Author: Robjn Cantus

Durham Wharf and Garden

Post author By Robjn Cantus
Post date 4th October 2017

Julian Trevelyan – Durham Wharf, 1971

This was a post about the garden of artists Mary Fedden and Julian Trevelyan that is listed in the Architectural Press’s book ‘The New Small Garden’ by Marjory Gill and Susan Jellicoe in 1956. But it has grown into a history of Durham Wharf and the artists that surrounded it. The garden text is at the bottom of the post but I try to explain the history of this remarkable building that is currently being monstered by modern architects.

Durham Wharf

Durham Wharf is a set of sheds on a site overlooking the Thames between Hammersmith and Chiswick. In the 1920s they had been studios for Eric Kennington who used one for painting and sculpture and his wife Celandine Kennington used one as a printing factory for the ‘Footprints’ fabrics company she was sponsoring. Some of the artists for Footprints were Joyce Clissold, Elspeth Little, Gwen Pike, Doris Gregg and Paul Nash. So the Wharf’s history is rather remarkable.

Celandine colonised the buildings with Footprints, a hand-printing operation of fabrics, later run by Joyce Clissold (1905-82), which supplied two London shops, from 1925, with modern textiles and was one of the last design workshops to carry on a direct tradition from the Arts and Crafts revival. ‡

During the early 1930s, Julian Trevelyan moved into the studios with his first wife, the potter Ursula (Mommens) (nee Darwin), she was the sister of Robin Darwin who would employ Julian at the Royal College of Art in the 60s. Below is a description on how they found the wharf:

They came upon two derelict sheds beyond which, they could see, was a cinder yard which appeared to be full of junk. This unprepossessing property, Durham Wharf, casually encountered, became the home and workplace where Julian would live for the rest of his life. The ‘junk’ was lumps of stone, left behind by the artist Eric Kennington who had made sculptures in the main studio.

View of Durham Wharf from the Street with the front white facade. (2016)

View of Durham Wharf from the garden. (2016)

Durham Wharf had originally been the depot where coal from the northeast was unloaded but after the 1920s when it had ceased being used for the unloading and distribution of coal, in more recent times it had served for as studios for various artists including Eric Kennington, the sculptor, and Len Lye, the experimental film-maker.

After taking out the lease on the Wharf, Julian and Ursula immediately enlisted their friend the architect Christopher Nicholson, the older brother of Ben Nicholson, and an early pioneer of the Modern Movement in architecture, to convert the buildings into living and working studios establishing a kiln for Ursula and studios for Julian to paint and do print making in. Living standards were basic at Durham Wharf but Julian decorated the Wharf with works had bought back from Paris by Picasso and Alexander Calder.

Durham Wharf became a centre of artistic creativity not only for Julian and Ursula but also for other artists who met and socialised there, the list of artists who visited Durham Wharf reads like a who’s who of Modern British Art. The annual boating parties Julian organised at the Wharf became celebrated occasions and it was at one of these parties that he was to meet the artist Mary Fedden who became his second wife. †

Before Julian and Ursula they were married shared an exhibition of his paintings and her pottery at the Bloomsbury Gallery in March, 1934. They married in the autumn.

The watercolours and gouaches were simple, direct depictions of their subjects. They were immediately successful and sold well in an exhibition at the Bloomsbury Gallery. ◊

Cover to the Exhibition Catalogue for the artists at the Bloomsbury Gallery

In 1935 Trevelyan bought Durham Wharf and Ursula moved in. The Wharf had a shop window facing the roadside but it was only accessible via the wooden gate at the side of the property, the couple set up a gallery in this space for themselves and their friends.

Almost immediately after settling into Durham Wharf, Julian and Ursula used an existing shop window to set up a ‘picture circulating library’. This was a part of the Wharf buildings where new pictures could be displayed and loaned to people who rang the doorbell and took a serious interest in the works. Potential purchasers were offered the chance to hang a picture on their walls, before deciding whether to buy it. This was a simple system based on trust, and many contemporary English artists (and some from Paris) sold pictures in the scheme. It was one of the many ways in which Julian endeavoured to help fellow artists. John Tunnard, Cecil Collins, Ceri Richards, Henry Moore, Victor Pasmore, Graham Sutherland and Ivon Hitchens were all involved at some stage. ○

A leaflet for the Picture Circulating Library at Durham Wharf. Using the design from the Bloomsbury Exhibition Catalogue cover and a doodled king on top.

The area was becoming fashionable for artist to live cheaply outside of central London. In the late 1920′s the area has its own artist community; ‘The Chiswick Group’, a set of artists in the area much at the same time as the Bloomsbury, Camden Town and Chelsea groups. Artists known to be in the group were painters William McCance, Raymond Coxon, William Coldstream, Nicola Counsell, Edna Ginesi, Eric and Celandine Kennington, Elizabeth Violet Polunin, and the list of Footprint artists above due to the studios location. The sculptor Gertrude Hermes was a member, as was the writer A.P. Herbert and his painter wife, Gwen Herbert.

The Chiswick Group was a conspiracy of talents outside the common hierarchy, inclusion was not conferred by privilege alone. ‡

Vera Ross – Chiswick House, 1937 – An advert for the Chiswick Group can be seen in the bottom right corner.

Durham Wharf itself provided a worthy subject for a series of paintings executed in the 1940s of which our Durham Wharf is one of the most striking. First worked on in 1940, Julian returned to complete the painting in 1943. Depicting himself and Ursula in the garden of the Wharf, it’s hard to conceive that it was painted in the middle of the Second World War. †

The painting referred to is below.

