid and not an inspiring start for a war artist. In this short time Bawden said he was passed from regiments and groups rapidly as none of them wanted the alien burden of an artist to deal with, but being on the move a lot may have prepared his sketching style ready for Dunkirk where rapid copy was needed.
On his way to Dunkirk, Bawden has rolled up his paintings in a cylindrical tin which he clutched under his arm. †
Approaching the port, he ditched all his equipment except his art materials (what would the Germans have done with them?) Marching into the town, they ran the gauntlet of ragged French soldiers jeering them. It discomforted him, as did the looters sweeping like locusts through abandoned houses. †
Edward Bawden – Dunkirk: Embarkation of Wounded, May 1940
Edward Bawden – Dunkirk – The New World, 1940
Edward Bawden – Boys Serving Coffee, Dunkirk, 1940.
He reached the quayside in the company of a Canadian major, and they watched with dismay the frantic self-preservation of a group of British generals on the Dunkirk quayside, the swagger sticks pointing at likely boats bound for England. He turned to the major, with a wry smile. ‘Rats always go first’ he said. †
Edward Bawden – Dunkirk – Embarkation of Wounded, 1940
Edward Bawden – The Quay at Dunkirk, 1940.
In the watercolour above, notice the fires along the jetty. The men in the foreground descending into a air-raid shelter and the bomb craters on the ground. The air raid shelter is likely to be the same one below, but in the chaos who could tell.
Edward Bawden – The Entrance to an Air Raid Shelter, Dunkirk, 1940
Edward Bawden – In an Air Raid Shelter, Dunkirk: Bombs are dropping, 1940
† The Sketchbook War by Richard Knott, 2013 978-0752489230
‡ Imperial War Museum – Dunkirk
John Nash is more famous for his paintings of the First World War or his later-life landscapes, but as a young man he was a very fine wood-engraver. It seems by nature that wood-engraving at this time follows book illustration and as John’s brother Paul was championing a wave of woodblock revival at this time it is no surprise that in 1921 John became a member of the Society of Wood Engravers, a new society set up in 1920 by Eric Gill, Lucien Pissarro and Edward Gordon Craig. In coming years with more confidence with woodcut John Nash was able to illustrate whole books such a Poisonous Plants, 1927 that features 20 large botanical illustrations.
Many of his prints before 1924 where done to learn the craft and given as gifts but the Golden Cockerel Press asked him to illustrate a book in woodcut and he became professional and and a commercial artist. He would sell these woodcuts as limited editions too.
John Nash – Black Bryony (Dioscorea communis), 1927
His innocence and freshness of outlook has led him to emphasise the sharp-cut quality of engraving and this expresses the essence of living and the appreciation of forms. John Nash’s engraving of the human form, of flowers and of plants have a realism that is quite scientific in its observation and crispness of expression. †
John Nash – Shearing Sheep, 1923
John Nash – Woodland Interior, 1929
John Nash – Spurge-Laurel (Daphne Laureola), 1927
John Nash – Frontispiece for Kathleen Woodward’s Jipping Street, 1928
John Nash – Marrow and other Autumn Fruit and Flowers, 1935
‘Flowers and Faces’ by H.E. Bates, published by the Golden Cockerel Press
John Nash – Flowers and Faces, 1935
‘Flowers and Faces’ by H.E. Bates, published by the Golden Cockerel Press
† Albert Garrett – A History of British Wood Engraving, 1978
Paul Nash – Landscape of the British Museum, Fitzwilliam Museum
One of the arguments for not leaving a good bit of art to a large museum is that it might never be seen. The idea that your gift may end up in the endless archives of the Tate Gallery or Towner comes with that danger. When Edward Bawden was looking to leave his studio to someone he chose the Higgins Gallery in Bedford because they were much smaller and would be more likely to exhibit his works, though for some time that was not what happened. (It was a decision he apparently regretted when the Fry Gallery was founded in 1985 and opened in 1987.) If work sits in archive storage this might give more weight to my constant quest for Why not a Tate East?
