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| Self-portrait, c.1909–10
© The Estate of John David Roberts. Reproduced with the permission of the William Roberts Society.
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William Roberts: Early Years
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Notes
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This was the period of the Boer War, and under its influence boys played at soldiers
in the streets, forming themselves into groups; and armed with sticks, or their caps
rolled tight at the end of pieces of string, went to war with each other. It was
also the period of the return of the heroes, with the unemployed, in small groups, roaming
the streets to the accompaniment of some mournful song; while the street corner gamblers,
disturbed in their coin-tossing play, were chased away at full speed by the police.
On a lawn close by our house, the 'Elderly' played peacefully their usual game of
croquet; while a dog amused itself leaping to and fro over some spiked railing that
enclosed the lawn. Suddenly the dog got impaled on the spikes and set up a frightful
yell until silenced by a blow on the head by a croquet mallet.
Outside the pubs fights were frequent, and as the blood and beer mingled, the children
danced to the tunes of a wheezy barrel organ. Toffee apples were a popular delicacy,
and the old woman who sold them, when compelled to answer nature's call, but afraid
to leave her toffee apples unguarded, would straddle her legs, well knowing that under
that long heavy pleated skirt, there was no risk of wet underclothes.
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| Boer War: The second Boer War (1899–1902) was fought in South Africa over the refusal of the recently independent Boer
Republic to grant equal rights to British immigrants. William Roberts was born in
Hackney, east London, on 5 June 1895. For a detailed chronology of his life, see here.
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In Summer, London Fields offered opportunities for games and sport; there was besides
a chance for the boys to earn a few pennies collecting the stray tennis balls that
came hurtling across the courts. But in Winter the favourite assembly place for the
lads of the neighbourhood was a small line of shops known as 'the Top', where they kept
warm on cold nights, standing on the iron grid over Mr. Tidy's basement bakehouse.
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| London Fields: an open space of some 26 acres in Hackney, a short distance from WR's various childhood homes (see the chronology).
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At the age of three years, I was sent to Gayhurst Road School, which was only a couple
of streets away from the house my parents lived in. There is little worth recording
of my early school years, except perhaps the ambitious attempt of one of our masters
to teach the class French; however it could hardly have been part of our normal instruction,
and he soon gave up the idea after we had learned to repeat the sentence: 'Ouvrez
la porte, s'il vous plaît.'
It was about my twelfth year that my interest in drawing began to attract the notice
of my teachers, with the result that I was permitted to omit some of the regular
lessons and devote more time to the subject that interested me most. Further, every
Friday a visiting art-mistress came to the school, bringing flowers, which we had to draw.
These lessons took place in a room equipped with all the paraphernalia: cubes, cylinders
and plaster casts of objects that could be arranged to form still-lifes, in fact
a genuine general drawing or antique room. Here the boys attended in the morning, and
the girls in the afternoon. On other days, when the Friday class was not in session,
I stood at an easel in a corner of my regular classroom and painted in water-colour,
either a large-sized copy of a Venice scene by Turner or else some still-life arrangement
of my own.
About this period I did a full-length figure as a poster to advertise the school's
performance of Shakespeare's 'As You Like It'. The design, a single figure of an
Elizabethan forester, was placed at one corner of the stage. When the play was over,
there was a call from the audience (composed mostly of parents) for the cast and the artist
to take a bow. Standing in the wings, I was reluctant to show myself, when a sudden
push from behind sent me staggering across the stage, to the accompaniment of the
applause and laughter of the audience; with an awkward bow, I made a quick exit from the
platform.
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| Gayhurst Road School would have been about 400 yards from WR's home.
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To further my Art education, I was taken one wintry Saturday afternoon to the Tate
Gallery by the Friday art-class mistress, whose name at this late date I cannot remember.
In the Gallery, she drew my attention to a large painting of a river scene with barges at sundown; its title was 'Toil, Glitter, Crime and Wealth', and the artist's
name was I think Maurice Greiffenhagen. As we stood awhile gazing at this picture
with its foreboding title, the grey afternoon seemed to become even more overcast.
However, our visit to the Tate ended more cheerfully with tea at an A.B.C. opposite Westminster
Bridge.
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| the Tate Gallery had opened on Millbank in 1897.