Julian Trevelyan – Durham Wharf, 1943

For the Trevelyans it (Durham Wharf) was home and studio, and the centre of a lively social life – the high point of which was their annual Boat Race party. All sorts of friends and acquaintances were invited to this “beer and buns” jamboree over the years. Dylan Thomas, Stanley Spencer, Cyril Connolly and A P Herbert all attended, and on another occasion Auden and Isherwood were given a send-off party on their way to China. ♠

At the Isherwood and Auden party were: E.M. Forster, Benjamin Britten. There was a fight with poet and writer Brian Howard and socialite Eddie Gathorne-Hardy. It must have been quite an evening:

It was estimated that between 200 and 300 people were crushed into Durham Wharf, and the event ended, Trevelyan recalled, ‘in a bit of a rough-house’. According to Britten’s elliptical diary, even before his party arrived at Durham Wharf there had been a ‘colossal row – on phone Christopher & me v. Rupert Doone’. This presumably concerned the forthcoming production of ‘On the Frontier’, which was to have taken place at the Cambridge Arts Theatre during the authors’ absence abroad, supervised by Britten and Spender, who were both now directors of the Group Theatre. Medley recalled that the two playwrights arrived at the Durham Wharf party:

Suitably late for a star entry, accompanied, as if on a state visit, by Prime Minister E. M. Forster; Secretary of State Cyril Connolly; and supported by the drunken halberdiers Brian Howard and Edward Gathome-Hardy. Predictably, these latter soon invaded the out-of-bounds bedroom and were discovered by Julian holding a private party on the bed. After a sharp exchange, during which Howard loudly proclaimed that he would not have his best friend, Eddie, insulted by the worst painter in London, Bob Wellington [the Group Theatre’s business manager] was called in to attempt an eviction, and was immediately challenged to a fight in the small courtyard, in the centre of which was a newly planted magnolia. This ridiculous combat, which I witnessed less as a referee than as a kind of policeman on behalf of the management, lasted but a few moments, as Bob’s Spectacles were knocked off his nose, and Eddie was too drunk to press his advantage.

This version of events (one of many), is disputed by Trevelyan’s second wife, Mary Fedden, who said that the principal fight (perhaps also one of many) was between Trevelyan and Connolly, who disliked each other. Unsatisfied by the drink on offer, Connolly ostentatiously produced a hip flask, which was subsequently handed round. When it reached Trevelyan, Connolly bellowed: ‘I’m not having that man drink my bloody whisky’. Trevelyan promptly knocked Connolly down, whereupon he was floored by one of Connolly’s friends. At the end of this altercation, several distinguished members of what the Sunday Times described as ‘London’s literary and artistic clans’ were to be seen ‘bleeding in the flowerbeds’. ‘Beastly crowed & unpleasant people’ Britten noted in his diary. ‘Christopher leaves in temper’. ♣

After ten years of marriage, Julian and Ursula would be in trouble and Julian would fall in love with Mary Fedden. Julian and Ursula had a son called Peter in this time but Julian divorced Ursula in 1950 and married Mary Fedden in 1951. Mary moved in and lived there long after Julian’s death in 1988. Fedden dying in 2012.

Julian Trevelyan – West Wind, 1983

In the 1960s the Shepherd’s wood-yard that was next door to Durham Wharf burnt down. Durham Wharf was unharmed but Trevelyan purchased the land and with architect Michael Partrick they developed a set of studio houses, finished in 1974. They were designed for artists to use and it is a condition for those who want to live there. The development was named St Peter’s Wharf. Noted occupants have been Hugh Cronyn, Prunella Clough, Bernard Myers and Barbara Brown. Artist Ben Johnson lives here and is chairman of the Trevelyan Arts Trust. ♥

The buildings are still standing today but are sold as artists studios only.

A Riverside Garden in Chiswick From ‘The New Small Garden’.

From a study of the plan alone, this garden would appear to be formal, but in reality, although the ‘bones‘ of the design are regular, the skilled placing of individual plants of character has given the narrow entrance garden and the outdoor-living garden an air of bohemian casualness. The artist owners, Julian Trevelyan and his wife, Mary Fedden, had two thoughts uppermost in their mind; to have a garden that would look after itself when they were away for long periods abroad, and a garden suited to sociable living. They were faced with the need for getting rid of a substantial quantity of surplus rubble and rubbish, and rather than meet the cost of having it carted away (always an expense in towns), they used it to create interesting changes of level. Much of it was used to make the raised platform in the corner, which gives a view down river and serves as a shady terrace for tables and benches. To vary the levels in a small garden is a happier solution for disposing of rocks and bricks than using them to make the all too familiar pseudo-rock garden. A rock garden, by its very nature, should be associated with an open landscape, and perhaps one of the secrets of good taste, as shown in this garden, is that the conception should be appropriate to the circumstances.

The grass plots and flower beds are all raised above the home-made, random rectangular paving, edged with old brick. It is a collector’s garden in the sense that most of the plants have been raised from seeds and cuttings gathered in other countries, from the gardens of friends or from the hedgerows. Full value is given to plants that have beautiful shape and foliage; it could be said, in fact. that the stately giant cow parsnip or the mullein with its towering candelabra of flowers, are treated almost like pieces of sculpture to give a sense of form and emphasis. An interesting comparison can be made between this garden and that of Barbara Jones. Both depend on appreciation of plant form, but whereas Miss Jones chooses to arrange her plants so that the shape and texture of one acts as a fell to others, Mr. Trevelyan is not so much concerned with the juxtaposition of plants as with an appreciation of the value of the form of the individual plant. Being artists with a cosmopolitan background, Mr. and Mrs. Trevelyan naturally enjoy good food and although they have no room for growing vegetables, full use has been made of the soil between the paving stones to grow many herbs.

The bold, branching flower stems and the finely cut foliage of the common fennel are not only a decoration in the garden and in the house, when cut, but are used in sauces or as a garnish. Mint, various thymes, basil, tarragon and chervil, a bush of sage and a clump of marjoram are all herbs that grow well in such a situation.

