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.
† Sir John Rothenstein – John Nash, 1983
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.
Below is an essay on Iain Macnab. Someone who is talked about for his and Claude Flight’s Grosvenor School. I didn’t really know a lot about Macnab but the text and illustrations are from The Artist, April 1937.
The old adage that “Those that can, do; those that can’t, teach” is one of those half-truths that are dangerous from their very speciousness. It is a good thing to dissect and expose them once in a while. So far as the fine arts are concerned, one need not look far for examples to prove the frequent falsity of this cruel and facile allegation.
Iain Macnab – LNER Poster
Sickert is one conspicuous case; Tonks (whose recent loss we mourn) is another; and among the younger men one could hardly select a better subject than lain Macnab, who can both ‘do’ and ‘teach’ with talent and finish, and who is an artist teacher because he has the two-fold vocation.
The clarity of his exposition, the whole-hearted enthusiasm with which he descants on art, the breadth and catholicity of his views, mark him out a born teacher; while his own production as a painter and engraver is proof of his capacity as a practising artist.
Macnab is of Highland ancestry, and comes of an ancient and celebrated line of Scottish armourers, the Macnabs of Barachastalain. He has always found his hand respond easily to any new technique, and he is inclined to attribute this manual aptitude to the ingrained hereditary habit produced by an age-long tradition of fine engraved work on pistols and other arms. Also, there were artists on both sides of his family. His father was in the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank, and Macnab was born on 21st October, 1890, at Iloilo, in the Philippine Islands, which were then under Spanish control. He lisped in Spanish as an infant but at the age of four he was brought home to Kilmalcolm, in Renfrewshire.
Iain Macnab – Fisherman at Portofino, 1937
During a holiday in Ireland at the age of seven a gypsy foretold that he would become an artist. He was educated at Merchiston and left school at eighteen. Already as a boy his interests were turned to sculpture, painting and cartooning, with the first perhaps pre-eminent, but the career chosen for him was that of chartered accountant, and he duly served his artiles thereto in Glasgow for five and a half years. He was due to sit for his final examination in October, 1914; with the prospect if he passed, of an excellent post in the Philippines, leading to the early reversion of a complete business.
But the outbreak of the war formed a pretext for abandoning accountancy, and Macnab enlisted at once as a private in the Highland Light Infantry. Being already trained in the school cadet corps, he found himself in France by the end of October, 1914 and is a Mons Star man. In April, 1915 he was granted a regular commission in the 2nd Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. During the battle of Loos he was blown up by a shell. After some little time symptoms of grave internal injury became evident; and in July, 1916 he was invalided out of the service.
Iain Macnab – Spring Landscape, Tossa, 1936
His cure was by no means complete, however, and it was not until 1918 that he was well enough to take the art course he had promised himself.
In that year he became a student at Heatherley’s. He had already seen and studied many good paintings; he had an uncle who knew several of the Impressionists, and who used to talk art with him; and in general his mind was well stored with paintings lore. He started work with the determination to be a professional artist or nothing; the amateur status had no attraction for him. His rapid progress, his fertility in ideas, and his clear and ready exposition of them, led Henry Massey, the Principal of the School, to see in him a potentially valuable teacher. So strongly did Massey feel this that after only a year he offered Macnab the post of joint Principal of Heatherley’s.
With this offer Macnab closed, and as a teacher worked with enthusiasm at the School till temporarily put out of action again, in 1925, by a too-vigorous pull at the etching press. While convalescent in a nursing home he decided that the time had come when he needed, for the proper expression of his educational theories, a school under his sole personal control; so, once well again he found a big house in Warwick Square, Belgravia, and on 19th October, 1925 opened there the Grosvenor School of Modern Art.
Iain Macnab – Illustrations for Burns’s Tam o’Shanter, 1934
Macnab had thought out the broad principles on which he wished to run his school. His idea was not so much to train students to paint what they saw, in the crude sense, as to teach them to isolate from nature the elements that are truly pictorial, and then to develop their own personalities. His ambition was to make artists.
To be an artist, as distinguished from a mere competent draughtsman, he felt, it is necessary first to have a personality to express. It is indispensable to the production of a work of art that an emotional reaction shall take place. Of that reaction the drawing is only a vehicle. He stresses the cardinal importance of composition; the students are encouraged to approach every problem in terms of design from the beginning, and to build up their drawings gradually on logical principles.
The preliminary visualisation of a subject in planes and its resolution by successive steps into a picture giving the illusion of three-dimensional form are clearly expounded in his recent book on ‘Figure Drawing.’ He is a firm believer in the virtues of wood-engraving as a discipline for all artists, since in this medium every mark must have its significance, and the whole thing must be thought out thoroughly in advance, for there is no scope for fumbling or retouching.
Iain Macnab – Figure Drawing, 1936
Macnab considers himself lucky to have attracted, from the first, a serious-minded type of student, took kindly to his inexorable rule of silence while at work in the studio. This rule shows his common sense, and is by no means the mark of the martinet. No one, indeed, could be less like the more starched kind of pedagogue than Macnab; and when the time comes for exposition and discussion he not only admits but encourages the criticisms of students.