Toil, Glitter . . . : Toil, Glitter, Grime and Wealth on a Flowing Tide (1883) is a study of the Pool of London that was in fact painted by William Lionel Wyllie (1851–1931), who studied at the Royal Academy Schools and spent much time at sea. WR later
also painted the Port of London.
Maurice Greiffenhagen (1862–1931) studied at the Royal Academy Schools and exhibited at the RA from 1884; from
1906 to 1929 he was headmaster in the life department at Glasgow School of Art.
an A.B.C.: a tea-shop of the Aerated Bread Co., based in Camden Town, London NW1.
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About this time the headmaster at Gayhurst Road School, deciding that one half-day
a week was not enough art instruction for me, arranged that I should attend at the
nearby Queen's Road school, where they had art-classes two days a week, and two visiting
art-mistresses. One of these, Miss Mathews, helped me still further in my desire to
become an artist by introducing me to her fiancé William Robins, a teacher at the
old St. Martin's School of Art.
A final gesture during my last summer at Gayhurst Road was the making of a large drawing
of the school building. So, at about six o'clock in the morning – to avoid publicity – my father carrying his home-made easel and I an Imperial size drawing board, we clambered
over the railings and set up our equipment in London Fields facing the school. However,
the drawing was a failure, chiefly because I attempted to draw the building brick by brick.
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| Miss Mathews: Mabel Louisa Mathews (1884–1917), a gifted artist and sculptor, married W. P. Robins (v.i.) in 1910 and died giving birth to their second child (the first having been
stillborn).
William Robins: William Palmer Robins (1882–1959) trained initially as an architect under Banister Fletcher, before studying at
St Martin's School of Art, where he was eventually an instructor for 20 years. He
was particularly known as an etcher, having learned the technique under Sir Frank
Short at the Royal College of Art, and also taught at the Central School of Arts and Crafts
in London. In 1921 he gave the Victoria & Albert Museum three drawings made by WR c.1908.
St Martin's School of Art is one of the oldest art schools in London, with its origins in the 18th century.
In 1913 it moved to new premises in the Charing Cross Road.
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I had now reached the school-leaving age of 14 years, and must look around for a job.
With the addresses of several firms, producers of commercial art, and carrying a
large portfolio of drawings done at home and at school, my first day's target was
to have been W. H. Smith and Sons, the magazine distributors; but I called on the wrong Smith,
a shop off Kingsway which dealt in old prints and engravings, and they had no use
for my work. The next day I paid a visit to Liberty's, who also turned me down. Although beginning to tire of these daily journeys around the West End, I decided to try
one more address. This was Sir Joseph Causton's, a firm of law stationers, producers
of posters and other kinds of commercial art. Their offices were in Eastcheap, near
the Billingsgate fish market.
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| Liberty & Co. Ltd had opened in Regent Street in 1875; its present building dates from 1925.
Sir Joseph Causton's was established in London in the 19th century and moved to Eastleigh, Hampshire,
in or around the 1930s; in 1985 it was sold to Norton Opax plc. While still based
in London it supplied the printing materials used by the artist George Marston on
Ernest Shackleton's first Antarctic expedition in 1907.
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Here I was more successful, for Causton's took me on a seven-year apprenticeship;
at the same time Robins arranged for me to attend his evening classes at St. Martin's,
after my day's work at Causton's, which began at 8 a.m. and finished at 6 p.m. Eastcheap in the early morning presented an animated scene, with the long lines of horse-drawn
carts and vans of the fishmongers parked by the kerbs, awaiting their consignments
of haddocks, herrings and codfish; while the Billingsgate porters, wearing their
queer hats for carrying the heavy crates of fish on their heads, hurried around shouting
the names of their customers. Meanwhile down by the Thames side where the barges
were unloading, was a scene, if not of crime, certainly of toil, glitter and wealth.
Sir Joseph Causton's firm employed some twelve commercial artists, who specialised
in various types of work; some did only large-lettered advertisements, others were
expert in small lettering suitable for showcards. Except for the chief artist, Mr
Wise, who had a small room to himself, the others worked at desks arranged around the large
sky-lighted top studio. The chief artist, when not busy with the air brush, an instrument
for spraying paint, was frequently in consultation with Sir Joseph, whose office
was on the ground floor. A room below the main studios was shared by two men: Johnson,
a grey-bearded man, who did large-size poster lettering; and a younger one, an expert
at small-scale show-card wording.