Both the entrance garden and the living garden depend largely on plants with restful grey-green leaves, such as the Cistus purpureus with its familiar Mediterranean scented foliage, plantain lily and the stately plume poppy, which likes to be planted in partial shade so that its leaves have shelter and the strong inflorescences can grow into the brighter light above. The grey-leaved Alyssum saxatile Sedum cauticolum with its blueish-grey waxy leaves, and other small plants billow out. informally over the paving. In the entrance garden a Clematis montana rubens throws its pink flowers over the kiln and can be enjoyed over the top of the six-foot wall by passers-by. On the boundary wall of the entrance garden a sweetwater vine grows freely and once produced thirty eight pounds of white grapes to make sixteen bottles of home made wine. Outdoor vines, if they are to fruit well, need a sunny aspect, adequate drainage and good fibrous loam to start them Oh“. As they are gross feeders it is well to fortify them with well-decayed farm-yard manure and coarse bone meal. A good substitute for farm-yard manure, which is by no means easy to get in towns, is well-rotted compost, and it will be noticed that Mr. Trevelyan has made provision for his compost heap in a corner of the outdoor-living garden.

The entrance garden. leading from the road to the living-room (A on plan)
The plants on the right. mostly in shade, are herbs and other grey-green leafed plants, culminating in the dramatic group of grant cow parsnip.

Immediately to the left inside the gate is an essay in colour and texture, With a Clematis Nelly Moser; climbing over an old tree stump as the central feature.

A general View of the Inner garden (B on plan).

Julian Trevelyan – Durham Wharf, 1943

Trevelyan wrote of the wharf: “Here I put down my tap root: my life was measured by its tides and my dreams were peopled by its swans and seagulls.” One painting records the wharf as Trevelyan saw it in the 1940s: a patch of bright green against a still industrial background of smoking chimneys. ♦

Lunch on the raised terrace overlooking the Thames.

Seen from the studio the mullein has the quality of sculpture. The fennel beside it sends up a fountain of feathery leaves.

Mary and Julian in the garden.

Mary Fedden – Julian and Sunflower, 1984

† Philip Trevelyan – Julian Trevelyan, Lund Humphries, Farnham, p143, 2013.
‡ Jane Hill – The Sculpture of Gertrude Hermes – p13-14, 2011
♠ Andrew Lambirth – Julian Trevelyan and Mary Fedden, The Telegraph, 18 May 2013
♣ Peter Parker – Isherwood, p371, 2005
♥ Panorama of the Thames website.
♦ Maev Kennedy – 5 September 2016
◊ Jose Manser – Mary Fedden and Julian Trevelyan, 2012.
○ Philip Trevelyan – Julian Trevelyan: Picture Language, 86-87, 2013

Tags Christopher Isherwood, Durham Wharf, julian trevelyan, Mary Fedden

Bawden in King’s Lynn

Post author By Robjn Cantus
Post date 4th October 2017

A short and simple post on four drawings by Edward Bawden around King’s Lynn. Originally drawn for the Sundour Diary and Notebook in 1953.

Edward Bawden – Country Railway Station, 1953

At the station. King’s Lynn would have been a change stop for trains heading to Hunstanton, then a vibrant a popular holiday town.

Edward Bawden – Seafarers’ Wharf, 1953

The buoy and pub as they are today. The dockyards now out of use, there are less buoys and anchors than in Bawden’s time.

Edward Bawden – Ancient Warehouses, 1953

The old Bowkers warehouses, a late 18th century brick warehouse with 19th century alterations and a 1940s corn drying kiln. The warehouse was originally connected to the 15th, 17th and 18th century merchant’s house at 1 St Margaret’s Place. Most of the warehouse was demolished in 1974 and a magistrates court now stands on the site.

Below is a photograph further down the wharf with the railway carts in front on the quayside.

Marriott’s Warehouse, South Quay, King’s Lynn, c1920

Below is a drawing of the Custom House in Kings Lynn. It was designed by architect Henry Bell and built by Sir John Turner in 1683. It now houses the town’s Tourist Information Office. The building was described by architect Nikolaus Pevsner as ‘one of the most perfect buildings ever built’.

Edward Bawden – Seaport Sentinel, 1953

King’s Lynn Customs House, c1930.

Tags Edward Bawden, great bardfield, Kings Lynn, Nikolaus Pevsner, Pevsner

John Piper on the South Bank Show,

Post author By Robjn Cantus
Post date 28th September 2017

John Piper on the South Bank Show, 1983

It covers his painting history and also features him painting at Covehithe in Suffolk before his exhibition at the Tate.

John Egerton Christmas Piper CH (13 December 1903 – 28 June 1992) was an English painter, printmaker and designer of stained-glass windows and both opera and theatre sets. His work often focused on the British landscape, especially churches and monuments, and included tapestry designs, book jackets, screen-prints, photography, fabrics and ceramics. He was educated at Epsom College and trained at the Richmond School of Art, followed by the Royal College of Art in London. He turned from abstraction early in his career, concentrating on a more naturalistic but distinctive approach, but often worked in several different styles throughout his career. He was an official war artist in World War II and his war-time depictions of bomb damaged churches and landmarks, most notably those of Coventry Cathedral, made Piper a household name and led to his work being acquired by several public collections. Piper collaborated with many others, including the poets John Betjeman and Geoffrey Grigson on the Shell Guides, and with the potter Geoffrey Eastop and the artist Ben Nicholson.

Tags john piper, video

The Spirit Of Progress

Post author By Robjn Cantus
Post date 27th September 2017

C.R.W Nevinson – La Mitrailleuse, 1915

Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson was a fascinating man who in life and letters seems paranoid and jealous of the success of others, no matter how well he himself was doing. Many of his friends he drove away in one way or the other due to his incredible ability to take offence. In 1920, the critic Charles Lewis Hind wrote that:

‘It is something, at the age of thirty one, to be among the most discussed, most successful, most promising, most admired and most hated British artists.†

He studied at the Slade art school alongside Mark Gertler, Stanley Spencer, Paul Nash, Maxwell Gordon Lightfoot, John Currie, Edward Wadsworth, Rudolph Ihlee, Adrian Allinson and Dora Carrington.

His time at the Slade was unhappy, the tutor Henry Tonks hated his work, he and Gertler fell in love with Dora Carrington (as did most men it seems) and their strong friendship was shattered when Carrington started having intercourse with Gertler.