He believes in the thorough ventilation of the subject, and strives to train his pupils to see the inwardness of widely-differing styles. Side by side with his teaching activities Macnab has pursued a versatile course as an artist. He began painting in 1918, and has developed, both in oils and water-colours, a distinctive style that, while it has nothing outré about it, is thoroughly in the modern trend of design.
In October, 1922 he decided that he would like to etch. He was told of five-year courses and suchlike, but this did not suit him, so he bought copper, tools, acid and a book on etching, and within three months had produced six prints which were good enough to secure his election as an Associate of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers. For some years he exhibited etchings at the Academy, but in 1929 he decided that the copper was altogether too facile and deserted it for wood engraving.
Iain Macnab – Illustration from Burns’s Tam o’Shanter, 1934
This medium he took up largely because of its recalcitrance, because of the stern discipline it imposes. In it he has done some of his finest work; and one might go a long way before finding wood-engravings to equal the ‘Tam of Shanter’ illustrations here Shown, with their beautiful distribution of blacks and whites and their admirable translation of the famous story into graphic terms.
Macnab is a member of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, Honorary Treasurer of the National Society, and was made a full R.E. in 1935. He has held only one one-man Show, at the old Albany Gallery, Sackville Street. He exhibits each year at the Royal Scottish Academy, and frequently at the London Group, the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, the New English Art Club and the National Society. He has achieved much, and much more may be expected from him in the future.
What inspires my collecting is always unknown to me, it is just “If I like it”. But I rather like the simple looking Phases of the Moon by sculpture Lynn Chadwick. So different from the triangle shaped aliens he normally represents.
Lynn Chadwick, Moon in Alabama, 1963
Chadwick’s Moon in Alabama series of 1963, variations on a faceted sphere, is a sculptor’s image, yet developed with a consciousness of the potential of printmaking for changing colour ways. †
Lynn Chadwick – Moon in Alabama (colour variant), 1963
Moon in Alabama reminds one of those evil-looking mines, horned with detonators, that were sown at sea and whose shape Chadwick may subconsciously have recalled from his Fleet Air Arm days as he worked on the maquettes. ‡
Lynn Chadwick – Moon in Alabama (colour variant), 1963
Lynn Chadwick – Moon in Alabama (colour variant), 1963
Lynn Chadwick – Maquette II Moon of Alabama
Lynn Chadwick – Maquette III Moon of Alabama
Lynn Chadwick – Full Series of Maquettes and Bottom right the final piece.
J. S. Lewinski – Lynn Chadwick with Moon of Alabama,
† Alan Powers – Art and Print: The Curwen Story, 2008 – p118
‡ Dennis Farr – Lynn Chadwick, 2003 – p52
Artists International Association was an exhibiting society founded in London in 1933, which held exhibitions and events to promote and support various left-of centre political causes. Having come out of the First World War and then seeing the global effect of the Great Depression in 1929 many of these artists wanted to promote a better world. Though the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War erupted it was important to have a society where artists could still publicly protest war in a subtle way.
Vanessa Bell – London Children in the Country, 1939
The principal founders of the A.I.A. were Misha Black, James Boswell, Clifford Rowe and Pearl Binder. The guiding ethos was to promote a radical response to political events in the world. A unity against Fascism, both home and abroad.
Its membership quickly grew throughout the 1930s and 1940s (930 members by 1945) so that in 1947 it was able to acquire permanent premises in Lisle Street. In the 50′s the political aims of the group were dropped after they broadcast support for an alliance between Britain and the Soviet Union. In 1953 it became an exhibiting society.
In the Second World War the A.I.A. started a series of prints but due to the economic climate of WW2 it wasn’t a vast success.
In 1942 it was reported to members that the scheme had run into production and retailing difficulties and with ultimately only about 5,000 prints sold, the royalities could not have been very remunerative. †
The print series ran from 1939 to 1942 and all the images in this post are taken from the series.
Helen Binyon – The Flower Show, 1939 – Everyman Prints AIA
James Boswell – Hunger marchers in Hyde Park, 1939 – Everyman Prints AIA
Helen Binyon – Summer Holiday, Walton-on-Naze, 1939 – Everyman Prints AIA
Lowes Dalbiac Luard – The Rescue, 1939 – Everyman Prints AIA
List of Artists International Association print series – 1939 to 1942
† Lynda Morris and Robert Radford – A.I.A. The Story of the Artists’ International Association, 1999. p58
One of the nicer parts of my researches into the histories of Edward Bawden and John Nash is looking at the works they created on holiday together. As artists visiting a place together it seems they would look at a subject (the bridge at Ironbridge) and wonder around to get a perspective that pleased them both. Here with the Quarry I would imagine they had less opportunity to wander about, as it was then and is still now, a working Quarry. This has given a forced subject and view. I find it interesting how they both have translated it into a painting.