On the top sky-lighted floor were quartered the main group of designers. First came
Harry Stubbs, a fair-haired, frizzy-moustached Yorkshireman. I was never able to
discover what Harry's work as a draughtsman was like. His continual patter, which
amused the others in the studio, had the quality of a Yorkshire comedian; his satirical wit
was directed mainly against another member of the studio, George Ball. In these satires
Harry would pretend to be a very aristocratic, amorous lady in love with George.
After George's arrival had been announced her ladyship would say 'Oooh, come in, George,
take your trousers off, George.' At this point there was laughter from the other
artists, including George, who seemed to enjoy the fun as much as the rest of the
studio. Harry was very resourceful at inventing these amorous adventures of George's, which
surpassed those of Casanova and Don Juan combined, and was most inspired after his
mid-morning mug of hot milk and A.B.C. lunch cake.
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From the artistic point of view the star of the studio was a tall middle-aged Scotsman,
David Wilson, well-known as a freelance illustrator and cartoonist. He seemed much
concerned with his family troubles. Another artist fond of joking was a tall athletic young man named Harris. He specialised in large posters of over-lifesized footballers
in action painted in a flourishing style reminiscent of Sargent. I was a victim of
one of his pranks; complaining that he had a headache, he asked me to get him a 'Grouse Powder' from the chemist; but the only thing I got from the druggist was a laugh.
Harris shared a room with two other artists; one a marine artist named Weekes, who
produced display cards of ocean-going liners for the big shipping companies. I remember
nothing of the third man except that he was fond of swimming. To end the list of Causton's
chief designers there was a man with one leg who used a crutch and lived in Dulwich,
and another known as Gossy who seemed to be a kind of odd-moments fun organiser.
Besides the humour of Harry Stubbs, the artists found amusement in other ways. Thus,
when the opportunity presented, they played a kind of indoor golf, using yardsticks
as golf clubs to knock a little ball of tightly-wrapped paper into rings chalked
on the floor. The game started whenever the head artist went downstairs to consult with
Sir Joseph upon matters of business, and would end abruptly when the pounding footsteps
of the returning chief could be heard charging up the stairs three at a time (he
was a tall athletic man) causing the players to scamper back to their desks.
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| David Wilson: Could WR be thinking of the Northern Irish cartoonist, caricaturist, illustrator and painter David Wilson (1873–1935), who moved to London some time between 1896 and 1898, settling in Fitzroy Square?
He contributed cartoons to Punch, The Graphic, and the Daily Chronicle among other papers, illustrated propaganda posters for the government during the
First World War, and also designed posters for the Apollo Theatre.
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Sometimes freelance artists would call at Causton's trying to dispose of their work.
On one of these occasions Gossy arrived breathless from the ground floor with the
news that Mrs. Barribol was downstairs trying to sell to the Firm some of her husband's
work. Barribol was a well-known commercial artist who painted only dark-eyed black-haired
types of feminine beauty, using always the same model, his wife. These alluring portraits
eventually became known as the Barribol girl. It would seem from Gossy's announcement that the Barribol girl could also at times become a saleslady.
One of my jobs in the studio was mixing paint when required. This was done with a
large palette knife on an old litho stone. I also had to replenish the water buckets
from which those artists using Gouache drew their supply of water. These pails of
water could also be a source of amusement, as we realised when Harry Stubbs and Gossy attempted
with considerable splash, to put George Ball headfirst into one of them. In spite
of these distractions I was able to practise a little lettering, or copy a showcard.
One of these I still remember; it was an advertisement for typewriters. It showed
a figure of Father Time, complete with scythe and hour-glass, standing behind a typewriter;
the card bore the caption: 'Time flies; so does the Bar-Lock in the hands of the
operator.'
When the workday ended at six o'clock, I walked through Cheapside and Holborn to St.
Martin's School of Art in Endell Street, near Drury Lane. Here I spent the evening
until nine o'clock, when the class ended, drawing from plaster casts of Greek or
Renaissance sculpture. However, on reaching home at ten o'clock my day was not yet ended;
there was still work to be done on a portrait of the Gayhurst Road School headmaster,
which when finished was to be presented to him. This, like the drawing of the school,
was an idea of my father's.