I digress – the other day while looking up engraved windows by John Hutton I discovered the The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge have an online archive of the pieces they own, many of them being in archives not on display and it shocked me to see how many works by Paul Nash they had.
Living in Cambridge one of the things visitors to the city want to see is the Fitzwilliam’s amazing collection of art, but to me a lot of it doesn’t rotate and so I find going rather boring. I wish they could set a rotating room or explore their archives for exhibitions. Below the paintings are mostly from the collection of Paul Nash’s in the Fitzwilliam Museum archives.
Paul Nash – Landscape with Rooks, 1913, Fitzwilliam Museum
Paul Nash – The cliff to the north, 1912, Fitzwilliam Museum
Below are a series of Monster Studies, the photographs and oil are in the Tate but the watercolours are in the Fitz. It is interesting to show how Nash used photography as a memory aid.
Paul Nash – Monster Field, Study I, 1938, Fitzwilliam Museum
Paul Nash – Monster Field, 1938, Tate TGA 7050PH/1111
Paul Nash – Monster Field, Study II, 1938, Fitzwilliam Museum
Paul Nash – Monster Field, 1938, Tate TGA 7050PH/1109
Here in the oil painting by Nash below, he uses both of the ‘Monster’ tree stumps, one in front of the other with his dream like landscape. If it wasn’t for the Oak trees, I would guess at it being Mexico, it’s almost a tacky colour palette.
Paul Nash – Monster Field, 1938
Paul Nash – Clouds, hill and the plain, 1945, Fitzwilliam Museum
Paul Nash – Sunset eye, Study II, 1945, Fitzwilliam Museum
The photography returns with this other ugly Grotto made in the back-garden of Paul Nash’s house in 3 Eldon Grove, Hampstead. Nash lived at this address from 1936 till August 1939. In the photograph a tree stump has been placed in front of the grotto entrance in what might be said to be a phallic way.I don’t think anyone would have guessed this without the photograph as a guide as I thought his painting was of a semi demolished house.
Paul Nash – The grotto, Eldon Grove, 1938, Tate TGA 7050PH/670
Paul Nash – The grotto, Eldon Grove, 1938, Tate TGA 7050PH/673
Paul Nash – The Grotto at Eldon Grove / Study of the Grotto at Eldon Grove, 1938, Fitzwilliam Museum
Paul Nash – November Moon, 1942, Fitzwilliam Museum
Paul Nash – Garden, 1929, Fitzwilliam Museum
Paul Nash – Atlantic ocean, 1932, Fitzwilliam Museum
Bright Cloud Sketch of a landscape, 1941, Fitzwilliam Museum
Paul Nash – Landscape of the Death Watch, Fitzwilliam Museum
Paul Nash – The Bird-Cage (Canary), 1927, Fitzwilliam Museum
Paul Nash – Design for backcloth, The Truth about the Russian Dancers, 1920, Fitzwilliam Museum
You would think that after the First World War that young people wouldn’t rush to war again, but when in 1936 the Spanish Civil War started a lot of the left wing types you might suspect of being conscientious objectors went off to stand against fascism.
The son of Bloomsbury’s Clive and Vanessa Bell went off to Spain in 1937. Julian Bell wished to fight against Franco in the International Brigade in Spain, but his Aunt Virginia Woolf and his parents both persuaded him he would be safer and more use as an Ambulance Driver with the Spanish Medical Aid. Julian died after being hit by Shrapnel 18 July 1937 months after arriving.
The artists that remained in Britain would hold auctions or art exhibitions of works to raise funds or go on anti-fascist marches. It all reminds me of Marghanita Laski’s ‘Love on the Supertax’. Felicia Brown went off to Spain and died there.
Felicia Browne was born to well-to-do parents in the London suburbs in 1904. She took various courses at the Slade School of Fine Art in London between 1921 and 1928. Then she went to Germany to study sculpture. Historian Tom Buchanan writes* that she witnessed the rise of Nazism in Berlin, and may have taken part in anti-fascist street fighting. She returned to Britain in the early 1930s and in 1933 joined the Communist Party.
