DOCSLIB.ORG

Walter Richard Sickert and the Theatre, C.1880-C.1940

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Walter Richard Sickert and the Theatre, C.1880-C.1940 WALTER RICHARD SICKERT AND THE THEATRE, C.1880-C.1940 William W. Rough A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of St Andrews 2010 Full metadata for this item is available in St Andrews Research Repository at: http://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/ Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1962 This item is protected by original copyright Walter Richard Sickert and the Theatre c.1880-c.1940 William W. Rough Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Art History University of St Andrews 5 July 2010 Declarations I, William W. Rough, hereby certify that this thesis, which is approximately 83,935 words in length, has been written by me, that it is the record of work carried out by me and that it has not been submitted in any previous application for a higher degree. I was admitted as a research student in [July, 2003] and as a candidate for the degree of PhD Art History in [July, 2003]; the higher study for which this is a record was carried out in the University of St Andrews between [2003] and [2010]. Date 11/06/10 signature of candidate ………………………….……………………. I hereby certify that the candidate has fulfilled the conditions of the Resolution and Regulations appropriate for the degree of ………………… in the University of St Andrews and that the candidate is qualified to submit this thesis in application for that degree. date ……………………… signature of supervisor ………………………………………….…… In submitting this thesis to the University of St Andrews we understand that we are giving permission for it to be made available for use in accordance with the regulations of the University Library for the time being in force, subject to any copyright vested in the work not being affected thereby. We also understand that the title and the abstract will be published, and that a copy of the work may be made and supplied to any bona fide library or research worker, that my thesis will be electronically accessible for personal or research use unless exempt by award of an embargo as requested below, and that the library has the right to migrate my thesis into new electronic forms as required to ensure continued access to the thesis. We have obtained any third-party copyright permissions that may be required in order to allow such access and migration, or have requested the appropriate embargo below. The following is an agreed request by candidate and supervisor regarding the electronic publication of this thesis: Restricted access to the electronic copy for a period of 5 years and a permanent embargo to the images on the electronic copy on the following ground: publication would preclude future publication; date …………… signature of candidate ……………… signature of supervisor …………… i Abstract Prior to his career as a painter, Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1940) was employed for a number of years as an actor. Indeed the muse of the theatre was a constant influence throughout Sickert’s life and work yet this relationship is curiously neglected in studies of his career. The following thesis, therefore, is an attempt to address this vital aspect of Sickert’s œuvre. Chapter one (Act I: The Duality of Performance and the Art of the Music-Hall) explores Sickert’s acting career and its influence on his music-hall paintings from the 1880s and 1890s, particularly how this experience helps to differentiate his work from Whistler and Degas. Chapter two (Act II: Restaging Camden Town: Walter Sickert and the theatre c.1905-c.1915) examines the influence of the developing New Drama on Sickert’s works from his Fitzroy Street/Camden Town period. Chapter three (Act III: Sickert and Shakespeare: Interpreting the Theatre c.1920-1940) details Sickert’s interest in the rediscovery of Shakespeare as a metaphor for his solution to the crisis in modern art. Finally, chapter four (Act IV: Sickert’s Simulacrum: Representations and Characterisations of the Artist in Texts, Portraits and Self-Portraits c.1880-c.1940) discusses his interest in the concept of theatrical identity, both in terms of an interest in acting and the “character” of artist and self-publicity. Each chapter analyses the influence of the theatre on Sickert’s work, both in terms of his interest in theatrical subject matter but also in a more general sense of the theatrical milieu of his interpretations. Consequently Sickert’s paintings tell us much about changing fashions, traditions and interests in the British theatre during his period. The history of the British stage is therefore the backdrop for the study of a single artist’s obsession with theatricality and visual modernity. ii Acknowledgements First I would like to thank my supervisor, Robin Spencer, for his mentorship, consistent advice and encouragement throughout this project. His generous guidance, assistance and support have been invaluable. I would also like to thank the School of Art History at the University of St Andrews; particularly Dawn, Margaret and Lynn who were always most helpful with any queries and difficulties. Thanks are also due to the students of the AH3901: Walter Sickert and European Art c.1880-c.1940 course who indulged my experimental theories. A number of institutions and individuals have been invaluable in my research; key amongst these are the staff of the Victoria & Albert Theatre Museum Archives, The British Library, The National Library of Scotland, the Mander and Mitchenson Theatre Collection, Tate Archives, Islington Public Library Archives and Glasgow University Library. Special thanks are due to Helen Grime of the Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies Archive in the Martial Rose Library at the University of Winchester, Matthew Sturgis for the kind sharing of his transcripts of Sickert’s letters to Alfred Pollard and Ronald Pickvance