On five occasions we shared a painting expedition in Wales, on the Gower Peninsula & again near Haverfordwest at Littlehaven; in Cornwall during a cold wet spell of misery in the De Lank Quarry at Blisland; at Dunwich in Suffolk & in Shropshire at Ironbridge. †
Located near Blisland, not far from Bodmin, the De Lank Granite Quarry was a particularly engaging subject for Bawden as, ‘unlike many granite quarries on or near the moors it is still being actively worked, & for that reason retains an interest that others have lost ‡
The forced perspective of where it was safe to paint gives an interesting view to how both Nash and Bawden worked. I like mostly the blash pressure and fuel tank behind the workers hut on the crane.
Edward Bawden – The De Lank quarry no.2 , 1960
John Nash – The De Lank Quarry, Cornwall, 1960
John Nash – The De Lank Quarry at Blisland, Cornwall , 1960
The paintings below likely were made on the same trip, Sharp Tor was exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 1960 and The De Lank River, De Lank Quarry No 2 and The Engine House all exhibited in the 1961 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. The last two – likely worked upon in Bawden’s studio – are sad gloomy images.
Edward Bawden – Sharp Tor, Cornwall, 1960
Edward Bawden – The De Lank River, Cornwall, 1960
Edward Bawden – The Engine House, Cornwall, 1960
† Edward Bawden to John Rothenstein, 24th April, 1979.
‡ Letter from Edward Bawden, 12 July 1961
Photograph of WW1 Dazzel Ships at sea.
Camouflage and its part in WW1 has a curious and quaint history. Most people know of the dazzle ships and how the painter Norman Wilkinson found that painting the ships not to fit in made them harder to target by the enemy. But other areas of WW1 where more subtle.
Leon Underwood – Looking Toward Ardregne, 1917
It was another artist, Leon Underwood who worked with Solomon J Solomon on making a fake tree Observation post. With so much of the war being fixed with both sides in trenches, any height was an advantage to see what the enemy was up to. You can see how trees ended up looking after months of shell-fire from the Paul Nash painting below, a fractured set of stumps piercing the sky.
Paul Nash – The Menin Road, 1919
The plans for the Trees were drawn out in blue print to look like Shelled Trees and then would be transported to the place and erected side-wards and hope the enemy didn’t notice one new tree on the horizon
Construction blueprint plan of the Observation Tree.
Below is a photograph of one of the trees in the state of manufacture. In front of the men are the shredded crowns of the trees.
Below is another photograph of a tree in situ on the field with a warren for the men to get in and out of. In the side would be a slit for the men to look out of, rather than looking over the top.
The painting below is a large Leon Underwood of how the tree was erected, foundations laid into the side of a trench so men could get under and in, others carrying the sides ready to be grafted together.
What I like about the camouflaged tree is how bonkers it is but also how obvious. Below is a painting in the epic, almost religious style by Leon Underwood, not unlike Jesus at the Cross.
Leon Underwood – Erecting a Camouflage Tree, 1919
The school had no formal curriculum and students studied what and when they wished
The Grosvenor School of Modern Art sounds like it was a liberal progressive place, but what I have always wondered was, what was the teaching like? I find it a curious place in how much of the teachers hand has been passed on to the pupils.
The Grosvenor School of Modern Art was a private British art school. It was founded in 1925 by the Scottish wood engraver Iain Macnab in his house at 33 Warwick Square in Pimlico, London. From 1925 to 1930 Claude Flight ran it with him.
The influence of the teaching of Iain MacNab is a strange one. I have noticed that many of his pupils at the
Grosvenor School of Modern Art made prints under his direction with a Spanish flare to them, mostly in the buildings. It is a signature look for MacNab, so I can’t help wondering if he was such a dominant presence that he got his pupils to mimic his work? Was it a way to succeed under him? Were the pupils expected to pick up a style and mimic it in the same way old masters like Rembrandt used to with their pupils?
The main characteristic is the buildings have have a roof that slopes down with no central pitch. I wonder how many of the pupils travelled to Spain in the late 30s or were they showing a solidarity towards the Spanish Civil War? This post is full of questions I have no answers for.
I do know that Macnab did travel to France, Spain and Corsica himself. Many of his later works in the 50s were of such landscapes. The Grosvenor School was closed in the Second World War.
Iain MacNab – A Southern Landscape, 1941
Peter Barker Mill – Spanish Lane
Tom Chadwick – Unknown, c1930s
Suzanne Cooper – Back Gardens, c1930s
Rachel Reckitt – The Farm or House in Catalonia, c1930s
Guy Malet – Gran Canaria, 1939
Alison Mckenzie – Staithes
When it came to Linocut, in the School they followed the external fashions of Futurism. A movement that started publicly in 1909 it inspired many British artists in the First World War, mostly C R W Nevinson. But these prints are much later from the 1930s. So maybe they are post-futurist? The mechanical features, repeating patterns and graphic devices made a beautiful set of prints. Ending up looking so similar to each other I still find it hard to know what is Power and
Spowers.
Cyril Power – The Escalator Print, 1929
Sybil Andrews – Racing, 1934
Lill Tschudi – Underground, 1930
Ethel Spowers – Swings, 1932
Eveline Syme – Skating, c1930