She travelled by car to Spain via Paris with her friend, Edith Bone. They arrived in Barcelona just days before Franco’s attempted coup of 18 July 1936. The people rose up to defend the Popular Front government and Felicia Browne was immediately caught up in those heady days.
During her brief time in Spain, Felicia Browne sketched other members of the militia, local people and the scenes around her. Following her death, these and other sketches were exhibited in London in October 1936. A selection of them were later published by Lawrence & Wishart, using as a preface Felicia Browne’s letter to Elizabeth Watson. They have frequently been reproduced to illustrate books on the Spanish Civil War.
After trying unsuccessfully to enter the medical services, she volunteered to join the PSUC (Catalan communist) militia, the Karl Marx, heading for Aragon to defend the Republic. They made their headquarters in the small but strategically important town of Tardienta. It was situated near to the railway line from Zaragoza to Huesca, which took vital supplies to the rebel forces. An aqueduct that carried water supplies to the enemy also passed through the town.
When the Karl Marx militia arrived in Tardienta, other militia columns were already billeted there. Several small-scale exchanges of fire took place on 14 and 15 August 1936 between forces of the Columna del Barrio, which included Dutch miliciana and machine-gunner Fanny Schoonheyt, and the rebels.
Felicia Browne’s militia attempted to sabotage the railway line. In a surprise attack by fascist forces that greatly outnumbered them, an Italian miliciano was wounded. Felicia went to his rescue and both were cut down by machine-gun fire and killed, probably on 22 August 1936. †
Drawings by Felicia Browne, 1936. † Felicia Browne: The first British casualty in Spain Tom Buchanan – The Impact of the Spanish Civil War on Britain. Eastbourne: Sussex Academic Press
Here is a post on Robert Gossop, an extraordinary designer who really moved with the times. His style went from Art Nouveau to bold bright modernism. He opened up an advertising agency to promote his own and other young talent for advertising.
Reginald Percy Gossop – The Queen of Hearts, 1899
Robert Percy Gossop (1876 – 1951) was apprenticed in 1892 as a wallpaper and fabric designer in London. Whilst undertaking his apprenticeship he attended art classes at colleges including Birkbeck College and Hammersmith School of Art. From 1896 to 1902 he worked as a designer and freelance illustrator. In 1902 he married Jessie Dora Meech, an artist from Camden School of Art.
From 1902 until 1904 he worked as studio manager for the printers Eyre and Spottiswood and from 1904 in the same capacity for W. H. Smith. At W. H. Smith he worked with a number of significant artists, including Henry Ospovat, and designed Smith’s famous lozenge shaped logo. In 1913, following a visit to America, Gossop became the first art editor for British Vogue. In 1914 he became art adviser to Dobson Molle and Co., an Edinburgh firm of printers. From 1916 until the end of the First World War he worked at the Ministry of Information, helping with the distribution of propaganda. At the end of the war he became joint manager at Carlton Studio.
Reginald Percy Gossop – London town and country, 1929
In 1923, partly to help his friend Edmund J. Sullivan, Gossop set up his own firm of artists’ agents, R.P. Gossop Ltd. His clients included Hanslip Fletcher and Eric Fraser. At the same time he continued to work as a freelance designer and illustrator, with commissions including designs for the Empire Marketing Board, Heal & Son Ltd and London Transport. In 1926 he co-founded the Society of Industrial Artists with Milner Gray. He also served on the Council of the Design and Industries Association. In 1937 he delivered the Dent Memorial Lecture, on book illustration, and from 1938 worked as a lecturer at the City of London College. His daughter joined him as office manager for R.P. Gossop Ltd in 1925 and after his death in 1951 she continued to run the business.
An advert for the Reginald Percy Gossop Artists Agency.