for his extremely generous advice and time. In addition, I would not have been able to complete my studies without financial help from a number of sources, in particular the Royal Caledonian Schools Trust, the Dundee Educational Trust and the Sutherland Page Trust. Finally, I would like to thank my family, especially my mum Violet, and Ann and George, for their consistent support and encouragement. Special thanks go to Gill without whom I could not have completed this project. iii Table of Contents Declarations i Abstract ii Acknowledgements iii Table of Contents iv List of Illustrations vi Introduction: “All the greater draughtsmen tell a story” 1 Act I: The Duality of Performance and the Art of the Music-Hall 13 - The Birth of Mr. Nemo 17 - The Actor, the Butterfly and the Ox 29 - Actor & Painter: The Divided Self 47 Act II: Restaging Camden Town: Sickert and the theatre c.1905-c.1915 49 - Sickert and the Beginnings of the “New Drama” 58 - Antoine, Barker and the New Drama 67 - New Drama and the “Woman Question”; Independent Women, Adultery and the Marriage Problem 81 - ‘Awful Dads’ and ‘Manipulative Mothers’ 93 - Naturalism and the Working Class 102 - Visual Theatricality in Camden Town 115 Act III: Sickert and the Stage: Interpreting the Theatre c.1920-1940 124 - Shakespeare and the Twentieth-Century Stage 131 iv - William Poel and Harley Granville-Barker: The Rediscovery of Shakespeare c.1900-c.1914 136 - Lilian Baylis, John Gielgud and the Old Vic: Shakespeare c.1914-c.1936 142 - Interpreting the Theatre c.1920-1940: I 154 - Interpreting the Theatre c.1920-1940: II 173 Act IV: Sickert’s Simulacrum: Representations and Characterisations of the Artist in Texts, Portraits and Self-Portraits c.1880 - c.1940 176 - Walter Richard Sickert in Portraits and Novels c.1880 - c.1940 181 - Sickert and the Ripper Murders; Accusations, Incriminations and Misinterpretations 190 - Sickert’s Studio; shady suburbs, dingy dwellings and the convenience of costume 197 - Sickert Reborn: The Fall of Walter and the Rise of Richard Sickert 212 - “Identity-formation” in Texts, Portraits and Self-Portraits c.1880-c.1940 224 Conclusion: Walter Sickert and the Theatre c.1880-c.1940 228 Appendix I 231 Appendix II 234 Appendix III 236 Selected Bibliography 238 Illustrations 278 v List of Illustrations Act I: The Duality of Performance and the Art of the Music-Hall Fig. 1.01: Arrangement in Black, No. 3: Sir Henry Irving as Philip II of Spain by James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), 1876, revised 1885. Oil on canvas, 215.3 x 108.6 cms. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Gary Tinterow and Geneviève Lacambre, Manet/Velázquez: the French Taste for Spanish Painting (New York: Yale University Press, 2003), 267 (cat. 223). Fig. 1.02: Photograph of Walter Sickert by unknown photographer, 1880. Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies Archive, Martial Rose Library, University of Winchester. Fig. 1.03: Photograph of Walter Sickert by unknown photographer, undated (c.1905- c.1910?). Walter Richard Sickert Collection, London Borough of Islington, Libraries Department, X59 X210 SIC (WR) ACC X1715. Fig. 1.04: Le Danseue Verte (The Green Dancer) by Edgar Degas (1834-1917), 1880. Pastel and gouache on paper, 66 x 36 cms. Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid. Anna Gruetzner Robins & Richard Thomson, Degas, Sickert and Toulouse-Lautrec: London and Paris 1870-1910 (London: Tate Publishing, 2005), 65 (fig. 20). Fig. 1.05: Mlle. Bécat au Café des Ambassadeurs by Edgar Degas, c.1877-85. Pastel over lithograph on paper, 23 x 20 cms. The Pierpoint Morgan Library, New York. Anna Gruetzner Robins & Richard Thomson, Degas, Sickert and Toulouse-Lautrec: London and Paris 1870-1910 (London: Tate Publishing, 2005), 65 (fig. 21). Fig. 1.06: Répétition d’un Ballet sur la Scène (The Rehearsal of the Ballet on Stage) by Edgar Degas, c.1874. Pastel over brush-and-ink drawing, 53.3 x 72.3 cms. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Auckland City Art Gallery
    Frances Hodgkins 14 auckland city art gallery modern european paintings in new Zealand This exhibition brings some of the modern European paintings in New Zealand together for the first time. The exhibition is small largely because many galleries could not spare more paintings from their walls and also the conditions of certain bequests do not permit loans. Nevertheless, the standard is reasonably high. Chronologically the first modern movement represented is Impressionism and the latest is Abstract Expressionism, while the principal countries concerned are Britain and France. Two artists born in New Zealand are represented — Frances Hodgkins and Raymond Mclntyre — the former well known, the latter not so well as he should be — for both arrived in Europe before 1914 when the foundations of twentieth century painting were being laid and the earlier paintings here provide some indication of the milieu in which they moved. It is hoped that this exhibition may help to persuade the public that New Zealand is not devoid of paintings representing the serious art of this century produced in Europe. Finally we must express our sincere thanks to private owners and public galleries for their generous response to requests for loans. P.A.T. June - July nineteen sixty the catalogue NOTE: In this catalogue the dimensions of the paintings are given in inches, height before width JANKEL ADLER (1895-1949) 1 SEATED FIGURE Gouache 24} x 201 Signed ADLER '47 Bishop Suter Art Gallery, Nelson Purchased by the Trustees, 1956 KAREL APPEL (born 1921) Dutch 2 TWO HEADS (1958) Gouache 243 x 19i Signed K APPEL '58 Auckland City Art Gallery Presented by the Contemporary Art Society, 1959 JOHN BRATBY (born 1928) British 3 WINDOWS (1957) Oil on canvas 48x144 Signed BRATBY JULY 1957 Auckland City Art Gallery Presented by Auckland Gallery Associates, 1958 ANDRE DERAIN (1880-1954) French 4 LANDSCAPE Oil on canvas 21x41 J Signed A.