His work however was visual and strong and he was inspired by the Italian Futurists, Cubists and his work follows themes of the Vorticists, even though he was not a member of the group after irking Wyndham Lewis.

After a brief stint as a journalist he went back to art. At the outbreak of World War I, Nevinson joined the Friends’ Ambulance Unit and was deeply disturbed by his work tending wounded French soldiers in Flanders. For a very brief period he served as a volunteer ambulance driver before ill health forced his return to Britain. Subsequently, Nevinson volunteered for home service with the Royal Army Medical Corps. He used these experiences as the subject matter for a series of powerful paintings which used the machine aesthetic of Futurism and the influence of Cubism to great effect. His fellow artist Walter Sickert wrote at the time that Nevinson’s painting:

Mr Nevinson’s Mitrailleuse, which will probably remain the most authoritative and concentrated utterance on the war in the history of painting. This must be for the nation. ‡

In 1917, Nevinson was appointed an official war artist, but he was no longer finding Modernist styles adequate for describing the horrors of modern war, and he increasingly painted in a more realistic manner to the point that ’Paths Of Glory, 1917’ was censored from display.

The First World War was one were that artists embraced Printmaking due to the lack of materials at hand, it saw the medium rise up from trade and advertising to one of art. Nevinson’s prints of WW1 were lively, hellish and futuristic.

Nevinson’s printmaking is unique in a number of ways. He was virtually the only artist who was directly concerned with Modernism to use etching and mezzotint. Every other important artist in this regard turned to wood engraving, cutting, or lithography, perhaps to break away from the established traditional etchers with whom they did not wish to be associated. Nevinson actually only attempted two woodcuts.

During the years 1916-19, Nevinson was instrumental in establishing modern ideas in British printmaking, which should be seen in the context of Vorticism, and Nevinson’s own earlier painting. Another antecedent was Edward Wadsworth’s woodcuts. ♠

C.R.W Nevinson – The Spirit Of Progress, 1915

However, this post is about the lithograph by C.R.W.Nevinson made in 1933 called ‘The Spirit Of Progress’. It is an iconic yet strange picture, almost a greatest hits of Nevinson’s artworks of the previous twenty years.

The arrangement of ‘The Spirit Of Progress’ is one Nevinson would visit many times. In ’Twentieth Century’ the Thinker by Auguste Rodin is in the centre of a war and skyscraper combination of airplanes and weaponry.

C.R.W Nevinson – Twentieth Century

‘The Spirit Of Progress’ takes place on the seventh floor of the Paris studio of the author and journalist Sisley Huddleston, as seen in the painting ‘A Studio in Montparnasse’, with the windows, curtains from this setting.

C.R.W Nevinson – A Studio in Montparnasse, 1925

Curiously enough the painting ‘A Studio in Montparnasse’ was exhibited at Leicester Galleries in March 1926 as though it were finished but after the exhibition Nevinson repainted areas of it, adding a swagger to the curtains and removing the artist painting the nude. The original version is pictured below from The Sketch newspaper.

C.R.W Nevinson – A Studio in Montparnasse, from The Sketch, 3 March 1926

When Huddleston saw the painting he was outraged of the addition of the nude model. In ‘The Spirit Of Progress’ the painting of the model is kept but is replaced with a stone Aphrodite of Milos like figure. In the painting ‘Asters’ the model is shown as a small piece of sculpture on the artists desk, though a mirror image, a print is the reverse of how it is drawn. This also happened when Nevinson transcribed ‘Loading Timber, Southampton Docks’ into the print ‘Dock Workers Loading’ it is a mirror image of the painting, being drawing as a print, the same as the painting and reversed in the printing.

C.R.W Nevinson – Asters

As above – outside the window to the right are the funnels of an ocean-liner, the type that Nevinson painted below in 1916 with the cranes for the docks.

C.R.W Nevinson – Loading Timber, Southampton Docks, 1917.

C.R.W Nevinson – Dock Workers Loading, 1917.

Above the ocean-liner in the mist is St Pauls, Nevinson painted the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral many times from different view points. Planes fly over head, not the Blitz yet, as ‘The Spirit Of Progress’ dates from 1933. It was the early days of aviation and airline travel and aircraft had been used in the World War One as Nevinson was sent up, Biggles style to draw the De Havilland D.H.2 planes in Dog Fights.

C.R.W Nevinson – City of London from Waterloo Bridge, 1934

C.R.W Nevinson – St Paul’s from the South

The Bayonets shown are found in many of Nevinson’s First World War pictures, below is an etching of French infantrymen matching though a town. As it is an early picture from the war it is more Futurist in style. The same can be said of ‘Returning to the trenches’, a painting of men marching off into the distance.

C.R.W Nevinson – A Dawn, 1914.

C.R.W Nevinson – Returning to the Trenches, 1914

At the base of the the picture is a Howitzer Gun among the bayonet knives. Nevinson painted the gun on its own in a ‘A Howitzer Gun in Elevation’. A mechanical and rather Futuristic painting. The First World War being about the machines and not the humans operating them.

C.R.W Nevinson – A Howitzer Gun in Elevation, 1917

C.R.W Nevinson – New York, Night, 1920.

Nevinson was invited to New York in 1919 by David Keppel of the print publishers Frederick Keppel and Co, to exhibit his War prints. Manhattan’s architecture inspired him, not only by the sheer beauty of its sky-scrapers. ♣

It is interesting to see what then happened between the first and second exhibition in New York. When Nevinson first went to New York, it was as a war hero, a survivor and documenter of war in a bold new ‘futurist’ way. And the first exhibition was a success.