Reginald Percy Gossop – With a season ticket, 1926
Reginald Percy Gossop – Time is Money, 1926
Reginald Percy Gossop – The Way to Theatreland by Underground, 1926
Reginald Percy Gossop – The Way to Theatreland by Underground, 1926
Reginald Percy Gossop – Hendon RAF Display, 1926
Reginald Percy Gossop – It is warmer down below, 1924
I go to Bridge End Gardens most times when I go to Saffron Walden. Normally to read, but sometimes it is just nice to see what is changing. Here are a series of pictures I have taken. Below is a photograph of the sundial and my father as a child standing beside it.
Jane Vestey was born in 1928, at Virginia Water. The earliest incentive to visual art was given to her as a child by Derek Hill, who showed her how to paint dolls’ furniture. In 1946 she studied life drawing at the Heatherley School of Art, and her apprenticeship continued with landscape and still-life painting at the Camberwell School of Art. It was not, however, until 1949 that the Cezanne’s in the Louvre thrust into this young artist’s hand the instrument with which to start expressing her own vision.
It is evident that Miss Vestey’s pictures of Brazilian and West Indian subjects were painted while the impression made by Cezanne was still beneficently strong. By comparison, her earlier canvases are exercises in elimination that, while showing aesthetic gifts, do not quite succeed in filling out the picture space with interesting paint. Much more lively and appealing-at least to my eye are the southern compositions, which their tented palm fronds, their gaiety of sea and sky: here the painter’s delight in the vivid surprises of the landscape has lent assurance to both hand and eye.
No extravagant claims need to be made for so young a painter at this stage of her career. It is enough to point out that she is the kind of artist who responds to the poetry of nature in a specifically painterly manner: none of her pictures leads me to suspect that she would be better employed in writing novels. Edward Sackville-West
This blog post is about the painting Guaraja Beach by Jane Vestey from 1950. But also it’s about me trying to find more out about her. She is an artist from a rich family. She was good enough to be exhibited at the Redfern Gallery twice, but very little evidence on her art exists online and it was only in an old newspaper that I found a record of her exhibiting.
Jane Vestey – Guaraja Beach, 1950
Jane McLean Vestey lived at Thurlow Hall, Great Thurlow, Haverhill, Suffolk. The daughter of Ronald Arthur Vestey and Florence Ellen Vestey (nee McLean Luis). Jane was born on the 8th April 1928 into the famous Vestey family of Blue Star Line Shipping, her father being a Director. At the age of 10 Jane named and launched the Blue Star line ship the ‘Adelaide Star’.
She travelled to Brazil on 13th April 1950 on a temporary visa. In Brazil her family had a fleet of ships. The Painting ‘Guaraja, Brazil’ would have been painted at this time. It is assumed that because her family owned a shipping line, travel for her was less of an issue than it might have been for other people at the time.
Brazilian Copy of Jane’s Visa in 1950.
‘Guaraja Beach’ was exhibited in the Redfern Gallery in 1951, Catalogue Number 124. It was bought by S.J.Dale Esq on 2nd May, 1951. Other artists showing at the exhibition were: Thomas Buford Meteyard, Roy Hobdell and Gordon Crook.
Redfern Gallery, 20 Cork St, W.1. – 2-26 May 1951 – Paintings by the American Impressionist Thomas Buford Mcteyard; Roy Hobdell; Jane Vestey; hand-woven tapestries by Gordon Crook. Exhib. closes May 26. ‡
Vestey exhibited again at the Redfern Gallery as the painting Les Baux was sold at an exhibition in June, 1952. Jane Vestey married John Richard Baddeley (son of a Solicitor) on 23 June 1956. They had three children, Mark, Melissa and Edward.
Mr. R.A. Vestey, on behalf of the Blue Star Line, acknowledged and then proposed the toast of “The Builders.”At the ceremony which followed, Sir Allan Grant, a director of John Brown & Company, presented an antique diamond feather brooch of 1800 to Miss Jane Vestey, who had named and launched the Adelaide Star. †
Jane Vestey – Les Baux
Vestey died on the 22nd June 1999.
† Shipbuilding and Shipping Record – 1950 – Volume 76 – Page 188
‡ New Statesman – 1951 – Volume 41 – Page 548
In the past I have posted on John Nash when he was living in Buckinghamshire but here I look at the move John and Christine made to Essex and Wormingford.
