Though not a typical post for me I think it is good to investigate an artist and a muse. The X-STaTIC PRO=CeSS book by signer Madonna and photographer Steven Klein is a curious meeting of minds.
The images use the typical surroundings of the traditional muse, a bed, a chez lounge and the stage of a performer, all without any frills and stripped back. The clothes are by a range of designers but the impressive red dress is by Christian Lacroix
This last video was a photo animation. It was 8 x 26 feet.
Norman Parkinson was a celebrated British fashion and portrait photographer. Credited for inspiring important shifts in the trends of fashion photography, Parkinson left the more posed studio setting to take outdoor shots that were more dynamic and carefree than his contemporaries, adding inventive humorous elements in to his work.
Parkinson’s work regularly appeared in magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue, earning a reputation for finely produced images that combined elegance with British charm. “I like to make people look as good as they’d like to look, and with luck, a shade better,” he once quipped.
Born on April 21, 1913 in London, England, he began his photography career as an apprentice to Speaight and Sons court photographers in 1931. He would later take over as official court photography to the British monarchy following the death of predecessor, Cecil Beaton, in 1975. Parkinson would create many indelible portraits of the royal family, and was the recipient of the title Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. He died on February 15, 1990 while on assignment in Singapore.
Norman Parkinson – Régine Debrise wearing a Balenciaga ball gown, 1950
Norman Parkinson – Wenda Parkinson (née Rogerson), 1947
Norman Parkinson – The daughters of William Bramwell Booth (Olive Emma Booth; Dora Booth; Catherine Bramwell-Booth), 1981
Norman Parkinson – Anne Chambers (Owena Anne Chambers (née Newton), 1949
Norman Parkinson – Margot Fonteyn; Sir Robert Murray Helpmann, 1951
Norman Parkinson – Kathleen Ferrier, 1952
Norman Parkinson – Edward Bawden with Walter Hoyle to his left and Sheila Robinson to his right, 1951
Norman Parkinson – (John) Christopher Heal, 1953
Norman Parkinson – Joan Cox with thirty-five school children, 1955
Norman Parkinson – Wenda Parkinson (née Rogerson), 1951
Norman Parkinson – Carmen Dell’Orefice, 1980
Norman Parkinson – Dame Barbara Hamilton Cartland, 1977
Norman Parkinson – Dame Margaret Rutherford as the Duchess; Paul Scofield as Prince Albert; Mary Ure as Amanda in ‘Time Remembered’, 1955
Norman Parkinson – The Young Look in the Theatre, 1953
Norman Parkinson – Charles Alexander Vaughan Paget, Earl of Uxbridge; Lady Henrietta Charlotte Eiluned Megarry (née Paget), 1953
Norman Parkinson – Virginia Ironside with three children
History is full of artists that made amazing works and were forgotten, often in the case of women artists they studied, worked and then ceased painting when they got married. I don’t know if this happened to Peggy Rutherford or not, but she is mentioned in various reports and papers in clippings and periodicals in the 1930s, most notably from Apollo Magazine in 1931 she was mentioned as deserving ‘special praise’ for her painting ‘The Purple Magnolia’. Rutherford had a studio flat in Fitzroy Street in London. From an artistic family her aunt was Maud Rutherford who married George Hall-Neale, both portrait painters.
Rutherford studied at the Grosvenor School Of Modern Art under Iain Macnab and alongside Rachel Reckitt and Suzanne Cooper. It is clear that she favoured flower paintings and many of the works here from the 30s have a strong Bloomsbury influence as well. The Grosvenor School was a private British art school and gave the country some of the best inter-war avant garde artists; they nurtured the talents of the some of the most talented women students, Suzanne Cooper, Rachel Reckitt, Alison Mckenzie, Sybil Andrews, Lill Tschudi, Ethel Spowers, Eveline Syme and Dorrit Black to name a few. Some like Rutherford have been less documented than others.
Peggy Rutherford exhibited at the Society of Women Artists, National Society of Painters, Sculptors & Printmakers, (1936) at the Royal Academy with a watercolour called ‘Flower-piece’ (1936). She is in the correspondence of John Piper, and lived at New Malden and Chelmsford.