He was clearly captivated by the city, compared to the London of the 1920s it must have been something, the skyscrapers of the day in New York would have been the Woolworth Building (60 stories) and the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower (50 stories), but most of the ‘skyscrapers’ of the early 1920s peaked around 30 stories tall. London didn’t start building above 20 stories until the 1960s. Nevinson is quoted below:

‘New York, being the Venice of this epoch, has triumphed, thanks to its engineers and architects, as successfully as the Venetians did in their time.. Where the Venetian drove stakes into his sandbanks to overcome nature, the American has pegged his city to the sky. No sight can be more exhilarating and beautiful than this triumph of man. ♥

His second exhibition was a series of paintings and etchings of New York that failed to capture the attention of the public. The press were kind but the works did not sell well and there is little reporting of the second exhibition in comparison to the first.

Below is an extract from the New York Herald, 24th October, 1920.

“Art,” says Mr. Nevinson, “triumphs in utility, and the most beautiful products of
the modern world are a Rolls-Royce car and a skyscraper. They have been built for strict utility; their lines are perfect and they must appeal to the genuine artist. New York will be remembered for its introduction of the architecture of the skyscraper long after its people have been forgotten for other things.” ◊

New York should like Mr. Nevinson and his work, for surely he Is her friend. No
native could ever idealize America’s greatest city more than this foreigner. ◊

C.R.W Nevinson – The Soul of the Soulless City, Previously known as New York – an Abstraction ,1920.

The poor reception of this exhibition may have accelerated Nevinson’s disaffection with the city. His growing embitterment is perhaps reflected by the change of title. Originally exhibited in 1920 at the Bourgeois Galleries, ‘New York, as New York – an Abstraction’, it was re-titled ‘The Soul of the Soulless City’ in the Faculty of Arts Exhibition, Grosvenor House, London, in 1925 probably at Nevinson’s instigation. ♦

‘The Spirit Of Progress’ has all the motifs mentioned above and of all my Nevinson prints is my favourite.

† M J. K. Walsh – A Dilemma of English Modernism, 2007
‡ Walter Sickert – Burlington Magazine, The True Futurism – April – 1916
♠ Robin Garton – British Printmakers 1855 – 1955, 1992
♣ C.R.W. Nevinson 1889 – 1946 Retrospective Exhibition Of Paintings, Drawings And Prints: Kettle’s Yard Gallery 1988
♥ David Cohen – C.R.W. Nevinson, The Twentieth Century, p46, 1999.
◊ New York Herald, 24th October, 1920.
♦ Tate, London, T07448.

Tags Christopher Nevinson, CRW Nevinson, lithography, New York

John Reginald Brunsdon ARCA

Post author By Robjn Cantus
Post date 21st September 2017

John Reginald Brunsdon ARCA

John Brunsdon (1933-2014) studied at the Royal College of Art from 1955 to 1958. He was head of the printmaking department at St.Albans College of Art for sixteen years and later lived near Diss on the Suffolk/Norfolk border where he had his own print workshop.

Landscape was always John’s foremost influence, even when images were still abstract and influenced by American abstract expressionists such as Kline and Motherwell. He was fascinated by man’s mark on the landscape – the contrast between buildings and countryside: the one temporary the other timeless and primeval.

All of John’s work is individually hand etched, inked, coloured and printed. He took delight in the texture and decorative qualities of etched marks and the sweeping shapes of broad colour which fuse into timeless images.

He exhibited widely in the United States and Europe, and in New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and Canada, as well as participating in many one-man shows and group exhibitions in the UK. His work is represented in many major public collections, including the Tate Gallery, the British Council, Scottish Museum of Modern Art, the V & A, The Arts Council, the Museum of Modern Art New York. Brunsdon is widely considered one of Britain’s most distinguished printmakers.

Tags ARCA, British Artists, Etching, John Brunsdon, Norfolk Artists, Printmaker, video

Ealing Movie Posters

Post author By Robjn Cantus
Post date 20th September 2017

Ealing Studios have many wonderful films, but there was a period of time when they would hire fine-art artists to design promotional ephemera and posters.

A good example is for the movie ‘Painted Boats’ from 1945. The artwork for the film was designed by John Piper. The painting of the Canal boat has a graphic device painted in by Piper, like the top of a decorative headstone.

The Movie Poster for Painted Boats, 1945.

The original painting for the film poster by John Piper.

In the credit sequence of the film there is a stylised version of the graphic device used by John Piper – I am unsure if Ealing Studios gave him it to paint first, or if he painted it and they cleaned it up for the film. The backdrop to this maybe a pro-type painting used as the movies title sequence as the trees are not the same in the image above.

The posters for Ealing Studios films feature artwork by many of the era’s greatest artists including John Piper, Edward Bawden, Eric Ravilious, Edward Ardizzone and Mervyn Peake, while the acting talent is a roll-call of many of Britain’s greatest performers. †

Even when commissioned, the studio didn’t always use the artwork by the artists, ‘The Bells Go Down’, 1942 was John Pipers first work with Ealing and although paid for his efforts, they didn’t use the artwork for the poster.

The Bells Go Down, 1942. Poster prototype design by John Piper.

Ealing’s advertising department was headed up by S. John Woods, who trained as an artist and graphic designer, before working in a variety of advertising roles, including a stint at Twentieth Century Fox in the 1930s. In 1943, he joined Ealing to help realise the vision of the studio’s chief publicist, Monja Danischewsky.

Unusually for a designer working in film advertising, Woods wasn’t afraid to bring politics into the equation. Throughout the 1930s he moved in artistic circles that included Ben Nicholson, Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth, soaking up the energy and fervour of the interwar generation, cultivating a love of British abstract and surrealist art and actively contributing to exhibitions and articles challenging the established order.

Below is a curious mixture of Ealing Films own graphics department and artists work, in this case using Ronald Searle’s cartoons based on the film and using his St Trinian’s girls series.

The Lavender Hill Mob – Ealing Studios with decorations by Ronald Searle, 1951.

Below is another drawing by Ronald Searle for the Danish version of the poster. The drawing of Alex Guinness is wonderful.

Danish Poster for Masser af Guld – Lots of Gold. The Lavender Hill Mob, 1951.