So after supper the painting was brought out and placed on its easel, and in a room
dimly lighted by a small oil lamp that hung from the ceiling – we had no gas or electricity – I endeavoured, half-asleep, to carry on with the painting. As a model for the portrait
I used a photograph, showing some thirty of my classmates, with the headmaster sitting
in the centre of the group; his face had to be enlarged from half an inch to life size, to fill the two foot square rough, unprepared piece of sackcloth. With its
dark background and concentrated light on the face it looked slightly Rembrandtesque.
However it remained unfinished, and Mr Walker never received his portrait. Finally
painting in the dark, half-awake, became too much for me.
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| Barribol: WR is probably referring to William Barribal (1873–1956), who attended evening classes at his local art school in Worcester before studying
in Paris for a year. He married an art student he had known during his Worcester
days, and she became his only model, appearing – as the 'Barribal Girl' – on picture postcards and in almanacs, calendars and weekly magazines. He exhibited
from 1919 to 1938, at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, and the Royal Academy among
other places.
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Meanwhile, at St. Martin's, I continued my evening classes. Another student, working
for his Art Master's Certificate, was drawing the Venus de Milo by a method known
as stippling, and from time to time he would study the figure through a pair of binoculars; these would enable him to record every crack and blemish in the plaster. Whether
he got his Art Master's Certificate I cannot say, as I left St. Martin's before his
masterpiece of stippling was finished. At one of the school sketch club shows I won
a prize of half-a-crown, which I received from the treasurer, a grey-bearded Scotsman
named McPhee. At another of our sketch club meetings, Harold Speed came and criticised
the exhibits. He was well known for his contributions to the Royal Academy, and his
portrait of Edward the Seventh, shown at the Paris Salon.
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| Harold Speed (1872–1957) wrote books on art technique and in 1916 became a Royal Academician. Besides
Edward VII, other portrait subjects included King Albert of Belgium and Lord Baden-Powell.
An 1895 mural by him is in the restaurant of the Royal Academy.
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One evening while drawing a cast of the head of Michael Angelo's 'David,' Robins came
to me and said 'Take a look in the Life Room, there is a male model posing there
with a marvellous figure.' I did not know, as I took a look, that the model was David
Bomberg, or that in a year's time I would be drawing him as he posed in the Life Room
at the Slade. Besides his art-school posing, Bomberg also stood for the statue of
Lycidas that Havard Thomas made, when he and his family lived in one of Sir Cyril
Butler's cottages in Bourton in Berkshire. This bronze figure of David (Lycidas) Bomberg now
stands with arms upraised, in the entrance hall of the Tate Gallery.
The drawings I did at the St. Martin's evening classes won me a scholarship to the
Slade. This event brought me release – after one year – from the seven years apprenticeship contracted with Causton's. On my last day with
the firm I went to each of the artists in turn to take my leave. I got a characteristic
goodbye from Harry Stubbs, when he said he hoped I would get to the top of the tree, but warned me to be careful not to fall and break my bloody neck.
For St. Martin's it was also goodbye; I ceased to attend the old school's evening
classes once my Slade days had begun.
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| David Bomberg (1890–1957) studied at the Slade (v.i.) in 1911–13 and won a Certificate for Drawing in 1912.
the Slade: The Slade School of art had opened as part of University College London, in Gower
Street, in 1871.
Lycidas – a name that appears in both Greek and Roman pastoral poetry – is the title of an elegy written in 1637 by John Milton.
Havard Thomas (1854–1921) became Professor of Sculpture at the Slade in 1916.
Sir Cyril Butler (1864–1936) was a commissioner in the Ministry of Food and a founder, treasurer and chairman
of the Contemporary Art Society. Roberts drew his portrait.
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When I joined the Slade in 1911, the teaching staff consisted of Professor Fred Brown,
Henry Tonks, Walter Russell, Wilson Steer and Derwent Lees. With the exception of
Augustus John and Wyndham Lewis, who had already left, among the students still working there at that time were some who were later to become important as artists, such
as Stanley Spencer, Nevinson, Allinson and Wadsworth. Others less celebrated included
a retired Indian Army doctor and a corpulent ex-business man, nick-named by Nevinson
'Have a Smoke,' from his habit of offering cigarettes around. Another target for Nevinson's
gibes was an old grey-haired Italian model, who as a young man had posed for Millais' painting, entitled 'Speak, Speak!' He
was very proud of this, and would tell the students 'Me Speak, Speak' until with
Nevinson's help he became known in the Life Class as 'Me Speak Speak.' Models who
posed in the art schools at that period were mostly Italian, with names like Marc Antonio or
Mancini; in the summer when the art schools were closed they sold ice-cream.