In 1930, two couples, Henry & Irina Moore (married in 1929), and John Skeaping & Barbara Hepworth (married in 1925) holidayed together at Church Farm, Blacksmiths Lane, Happisburgh, on the Norfolk Coast. The holiday was intended as a working one and it was hoped the time in a new location might help Skeaping / Hepworth marriage, but it did not.
In 1931 Hepworth met Ben Nicholson and later invited him and his wife Winifred Roberts to join them on another trip with the letter below:
I enclose a photo of the farm – the colour is very lovely. The country is quite flat but for a little hill with a tall flint church and a lighthouse… The beach is a ribbon of palesand as far as the eye can see. The Moore’s and ourselves should be so pleased if you came… If you can get away the farm will be less full the first week we are there – 9 Sep – 16 Sep †
Winifred was looking after their three children (Jake, Kate and Andrew) and stayed with her family in Boothby, Cumbria, while Ben went to the farmhouse. The Skeaping / Hepworth marriage hadn’t resolved itself and divorce had been spoken of before the holiday, so at first John Skeaping stayed in London. On changing his mind to join his wife in Norfolk, he found she had fallen in love with Ben Nicholson. The next week into the holiday they were joined by Ivon Hitchens and Mary and Douglas Jenkins.
(left to right) Ivon Hitchens, Irina Moore, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson and Mary Jenkins, Happisburgh in Norfolk, 1931. Mary’s husband Douglas took the photograph.
Left: Ben Nicholson and Ivon Hitchens Right: Henry Moore carrying stone
Ben Nicholson with camera
Barbara Hepworth and Ivon Hitchens, by the Church Farm Gate, 1932
Skeaping divorced his wife in two years later. But it wasn’t until 1938 that the Nicholsons got a divorce. In 1932 Hepworth found herself pregnant with Nicholson’s issue, she gave birth to triplets: Rachel, Sarah, and Simon. This would mean Ben Nicholson was the father of six children by two women.
The rest of the photos are taken in 1932 and show the fashion for naked bathing and games. I am sure one day a scriptwriter will turn what must have been an emotionally tense holiday into a screenplay.
† A nest of gentle artists in the 1930s Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore and Ben Nicholson, 2009
Last week, in a box outside a bookshop I found this book for a pound. It is the The Countrywoman’s Year, 1960. Paid for by the Women’s Institute, it is a curious book of crafts, recipes, instruction and advice on making wine, beekeeping, growing indoor plants and all the mumsey crafts of made-do-and-mend. Why it is singled out to appear on my blog? Because it is peppered with Eric Ravilious illustrations. I am unsure how, or why, but I would guess that the illustrations were in the sample books of the Curwen Press and in those days you had books of designs and devices used by the press, as well as typographic books too, a high class version of clipart.
The title page image is a thresholded image of Raviliouses design for Wedgwood’s Garden design. Appearing on a soup bowl, the print likely taken from the transfer plate would have been reversed as in the book.
The image below appears on the back of the contents is The Village, for the cover of a journal by the National Council of Social Science, 1933.
Below is a design for Wedgwood again, but this time for a Lemonade set in 1939. You can see how the image appeared on the jug when it was first released and how it looks without the enamel colouring over the top.
The baking kitchen scene is a December Headpiece to a calendar in The Twelve Months, by Nicholas Breton, ed. Brian Rhys and published by the Golden Cockerel Press, 1927. The image below of the dustpan is from the same book and is the headpiece for February.
The block below of pancakes in a pan is from the Kynoch Diary 1933 that Ravilious illustrated in 1932, it’s title is Block 122. The book is below.
Below is another block from the Kynoch Notebook, this time, Block 110
Kynoch Press, 1933 illustrated by Eric Ravilious.
The illustration for summer is a larger version of the title page image, and the illustration as previously seen for Wedgwood’s Garden plates.
The illustration by Eric Ravilious below was originally used for the Country Life Cookery Book, June, 1937.