The artist John Minton also made two poster designs for Ealing Studios for the movie ‘Eureka Stockade’, one landscape, one portrait. At first it might look like they are the same image cropped, but the way the man above the cartwheel handles his gun, the riders at the end of the stockade and the man with the razor-blade behind the soldier show they are not the same image, just very similar.

John Minton – Eureka Stockade, 1949

Here are two Posters by Edward Bawden, one for ‘Hue & Cry’ and the other is ‘The Titfield Thunderbolt’. The mixed perspectives of this and the light and dark boys used in both are wonderful. Both posters have hand-drawn typography.

Edward Bawden – Hue & Cry Poster, 1947

Edward Bawden – The Titfield Thunderbolt Poster, 1952

John Piper – Pink String and Sealing Wax Poster, 1945.

Above is the poster designed by John Piper and like in ‘Painted Boats’ the opening credits also used a similar design to the poster. The opening credits image actually comes from his ’Brighton Aquatints’ folio of prints, published in 1939. The poster must be adapted from the drawing.

John Piper – Kemp Town, 1939

† Page 2 – Press Release – Ealing Films – Light and Dark
‡ Ealing and the art of the film poster

Tags Bardfield Artists, Ealings Studios, Edward Bawden, great bardfield, John Minton, john piper, Ronald Searle

Edward Bawden Documentary

Post author By Robjn Cantus
Post date 18th September 2017

Here is a documentary on Edward Bawden, Broadcast on Anglia TV in November 1983. It shows Bawden in his studio and house, talking of his war work and life in art and design.

Tags Edward Bawden, Eric Ravilious, great bardfield, video

Making The Megaliths

Post author By Robjn Cantus
Post date 13th September 2017

Paul Nash – Black and white negative, stone personage, Avebury, 1933

Paul Nash is one of the most distinctive and important British artists of the 20th century. He is known for his work as an official war artist during both WW1 and WW2. He also was one of the most evocative landscape painters of his generation. Nash was a pioneer of modernism in Britain, promoting the avant-garde European styles of abstraction and surrealism in the 1920s and 1930s.

This post is about the printing process and how the Landscape of the Megaliths lithograph was made, showing each of the layers that were printed to make up the final image.

Paul Nash – Landscape of the Megaliths – Watercolour, 1937

Last summer I walked in a field near Avebury where two rough monoliths stand up, sixteen feet high, miraculously patterned with black and orange lichen, remains of an avenue of stones which led to the Great Circle. A mile away, a green pyramid casts a gigantic shadow. In the hedge, at hand, the white trumpet of a convolvulus turns from its spiral stem, following the sun. In my art I would solve such an equation. ‡

This lithograph by Nash is the bridge between romantic and surrealist art of the 1930s. Looking like a desert landscape by Dali the monoliths are both alien and familiar as Nash notes in the quote above. The convolvulus plant is a pernicious weed, I remember it covering a water-pump in the village I grew up in.

It is odd to consider that in my design I, too, have tried to restore the Avenue. The reconstruction is quite unreliable, it is wholly out of scale, the landscape is geographically and agriculturally unsound. The stones seem to be moving rather than to be deep-rooted in the earth. And yet archaeologists have confessed that the picture is a true reconstruction because in it Avebury seems to revive. ♠

Above is the original watercolour that Nash and the printers would have worked from. The colours have replaced and layered over shadow and texture. Below are many colour layers from the print showing the levels of tone and texture Nash would have used to put into the print. The main tones are printed one-by-one and then variations of tone are printed and layered, and the colours adjusted until the print is final. All the prints came from the V&A archive.

† Paul Nash by Emma Chambers, 2016
‡ The Oxford History of English Art, Volume 11 – Dennis Farr, 1979
♠ Paul Nash writing in Art and Education – March, 1939

Tags ANCIENT MONUMENTS, lithography, Paul Nash

Edward Bawden and the Arabs

Post author By Robjn Cantus
Post date 6th September 2017

Edward Bawden – Lithograph for Travellers’ Verse, 1946.

This post is the story of Edward Bawden’s war work in the War Artists Advisory Committee (WAAC) as an artist and how he used the wartime drawings and paintings in illustration work, like the The Puffin Picture Book ‘The Arabs’ but other post-war commissions.

Edward Bawden – Shaikh Sharif al-Hafi, 1944.

When the Second World War broke out in 1939, Edward Bawden had already established a reputation as an illustrator, a comic draughtsman, a designer of typographical ornaments and patterns, a print-maker and a painter of landscapes in water-colour.

Bawden was appointed one of the first Official War Artists and was sent to join the British Army in France with Barnett Freedman and Edward Ardizzone. After being evacuated via Dunkirk, he was sent to the Middle East where he spent two years painting and drawing in Egypt, Libya, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. During his return journey to England, his ship was torpedoed; he then spent two months in a French internment camp before being released, and arrived in England safely, only to return to the Middle East, journeying around Cairo, Baghdad, Jeddah, Teheran, Ur of the Chaldees; he was drawing all the time, finally ending his travels in Rome. †

Edward Bawden – Shaikh Raisan al-Gassid, 1944.

The WAAC recommended in December 1939 that Bawden should be appointed as an official Air Ministry artist. In May 1940, after his return from France with the withdrawal from Dunkirk. Bawden expressed his regret at having had to leave, and Dickey reported him to be “extremely anxious to be sent out again to another scene of activity”. He departed for the Middle East in July. ♦

After the war Bawden stayed in Cheltenham while repairs and work were made to his home, Brick House; It was the only building in Great Bardfield to suffer from bomb damage, but Bawden also used the opportunity to make alterations and build a studio to the back of the house. The house was used and abused by the Home Guard during the war.

John Aldridge – Builders at Work, Brick House, Great Bardfield, 1946.