After a short spell drawing from the Antique, I moved down to the Life Room. Toward
the end of my first morning there, the female model fainted and collapsed on the
throne; the army doctor promptly took off his jacket, covered her prostrate naked
form with it, then strolled off unconcernedly to lunch.
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I joined the Slade in 1911: According to the University College London Calendar for 1912–13, WR in fact joined the Slade in the 1910–11 academic year.
Frederick Brown (1851–1941) became head of the Slade in 1893. He was prominent in the founding of the New
English Art Club in 1886, as an alternative to the Royal Academy.
Henry Tonks (1862–1937) qualified in medicine and then studied art under Frederick Brown, becoming his
assistant in 1894 and his successor in 1917.
Walter Russell (1867–1949) also studied under Frederick Brown and taught at the Slade in 1895–1927.
Philip Wilson Steer (1860–1942), a painter notable for his seascapes, studied art in Gloucester and Paris and
taught at the Slade in 1895–1930.
Derwent Lees (1885–1931) was Australian and became drawing master at the Slade under Tonks. He became
mentally ill and spent much of his life in institutions.
Augustus John (1875–1961) studied at the Slade in 1894–8 and became famous for his portraits and landscapes and his bohemian lifestyle. (He
once propositioned Sarah Roberts at a wedding.)
Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957) studied at the Slade in 1898–1901, worked for a time at Roger Fry's Omega Workshop (v.i.), and was the organizer
of the Vorticist review Blast in 1914–15. He alienated WR – a fellow Vorticist – by his claim that 'Vorticism . . . was what I, personally, did and said at a certain period': see, for example, 'In Defence of English Cubists'.
Stanley Spencer (1891–1959) studied at the Slade in 1908–12.
Christopher Nevinson (1889–1946) studied in Paris after leaving the Slade. He was a signatory of the 1910 Futurist
Manifesto, and joined the Rebel Art Centre in London.
Adrian Allinson (1890–1959) studied at the Slade in 1910–12, then in Munich and Paris. A founder of the London Group, he drew caricatures for
the Daily Express and designed posters for the Empire Marketing Board, London Transport and the main-line
railways.
Edward Wadsworth (1889–1949) studied engineering before art. Became a member of the Rebel Art Centre and
the Vorticists.
Me Speak, Speak: WR's Portrait of Slade Model depicts this man.
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About 1912 there was an influx of Jewish students at the Slade, sponsored by the Jewish
Aid Society. Mark Gertler had been the forerunner of this group, that included Meninsky,
Rosenberg, Bomberg – no longer a model – Kramer and Goldstein; apart from these, there were several independents, like Solomon
and Lowinsky, rich enough to pay their own tuition fees.
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| Jewish Aid Society: for the activities of the the Jewish Education Aid Society in sponsoring art students, see Rachel Dickson and Sarah
MacDougall, 'The Whitechapel Boys', Jewish Quarterly 195 (autumn 2004).
Mark Gertler (1891–1939) studied at the Slade in 1908–12.
Bernard Meninsky (1891–1950) began studying at the Slade in 1912; he was later a teaching colleague of WR
at the Central School of Arts and Crafts.
Isaac Rosenberg (1890–1918), became more celebrated as a poet, particularly a war poet, than as a painter;
he was killed in action in the First World War.
Jacob Kramer (1892–1962) attended the Slade in 1913–14; WR married his sister Sarah.
Morris Goldstein was born in Warsaw in 1892 and originally trained as a marquetry cutter.
Gilbert Solomon (1890–1955) attended the Slade in 1907–11 and later studied in Paris. He showed at the Royal Academy and eventually became
vice-president of the Royal Society of Britsh Artists.
Thomas Lowinsky (1892–1947) was born in India and attended the Slade in 1912–1914. A painter, illustrator, designer and collector, he was a consultant to the Sultan
of Hyderabad and lived exquisitely at Garsington.