The wood engraving below was a bit of a mystery, I thought it was Ravilious but it wasn’t in any of the reference books on him (Greenwood) and it was identified by David Wakefield as being a wood engraving for a Apple box label for the Ministry of Agriculture in 1934. In 2018 it was published in the ‘Eric Ravilious Scrapbooks‘.
For the chapter ‘Painting for Pleasure‘ uses part of the cover to the BBC Radio Talks Pamphlet on British Art. January 14th – February 18th, 1934.
Eric Ravilious – BBC Radio Talks Pamphlet on British Art, 1934
The wood-engraving used above can be seen below, called Two Cows and was used for the cover of a London Transport Walking and touring guide.
1936 cover to Country Walks, 3rd Series with a Ravilious Design of Two Cows.
Below you can see the work re-cycled into a watercolour also named Two Cows. Here keeping the study of a cow in the same pose and doubling it, both cows are the same tracing but coloured differently.
Eric Ravilious – Two Cows, 1936, The Fry Gallery
Above and below are both from the Country Life Cookery Book, July (above) and October (below), 1937.
The last little wood engraving was a projected design for a book plate but looks to illustrate a chocolate log and christmas pudding,
Eric Ravilious – Projected Bookplate, 1937
The editor of the book was Elizabeth Shirley Vaughan Paget, Marchioness of Anglesey, DBE, LVO, Shirley Morgan began her career in the Foreign Office as personal secretary to Gladwyn Jebb until her marriage to Lord Anglesey in 1949. As Marchioness of Anglesey, she served as President of the National Federation of Women’s Institutes 1966–1969, a board member of the British Council 1985–1995, chairman of the Broadcasting Complaints Commission 1987–1991, and vice-chairman of the Museums and Galleries Commission 1989–1996.
This is a short cartoon by Anthony Gross & Hector Hoppin from 1934. It is interesting to think about how Gross went on to become a war artist, and became famous for his etchings. But this short film is full of joy and the verve of the age. I added colour in places.
When the war broke out Anthony Gross, was working in Paris with Hector Hoppin on a cartoon animation of Around the World in 80 Days. With the help of Eric Kennington and Edward O’Rorke Dickey, Gross became a war artist in 1939. He travelled to Middle East, India, Burma and North West Europe. While Gross was working in his Cairo hotel room, he met Edward Bawden for the first time, Bawden had burst in, and said “What the hell are you doing here?”, he was under the misapprehension that Gross was there to replace him, but Gross was there to follow the 9th Army and so Bawden relaxed and they became friends.
Gross and Bawden in Cairo being silly with a postcard
Anthony Gross is one of the artists who like Edward Ardizzone, has a style so distinctive it is like handwriting. His work is rather like Raoul Dufy, in that elements of the drawing tend to become transparent to compliment the drama of what is happening, but it might also be down to him working on the sport and then adding the colour washing in his evenings.
Anthony Gross – The 50th (Northumbrian) Division, 1944
Anthony Gross – Sandbags in Bethnal Green, 1940
Anthony Gross – Final Stages of the German War: Krupp’s Works at Essen, 1945
Anthony Gross – Gateway into Germany: The Maas in Flood near the Berg Bridge, 1944
Anthony Gross – Desert Patrol, 1942
Anthony Gross – Liberation and Battle of France: The Fall of the Arsenal at Cherbourg, 1944
Anthony Gross – Liberation and Battle of France: Cherbourg, Battalion H.Q. of the East Yorks, 1944
Anthony Gross – Fire in a Paper Warehouse, 1940
Anthony Gross – The 50th (Northumbrian) Division, 1944
Rather like Henry Moore, Gross was able to document the lives of people in the London Underground stations as well.
There are many examples of Eric Ravilious recycling designs for work and it’s something I hope to focus on in a few weeks time on a post, but here is a snippet showing how he recycled a woodcut illustration from The Hansom Cab and the Pigeons, L.A.G Strong, published in 1935 by The Golden Cockerel Press and this design for Wedgwood’s Travel china in 1938.