Bawden’s time as a war artist had given him the advantage of travel but also an abundance of sketch books and work that were still fresh in his mind in 1945. So it was in November of that year that Noel Carrington, the head of Puffin Books at Penguin was writing to his Allen Lane, his boss about Bawden and the planned book ‘The Arabs’:

12^thNovember 1945
I have arranged for Bawden to meet you here on Wednesday afternoon at three o’clock, so you can discuss the alternative approaches to The Arabs book with him. As an illustrator, one method will suit him as well as another. ♥

From this meeting payments were settled and Bawden took on the job of illustrating the book. The text for the book was by Robert Bertram Serjeant, Nicknamed ‘Bob’. Serjeant was a Scottish scholar, traveller, and one of the leading Arabists of his generation.

Edward Bawden – Front cover design for The Arabs, 1947.

Bawden to Carrington, 24 July 1946:
“The book is getting on slowly – I work upon the lithographs for a few hours every day, but because of the fine detail I find the work rather a strain on the eyes. In all I have finished one-fifth of the drawings but these include some of the most elaborate ones such as the two double spreads.’ ♥

As you can see in the image below, Bawden recycled some of his paintings from the war and used them in the making of the book. The man to the right – on the boat is ‘Shaikh Sharif al-Hafi’, pictured at the top of this post.

Edward Bawden – Detail from ‘The Arabs’, p18, 1947.

Below I have edited both images side-by-side and you can see how the line drawing has been simplified for the lithographic process.

Although ‘The Arabs’ became a factual book rather than the ‘story’ title Carrington intended, it is one of the highlights of the series. Bawden’s lithographs are as good as any he completed and the two full double page spreads are superb examples of his mastery of line; Curwen made a good job of the printing. ♥

Edward Bawden – Detail from The Arabs, p30, 1947

The text of ‘The Arabs’ doesn’t shy away from the Crusades and they are also illustrated as in the image above and below. The historical detail also takes in the history of the Arabic nations, how important they were during the silk road trade routes and how they declined after the European travellers sailed by boat beyond the Cape of Good Hope to China and India.

Edward Bawden – Double page spread from The Arabs, p30-31, 1947

Again, below and side by side are both the lithographed policeman from ‘The Arabs’ and the portrait Bawden painted during his war service. It really demonstrates the cheerful nature of his line drawings. It also shows how he used paintings and sketches to make the book as accurate as it could be.

Edward Bawden – Baghdad: An Illustration of Iraqi Policemen’s Uniforms, 1943

Edward Bawden – Detail from ‘The Arabs’, p6, 1947

A Digital Edit of the book ‘The Arabs’ & Bawden’s War Portrait of the Policeman

The most beautiful of the two double-page illustrations is the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah, 636AD, when the Rashidun Caliphate overthrew the Sasanian Empire.

Edward Bawden – Double Page Spread from ‘The Arabs’ p26-27, 1947

The Sassanid Persian army, about 60,000 strong, fell into three main categories, infantry, heavy cavalry, and the Elephant corps. The Elephant corps was also known as the Indian corps, for the elephants were trained and brought from Persian provinces in India. The Arabic side is said to have been 36,000 strong, just over half, and yet they won.

Edward Bawden – Double Page Spread from ‘The Arabs’ p27, 1947

Interestingly the book was never reprinted, and indeed could have been withdrawn and pulped! On the last pages of The Arabs, Bawden had illustrated ‘Muhammad mounted on Buraq’ ascending to the Seventh Heaven’. Obviously no one Bawden, Carrington or Lane had realised the grave offence that the depiction of the Prophet would cause.

The Cairo branch of W.H. Smith, which had ordered 5,000 copies, wrote requesting: ‘would there be any way of painting out the rider’.

Complaints flooded in and the Commonwealth Relations Office wrote to Penguin: The Puffin Picture Book No 61, entitled The Arabs, has on the last page a pictorial representation of the Prophet Mohammed and there have been in the Pakistan Press various letters protesting against this illustration.

As you no doubt know, any representation of the Prophet gives grave offence to Muslim sentiment. Although from a non-Muslim point of view such representations may appear harmless, it is none the less true that Muslim objections to representation of the Prophet in any form are based on sincere conviction.

You will, I am sure, appreciate that in inviting your attention to this matter we do not wish in any way to appear to be interfering with editorial responsibility. But we felt it right to draw your attention to the ill effects which an otherwise excellent little book may have in the Muslim world. Perhaps you would be good enough to bear this in mind should a reprint be under consideration?

One can only imagine the colour of the air when Allen Lane realised that his flagship Puffin was fatally flawed. Understandably The Arabs was never reprinted. ♥

I must add that after mentioning I was writing this post to a friend, they convinced me not to include the image of Mohammed in the blog too. If you wish to see the image you will just have to order a copy of the book to find out at your own offence.

Edward Bawden – Detail from ‘The Arabs’, p15, 1947

The painting below is of Mohammed Bin Abdullah El Atshan, King Ibn Saud’s representative at Rumaliya. This painting is a copy made in 1966 of a painting from 1943 made at the request of a British Petroleum executive when Bawden was painting a mural at the British Petroleum restaurant. The wall of petrol cans were given the BP logo at the executive’s suggestion.

Edward Bawden – Mohammed Bin Abdullah El Atshan, 1966

What is more curious to me about the above retrospective painting is that parts of it turn up twice in the Puffin ‘Arabs’ book. The image below in colour has the hawk, coffee pots, the boy with water-pot and two men standing behind the wall. The black and white illustration below has the drawing of the sitter.

Edward Bawden – Detail from ‘The Arabs’, p7, 1947

Edward Bawden – Detail from ‘The Arabs’, p25, 1947

Throughout 1946 Bawden was working on the illustrations for ‘The Arabs’ book, but it wasn’t published until 1947. Also in 1946 Bawden would illustrate a collection of poetry chosen by Mary Gwyneth Lloyd Thomas in a book called ‘Travellers’ Verse’ and he would be able to re-encounter his work of the middle east with his illustrations. These projects started to merge as parts of illustrations from his War Time Sketchbooks would end up in both.