Richard Bawden – Bottengoms Farm
John Nash – The Barn, Wormingford, 1954
When John and his wife Christine came to Wormingford on a holiday, they used to hire a small hut off the side of the local Mill but after it burnt down they returned to find a proper home. This led them to Bottengoms.
After John’s discharge from the forces in 1944, he and Christine sold their cottage at Meadle and moved into Bottengoms Farmhouse near Wormingford, Essex, which, with some two acres of land, they had bought for £750 the previous year. It remained their home for the rest of their lives. The name ‘Bottengoms’ is understood to derive from Bottingham, that of a Saxon farmer. The farmhouse is a small, two-storied sixteennth or seventeenth-century building, of wood and plaster, with one brick gable-end. †
The bulk of Nash’s work from 1944 onward can be found in the areas around Bottengoms, the docklands of Colchester and Ipswich to the landscapes of the Stour Valley and local mill ponds.
When he would venture further afield in France or Cornwall, Christine would scout out painting locations for him and then after he would turn up, walk around for the best view and then paint.
John Nash – Landscape near Polstead
John Nash – Poplar Plantation
Life at Bottengoms was very social. Though he never allowed sociability to disturb his work John formed a circle of close friends, almost all of them neighbours, ‘the dear ones’ as he called them. These included Robert and Natalie Bevan, Colin and Marian Benham, Cedric Morris, Lett Haines, David and Pamela Pearce, John and Griselda Lewis, Lady Fidelity, Lady Cranbrook and Ronald Blythe. †
John Nash – Winter Evening, Wormingford, 1967
John Nash – Disused Canal, Wormingford, Essex, 1958
John Nash – GPO Poster – Use Correct Address – Nayland in Suffolk.
John and Christine Nash’s Grave in Wormingford Church.
As some of you might have noticed I love illustrated cookery books. Not just Edward Bawden and John Minton’s work but David Gentleman and here, Adrian Daintrey. I think they are an important part of middle class history and one of the first signs of social change and aspiration.
The bottle on the cover, an Italian Chianti with the raffia, flirts with what is now a taboo bit of decor, but at the time would have graced a table with a candle inside and stylistic wax drippings. It was an age where after an extended postwar rationing and the rise of supermarkets, more interesting items were being introduced to a public that didn’t frequent delis.
This cookery book by Elizabeth David features illustrations by Adrian Daintrey.
Iced Russian Soup This is a very simplified version of a Russian summer soup called Swekolnik.
1/2lb. of the leaves of young beetroots, 4 small beetroots, half a fresh cucumber, 2 or 3 small pickled cucumbers, a few leaves of tarragon, chives, mint, fennel, ¼ pint of cream, salt, pepper, tarragon vinegar.
Wash the beet leaves, remove the stalks. Cook the leaves in a little salted water for a few minutes. Drain, squeeze perfectly dry, chop finely. Put them in a bowl.
Cut the cooked beetroots into small squares, salt them, add them to the leaves, and pour in a coffee-cupful of tarragon vinegar. Add the diced fresh and pickled cucumber, and a little of the liquid from the pickle. Pour in the cream.
Put the bowl in the refrigerator, and before serving add the chopped herbs, thin with iced water, and serve with little pieces of ice floating in the soup tureen.
This soup comes out a rather violent pink colour, but is very good on a really hot evening.
Laitue a la creme
A salad for people who cannot eat olive oil. Make a cream dressing in the following way: mix together in a cup half a teaspoon of made English mustard, a teaspoon of sugar, 2 teaspoons of tarragon vinegar, half a crushed clove of garlic (this can be left out) and the yolk of a hard-boiled egg. Stir in a teacupful of fresh cream.
Pour the dressing, very cold, over the crisp hearts of cos lettuces, and over the salad sprinkle the chopped white of the egg. Serve very cold. A very beautiful summery looking salad. If you have fresh tarragon or chives add some, chopped, to the dressing.