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It was a surprise one morning to see Bomberg walk into the Life Room, a drawing board
under his arm, bestride a donkey and start to draw. When Nevinson left, Bomberg became
the official wit of the Life Class, but with a more aggressive style. This sometimes led to a 'punch-up'. A young Frenchman named Detry, a newcomer to the Life Class,
liked to boast about his strength, saying 'I am very strong here and here,' indicating
at the same time different parts of his anatomy. Thus when the class was quiet, except for the scratching of charcoal on Michelet paper, Bomberg would suddenly shout 'I
am very strong here and here!' This he repeated from time to time until the exasperated
Frenchman could bear it no longer. Leaving his donkey he went over to Bomberg and
a fight began. During the scuffle Detry received a punch that put him on the floor,
but scrambling up at once he seized a drawing board and hurled it at Bomberg, who
promptly jumped clear in time. Quiet was restored with the arrival of Tonks to find
out the cause of the disturbance.
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| A young Frenchman named Detry: H. L. Detry, from Rouen, entered the Slade at the same time as WR. He may have been the H. L. Detry who served with the 129th French Infantry Regiment during the First World War as interpreter to Lieutenant General Sir Nevil Macready, the Adjutant General British Forces, France, and whose papers are held by the Imperial War Museum.
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There was one other, but a more friendly contest, in which Bomberg took part; this
was a wrestling match when the class was ended – with the Italian model. After rolling about a good deal on the dusty floor of the
Life Room, locked together in a tight embrace, Bomberg finally managed to come out
on top. However, this mini-Hercules had his more gentle moods; when for instance
he got the poet and fellow student Isaac Rosenberg to write him a verse or two, to win the
favour of a certain Jewish girl student. This was confided to me by Rosenberg, who
was amused at the thought of Bomberg taking part in this kind of Cyrano de Bergerac
scene.
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| Cyrano de Bergerac: a play by Edmond Rostand (1868–1918) in which the hero (based on a 17th-century writer), of unattractive appearance,
woos his beloved vicariously by writing love-letters for his more favoured rival.
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Besides these student diversions, however, there was a more serious side to our studies.
Tonks was anxious to encourage our interest in mural painting, and to this end had
obtained permission to decorate the walls of a girls' club in Lillie Road, Fulham.
About half a dozen students took part in the scheme. The compositions were done in
egg tempera, on paper stretched on the walls. My contribution was a panel showing
carpenters at work. The only other design I can recall was one by Dora Carrington
of blacksmiths hammering on an anvil, rather reminiscent, I thought, of Puvis de Chavanne's
painting of a similar subject.
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| carpenters at work: A study for The Carpenters, dated 1912, is in Dunedin Public Art Gallery, New Zealand, and another in the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester.
Dora Carrington (1893–1932) was emotionally entangled with Gertler and Nevinson around her time at the Slade,
and later lived in a 16-year ménage à trois with her husband Ralph Partridge and the writer Lytton Strachey.
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824–98): French painter who attempted to achieve the monumental effect of Italian frescos in
large paintings in oil on canvas. The picture referred to is presumably Le
Travail (1863), in the Musée de Picardie in Amiens.
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When the murals were finished, Tonks gave a dinner party at his house in the Vale
at Chelsea, to the students who had carried out the decorations. A number of other
guests were also present, among them George Moore. Dora Carrington, with some others
of the team of decorators, tried to persuade George Moore to come and see the panels. But
relaxed comfortably in his chair, his hands folded in his lap, he declined their
invitation, saying that no painting worth looking at had been done since Degas.
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| George Moore (1852–1933): Anglo-Irish novelist, studied painting in Paris for some years. Degas fell
out with him after an indiscreet comment on his financial affairs.
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In the summer of 1911 three Slade students were invited to stay a month, alternately,
at the farm of Frederick Harrison, near Wellington, in Somerset. Gertler, the first
to go, chose July; when his month ended, Spencer followed, in August; while I, the
last on the list, had September. A country mansion would well describe Harrison's place,
with its stables for hunters and a numerous domestic staff. Harrison had his brother
and two nephews staying with him. The nephews were military cadets from Woolwich,
who amused themselves, with the help of a mule, dredging a nearby ditch. To get to the
room where I lodged, I had to pass the stables; one of my equine neighbours, his
head above the stable door, always watched me with interest whenever I passed by.
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| Frederick Harrison (1853/4–1926): theatrical manager and former actor.