This post isn’t about an artist but a gallery owner, Alfred Flechtheim. He was born in Münster, Germany. His father, Emil Flechtheim, was a grain dealer and for a time Alfred worked in his father’s offices in Germany and France. Aged 22 in 1900 he was buying art, with a collection of paintings by Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne; French Avant garde early works of Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and André Derain; paintings of Wassily Kandinsky, Maurice de Vlaminck, Alexej von Jawlensky, Gabriele Münter, and the Rhein Expressionists Heinrich Campendonk, August Macke, Heinrich Nauen, and Paul Adolf Seehaus.
Nils Dardel – Alfred Flechtheim, 1913
Flechtheim opened his first gallery in Düsseldorf in 1913, followed by galleries in Berlin, Frankfurt, Cologne, and Vienna, however when the First World War started there was no market for buying art and his business closed. He re-opened in Düsseldorf in 1919. He went into the swinging twenties with style and became known for his glamorous parties with the glitterati of the new Berlin: movie stars, titans of finance, prizefighters and artists. All the people you need to run a good art gallery.
He founded the modernist art journal Der Querschnitt (The Cross Section) which ran from 1921 until 1936.
As the thirties rolled on Flechtheim found himself more out of step with the rising Nazi party, being Jewish for one didn’t help, being a successful Jewish man also had him on the Nazi’s radar, but the biggest affront to the party was the art he promoted and sold.
In 1922 he hired Alexander Vömel. When Flechtheim moved to Berlin, he entrusted the Düsseldorf gallery to Alex Vömel, and in 1926 he appointed him managing director. They survived the stock market crash of 1929. In 1933, men from the Sturmabteilung (precursor to the SS, the Brown Shirts) matched into an auction of Flechtheim’s paintings and stopped proceedings. Vömel (also a Sturmabteilung member), confiscated Flechtheim’s Düsseldorf gallery stock. After the war, former party member Vömel said he didn’t even remember who Flechtheim was. The Nazis seized and sold off Flechtheim’s private collection, as well as the contents of his gallery. In the same month Flechtheim fled via Switzerland. Six months after the Nazis came to power in 1933, Flechtheim, penniless, fled to Paris, and tried to find work with his former business partner, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. Flechtheim subsequently organized exhibits in London of the paintings of exiled German artists.
“I lost all my money and all my pictures.”
By November 1936, another of Flechtheim’s former gallery assistants, Curt Valentin, had made a deal with the Nazis that would allow him to emigrate to New York and to sell “degenerate art” to help fund the Nazi war effort. In January 1937, with financing from Buchholz, Valentin left for New York and set up the Karl Buchholz Gallery at 3 West 46th Street which was later accused of serving as a conduit for bringing Nazi looted art, including paintings that had been seized from Flechtheim, into America.
In March 1937 in London, Flechtheim slipped on a patch of ice, was taken to a hospital, punctured his leg on a rusty nail in his hospital bed, developed sepsis leading to amputation of his leg, and died. Flechtheim’s attempts to gain a foothold as an art dealer in exile failed; he died impoverished in London on March 9, 1937. Flechtheim was cremated in Golders Green, his ashes are in plot 4062A.
Rudolf Belling – Alfred Flechtheim, 1927
Flechtheim married Betty Goldschmidt, a wealthy Dortmund merchant’s daughter. On a honeymoon trip to Paris, Flechtheim invested Betty’s dowry in cubist art, to the horror of his inlaws. The marriage was childless. Betty Flechtheim was with her husband in London during his final days. Then she returned to Berlin. In 1941, when she was ordered to report for deportation to Minsk, she ingested a lethal dose of Veronal. The Gestapo seized her art collection.
Flechtheim’s heirs are attempting to recover artworks stolen from Flechtheim. These works reside in German museums and the Museum of Modern Art.
Oskar Kokoschka’s “Joseph de Montesquiou-Fezensac” (1910) was sold by Alex Vömel to the National Museum of Fine Arts in Stockholm where it would later be transferred to the Moderna Museet. It remained in the Moderna Museet’s collection until 2018, when it was restituted to Flechtheim’s heirs. In November 2018, it sold at Sotheby’s for $20,395,200 (including fees).
Oskar Kokoschka – Joseph de Montesquiou-Fezensac, 1910