    [Show full text]
  • Copyright Statement
    COPYRIGHT STATEMENT This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with its author and no quotation from the thesis and no information derived from it may be published without the author’s prior consent. i ii REX WHISTLER (1905 – 1944): PATRONAGE AND ARTISTIC IDENTITY by NIKKI FRATER A thesis submitted to the University of Plymouth in partial fulfilment for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY School of Humanities & Performing Arts Faculty of Arts and Humanities September 2014 iii Nikki Frater REX WHISTLER (1905-1944): PATRONAGE AND ARTISTIC IDENTITY Abstract This thesis explores the life and work of Rex Whistler, from his first commissions whilst at the Slade up until the time he enlisted for active service in World War Two. His death in that conflict meant that this was a career that lasted barely twenty years; however it comprised a large range of creative endeavours. Although all these facets of Whistler’s career are touched upon, the main focus is on his work in murals and the fields of advertising and commercial design. The thesis goes beyond the remit of a purely biographical stance and places Whistler’s career in context by looking at the contemporary art world in which he worked, and the private, commercial and public commissions he secured. In doing so, it aims to provide a more comprehensive account of Whistler’s achievement than has been afforded in any of the existing literature or biographies. This deeper examination of the artist’s practice has been made possible by considerable amounts of new factual information derived from the Whistler Archive and other archival sources.
    [Show full text]
  • Charles Ginner, A.R.A
    THOS. AGNEW & SONS LTD. 6 ST. JAMES’S PLACE, LONDON, SW1A 1NP Tel: +44 (0)20 7491 9219. www.agnewsgallery.com Charles Ginner, A.R.A. (Cannes 1878 – 1952 London) St. Just in Cornwall – A landscape with cottages Signed ‘C. GINNER’ (lower left) Pen and ink and watercolour on paper 9 ¾ x 11 ¾ in. (25 x 30 cm.) Provenance Gifted by the Artist to Mrs. Frank Rutter. The Fine Art Society, 1985. Henry Wyndham Fine Art Ltd, London. Private Collection. Exhibited London, St George's Gallery, Charles Ginner and Randolph Schwabe, March 1926 (details untraced). London, The Fine Art Society, Charles Ginner, 7th - 25th October 1985, cat. no.13, illustrated. Literature Charles Ginner, List of Paintings, Drawings, etc. of Charles Ginner, Book II, 1919-1924, p. 135. Primarily a townscape and landscape painter, Charles Ginner grew up in France where his father, a doctor, practised, but settled in London in 1910. He was heavily influenced by Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin and Paul Cézanne. In 1909, Ginner visited Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he held his first one-person show, which helped to introduce post-Impressionism to South America. Thos Agnew & Sons Ltd, registered in England No 00267436 at 21 Bunhill Row, London EC1Y 8LP VAT Registration No 911 4479 34 THOS. AGNEW & SONS LTD. 6 ST. JAMES’S PLACE, LONDON, SW1A 1NP Tel: +44 (0)20 7491 9219. www.agnewsgallery.com He was a friend of Harold Gilman and Spencer Gore and through them was drawn into Walter Sickert’s circle, becoming a founder member of the Camden Town Group in 1911 and the London Group in 1913.