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At the end of September I returned to London bringing with me a large hamper packed
with apples, and some rabbits, these last the result of a morning's shoot. In the
summer vacations of the following year, I received another invitation to spend a few weeks in the country; this time from Sir Cyril Butler – a friend of Prof. Tonks and a patron of the group of artists, members of the New
English Art Club. Bourton House, where Butler lived, was a large country mansion
near Shrivenham in Berkshire, set in extensive parkland. Within the house there was
evidence of wealth and well-being; a nursery and a French governess for the two young daughters;
visitors' shoes left at night outside their room doors were found the next morning
brightly polished; and for those guests who suffered from 'night-starvation' there
were tins of biscuits on their bedside tables.
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| the New English Art Club was formed in 1885 by a group of young London artists who had studied and worked
in Paris and felt dissatisfied with the very academic Royal Academy. Fred Brown and
Wilson Steer were among the first members; Augustus John, Henry Tonks, Stanley Spencer
and Mark Gertler were among those who joined later.
night-starvation: 'Night starvation' was a concept (devised by the Scottish poet J. Norman Cameron,
1905–53) which from 1931 featured often in advertising campaigns for the malted-milk drink
Horlicks, which supposedly could prevent it.
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I had been only a few days at Bourton House, when a large canvas some twelve feet
square arrived; on it was faintly scumbled in pale blue the beginnings of what appeared
to be a seated woman flanked by two children. This canvas was placed in a large room,
with spacious windows that overlooked the park; the interior walls were hung with
paintings by Wilson Steer and other New English Art Club members. A week later whilst
we were having tea, a little man who spoke with a shrill squeaky voice was shown
in by one of the maids. This was the celebrated portrait painter Ambrose McEvoy, come to
finish his painting of the Butler family. However I did not stay long enough at Bourton
to see its completion. I remember a meeting in the library shortly before my departure, when the family gathered to pass judgement on some small paintings Sir Cyril had
bought in London. After studying the pictures awhile in silence, his daughters expressed
their opinion with the remark, 'Daddy, you've been done this time.'
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| Ambrose McEvoy (1878–1927) had been a contemporary of Augustus John at the Slade in the early 1890s.
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Following on my stay at Bourton, Sir Cyril commissioned me to do six drawings of London markets at two guineas each. But
except for two markets, Billingsgate and
Leadenhall, the drawings were never carried out. Several years after this, about 1919, I was
living in an attic at 32 Percy Street, Tottenham Court Road, and being very hard
up I wrote to Sir Cyril, hoping he might feel interested in buying a drawing or perhaps
complete that set of London markets. He did not reply; instead, he called one evening;
the visit was brief. After asking me what artists I associated with, and who my friends
were, without mentioning the market drawings he departed, leaving me no better off
than before.
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| no better off than before: In fact the catalogue of the Jan.–Feb. 1925 exhibition of the New English Art Club lists three works by WR – Provence, Decapitations and Shipping – which it says were owned by Sir Cyril Butler and which must have been bought directly
from Roberts at some point.
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Long after this Percy Street meeting had been forgotten, I was on a cycling tour in
Berkshire, and found myself in the vicinity of Bourton House. Remembering the time
when as a student I had once stayed there, I wandered into the nearby village churchyard. Among the old gravestones, two small more recent ones attracted my attention; on
each separate stone was carved the name of a Butler girl. What, I wondered, could
have brought them to these early graves?
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The summer term of 1913 was my last at the Slade; when it was ended I took a short
holiday in Italy. On my return to London I was lent a room belonging to a friend,
an actor who had gone on a provincial tour with a theatrical company. In this little
room in the old Cumberland Hay Market I painted my first 'Abstract' pictures. There were
no Arts Council's or Student's Grants in 1913, and my 'Abstracts' had no monetary
value at that date either; nevertheless I had to make a living. So with a letter
of recommendation from Laurence Binyon, of the British Museum Print Room, I called on Roger
Fry at his Omega Workshop in Fitzroy Square, where I got employment painting designs
on paper knives, lampshades, tabletops and silk scarves, three mornings a week at
a salary of a half-sovereign a visit, that a little sandy-bearded Scottish secretary took
from a small cash box. With no rent to pay, and a salary of thirty shillings, in
those days that was independence.
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| Cumberland Hay Market: A 19th-century hay and straw market held just east of Regent's Park in a building
designed by John Nash.