Edward Bawden – Detail from ‘The Arabs’, p12-13, 1947

Above is an illustration of a Market in Cairo from ‘The Arabs’ and below is an illustration of a market from ‘Travellers’ Verse’, albeit a more fantastical version. Because ‘The Arabs’ was to be accurate the illustrations are more or less from his war paintings, but the ‘Travellers’ Verse’ book he was able to have more fun with the illustrations and be more fanciful.

Edward Bawden – Detail from ‘Travellers’ Verse’, 1946

In the top right corner of the image above is the Mohammed Ali Mosque in Cairo in a simple line drawing from 1946. Below you can see it from one of Bawden’s paintings in 1941.

Edward Bawden – Cairo, the Citadel: Mohammed Ali Mosque, 1941

Bawden also illustrated the mosque, as below from the other side of the city

Edward Bawden – Detail from ‘The Arabs’, p23, 1947.

During his travels Bawden was able to stay in the centre of Cairo in the Citadel on his stay as he mentions:

Public relations could deal with journalists but they didn’t know how to deal with artists. They were puzzled and Major Asterly said ‘Why not go and stay in the citadel’, which I did and I found delightful. I made one or two drawings of the Mosque of Mohammed Ali. ♠

Edward Bawden – Cairo, the Citadel: On the Roof of the Officers’ Mess, 1941

In the ‘Travellers’ Verse’ illustrations we see the city life and a fantasy of life in the countryside, with Mosque towers and street cafes to the desert landscape and camp fires.

Edward Bawden – Detail from ‘Travellers’ Verse’, 1946

In fact Bawden would be able to use the war drawings of Greece and Rome for the other plates in the book. It seems that after Rome, Athens was a disappointment as Bawden mentions:

When I returned from Florence to Rome it was suggested that I go to Greece, so I went by air, it was the first time I had seen Greece I had been to Rome several times but I was very disappointing on the sight of Athens, it didn’t have the grandeur I was expecting. ♠

Edward Bawden – Detail from ‘Travellers’ Verse’, 1946

In ‘Travellers’ Verse’ the illustration of a huddled mass of bodies in a boat on a Paul Nash sea has none of the cheer the other images have. The poem being illustrated is ‘Don Juan and his tutor Pedrillo are shipwrecked.’ Bawden himself was shipwrecked during the war off the coast of West Africa on a ship from Cape Town to London. It is another translation of his wartime experiences.

Edward Bawden – Detail from ‘Travellers’ Verse’, 1946

The Laconia was nearing the Equator in temperatures of 110 degrees Fahrenheit when, at 8pm on the evening of 12th September, 1942, it was hit twice below water level by torpedoes from the German U-boat U156 under the command of Werner Hartenstein.

Bawden with typical sangfroid resigned himself to death by drowning: ‘so I thought I’d wander round a bit and have a look. I went down to my cabin – I’d bought my wife a watch and thought I might as well go down with the watch as not.’ Then, ‘on returning from my cabin I saw ropes hanging down on the side where life-boats had been lowered and standing by one of these I was joined by a major. ‘After you, Sir’ I said. As he descended there was a splash. Sliding down the next ropes I found myself being gripped and guided into a boat. A few minutes later all the boats pulled away to a safe distance and there we sat waiting, still and silent and tense for the sound of the ship’s final end. ‡

Edward Bawden – Rescued at sea by the French warship Gloire, 1943.

The survivors were rescued by a French ship who were unkind to them and then taken to an internment camp in Casablanca where they stayed for two and a half months until rescued, this time by the Americans, who were kind. As a British citizen he was shipped to Norfolk, Virginia, USA before being shipped back to London.

Edward Bawden – Illustration from Vathek, 1958.

Many years after the war Bawden illustrated Beckford’s ‘Vathek, an Arabian Tale’ for the Folio Society in 1958, I find these illustrations rather weak personally, I can’t work out if he wanted to change to a looser style of lithographic illustration or if they were dashed out for the money, while technically good with colour layering, the end result in my view is poor. I rather suspect the commission came in conjunction with a larger one – ‘The Histories of Herodotus of Halicarnassus’ for the Limited Editions Club, a company like the Folio Society, but American; For them Bawden provided over 100 illustrations in a two volume book set.

He would illustrate Johnson’s ‘Rasselas’ in 1975 for the Folio Society with happier outcomes compared to ‘Vathek’, though not totally Arabian, it is a fantasy of travel.

To conclude the various Arabic styles of Bawden we should end with the giant mural for BP’s restaurant at Britannic House. The best of Bawden’s murals, using Islamic designs and architectural drawings to bold outcomes, it uses blocks of colour and pattern design much like one of his linocuts.

Edward Bawden – Fantasy on Islamic Architecture (Left Panel), 1966

Edward Bawden – Fantasy on Islamic Architecture (Right Panel), 1966

A view of the Dining Room in Britannic House.

† Ruari McLean , Edward Bawden War Artist & His Letters, 1989
‡ Malcolm Yorke – Edward Bawden and His Circle, 2015.
♠ 4622 Edward Bawden Audio Tape, IWM, 1980.
♣ R.B. Serjeant and Bawden Edward – The Arabs, 1947.
♥ Joe Pearson – Drawn Direct to the Plate, 2010
♦ Edward Bawden 1939-1944, ART/WA2/03/044/1

Tags british art, Edward Bawden, great bardfield, John Aldridge, Noel Carrington, Puffin Books, Puffin Picture Books, shell mex, War Art, war artists

The Shepherd’s Calendar

Post author By Robjn Cantus
Post date 30th August 2017

John Clare (1793 – 1864) was an English poet, the son of a farm labourer, who became known for his celebrations of the English countryside and sorrows at its disruption. His poetry underwent major re-evaluation in the late 20th century: he is now often seen as one of the major 19th-century poets.

This book was published in 1964 with the monthly chapters headed by a wood-engraving by David Gentleman.

The poems of Clare have been republished many times over the years with Gentleman’s illustrations but it is interesting to look at the fashions in book-jacket design using the original illustrations.

Tags Books, David Gentleman, John Clarke, Wood Engraving