Laurence Binyon (1869–1943), poet, art historian and critic, became assistant keeper of the British Museum's
department of prints and drawings in 1910, taking over oriental prints and drawings
in 1913.
Roger Fry (1866–1934), art critic and artist, is credited with having introduced the work of the French
Post-Impressionists to England, and also Picasso and Matisse. In No! No! Roger, Cézanne Did Not Use It, WR would later mock his advocacy of Cézanne in particular.
Omega Workshop: a cooperative decorative-art workshop/showroom run by Roger Fry in Fitzroy Square
from 1913 to 1919.
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When I started at the Omega, three of Fry's assistants, Lewis, Etchells and Wadsworth,
had already left. Later on, Lewis, hearing that I was working with Fry, contacted
me; this meeting brought about my departure from the Omega. From the Autumn of 1914
till the end of 1915 except for a few weeks working in a munitions factory, I continued
my Cubistic painting, associating with the artists who had once been part of Roger
Fry's Omega Workshop group. However in March 1916 an end was put to these activities,
by my entry into the Royal Field Artillery. A few months before the termination of this
first world war, I became an 'Official Artist' to the Canadian War Records Office,
and also to the English Ministry of Information.
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| Etchells: Frederick Etchells (1866–1973) joined the Vorticists in 1914, and then was a member of Group X with WR and
others, before he gave up painting to become an architect in the 1920s.
Official Artist: WR painted The First German Gas Attack At Ypres
(now in the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa) for the Canadian War Records Office and several works now in the Imperial War Museum, London, for the British equivalent.
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In 1920 Colin Gill, who had been a fellow-student at the Slade, sent me a note saying
'Colonel Lawrence is seeking artists to make portrait drawings for a book he is producing;
get in touch with him.' I wrote to Lawrence and as a result I contributed several portrait drawings to 'Seven Pillars of Wisdom,' besides a painting of Lawrence
in his Royal Air Force uniform. He sat for this portrait in a room I was using at
Coleherne Terrace, Earl's Court. Sometimes if I was late for our meeting I found
him sitting on the dark stairs that led to my temporary studio. He lent me during several Summers
his small woodman's cottage at Clouds Hill in Dorset.
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| Colin Gill (1892–1940) was in 1913 awarded the Rome Scholarship in decorative painting at the Slade.
He was a captain in the RFA in France in 1915–1918 and an offical war artist in 1918–19. He was a member of the New English Art Club and the International Society of Sculptors,
Painters and Gravers.
Colonel Lawrence: T. E. Lawrence (1888–1935) – 'Lawrence of Arabia', soldier and writer. Seven Pillars of Wisdom was published in 1926; for WR's illustrations for it, see here. WR's portrait of Lawrence is now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
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About 1935 I became a member of 'The London Artists' Association'. This was a scheme
sponsored by Maynard Keynes and Samuel Courtauld to assist young little-known artists
of merit, – also some not so young, and better known – in the sale of their work. This Association continued to function till in 1939 the
coming of the second world war brought it to an end. In the years immediately following
the finish of this second conflict I began to exhibit at the Royal Academy, and in
1948 I was nominated for election as an associate. Ten years passed, till on the 6th
of May 1958 I received a letter from the Secretary of the Royal Academy informing
me that I had been elected an Associate of the Academy. (This had been achieved by
the President's casting vote.)
September 1977
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| In 'Dealers and Galleries' WR dates his joining the London Artists' Association to somewhat earlier, and it
seems that the correct dates for his membership are likely to have been 1927–1934, during which time the LAA sponsored one-man shows by him in 1927, 1929 and 1931 and he took part in several LAA group shows.
John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) was one of the most distinguished economists of the 20th century but also active
in the arts and was later instrumental in founding the Arts Council, of which he
was chairman. His art collection, now in King's College, Cambridge, contained 14
works by WR, whose portrait
of Keynes with his wife, the dancer Lydia Lopokova, is in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
Samuel Courtauld (1876–1947), chairman of the family silk firm, endowed the Courtauld Institute of Art in
London University, and gave it many paintings from his own collection. He was also
a trustee of the Tate and National galleries.
the President's casting vote: The president concerned was the sculptor Charles Wheeler (1892–1974). See 'The Council' for the background to WR's election. |