    [Show full text]
  • Iv: the Allan Wilkie Shakespearean Company, 1920-1926
    IV: THE ALLAN WILKIE SHAKESPEAREAN COMPANY, 1920-1926 "Our True Intent is all for Your Delight." In September 1920, Allan Wilkie announced his plans to establish Australia's first permanent Shakespearean company, drawing a parallel to Frank Benson's Company in England. The inaugural production by the new Allan Wilkie Shakespearean Company was to be a "new arrangement" of Macbeth, and Wilkie gave it as his fixed intention to produce all thirty-seven of Shakespeare's plays, some of which had never previously been staged in Australia." Advance publicity emphasized the potentially historic nature of the occasion: When in future years this company will be counted one of the institutions of which Australia is proud, those who attend on the opening night will tell with satisfaction how they were present during the enthusiastic hours which saw the inception of the company [Argus, 9 September 1920]. Many cynics were quick to point out the unlikelihood of Wilkie's venture surviving for long, or even getting off the ground, in view of the history of Shakespeare production in Australia. His was by no means the first proposal to establish a permanent company, but lack of demand had ended all previous efforts. In order to arouse audience curiosity, Wilkie advertised, as mentioned above, a "new arrangement" of Macbeth. His presentation was to have two novel aspects, which were to form the basis of his production methods in the years to come. They were interdependent: first, a new method of scenic arrangement, and second, a new organisation of the play, made possible by simplified scenery.
    [Show full text]
  • View Catalogue
    BOW WINDOWS BOOKSHOP 175 High Street, Lewes, Sussex, BN7 1YE T: +44 (0)1273 480 780 F: +44 (0)1273 486 686 [email protected] bowwindows.com CATALOGUE TWO HUNDRED AND ELEVEN Literature - First Editions, Classics, Private Press 1 - 89 Children's and Illustrated Books 90 - 107 Natural History 108 - 137 Maps 138 - 154 Travel and Topography 155 - 208 Art and Architecture 209 - 238 General Subjects - History, Theology, Militaria 239 - 264 Cover images – nos. 93 & 125 All items are pictured on our website and further images can be emailed on request. All books are collated and described as carefully as possible. Payment may be made by cheque, drawn on a sterling account, Visa, MasterCard or direct transfer to Account No. 40009652 at HSBC Bank, Eastbourne, sort code 40-20-69. Our IBAN code is GB02 HBUK40206940009652; SWIFTBIC is MIDL GB22. Postage will be charged at cost. Foreign orders will be sent by airmail unless requested otherwise. Our shop hours are 9.30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Saturday; an answerphone operates outside of these times. Items may also be ordered via our website. Ric Latham and Jonathan Menezes General Data Protection Regulation We hold on our computer our customers names and addresses, and in some cases phone numbers and email addresses. We do not share this information with third parties. We assume that you will be happy to continue to receive these catalogues and for us to hold this information; should you wish to change anything or come off our mailing list please let us know. LITERATURE FIRST EDITIONS, CLASSICS, PRIVATE PRESS 1.
    [Show full text]
  • 508642 VOL2.Pdf
    This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Lord Berners : Aspects of a Biography Gifford, Mary The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 23. Sep. 2021 LORD BERNERS: ASPECTS OF A BIOGRAPHY Name: MARY GIFFORD College: KING'S COLLEGE LONDON, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON Examination: PhD VOLUME2 Selected bibliography 186 Published music by Berners 200 Recorded music 204 Tables (working documents) 1.
    [Show full text]
  • The English-Speaking Aristophanes and the Languages of Class Snobbery 1650-1914
    Pre-print of Hall, E. in Aristophanes in Performance (Legenda 2005) The English-Speaking Aristophanes and the Languages of Class Snobbery 1650-1914 Edith Hall Introduction In previous chapters it has been seen that as early as the 1650s an Irishman could use Aristophanes to criticise English imperialism, while by the early 19th century the possibility was being explored in France of staging a topical adaptation of Aristophanes. In 1817, moreover, Eugene Scribe could base his vaudeville show Les Comices d’Athènes on Ecclesiazusae. Aristophanes became an important figure for German Romantics, including Hegel, after Friedrich von Schlegel had in 1794 published his fine essay on the aesthetic value of Greek comedy. There von Schlegel proposed that the Romantic ideals of Freedom and Joy (Freiheit, Freude) are integral to all art; since von Schlegel regarded comedy as containing them to the highest degree, for him it was the most democratic of all art forms. Aristophanic comedy made a fundamental contribution to his theory of a popular genre with emancipatory potential. One result of the philosophical interest in Aristophanes was that in the early decades of the 18th century, until the 1848 revolution, the German theatre itself felt the impact of the ancient comic writer: topical Lustspiele displayed interest in his plays, which provided a model for German poets longing for a political comedy, for example the remarkable satirical trilogy Napoleon by Friedrich Rückert (1815-18). This international context illuminates the experiences undergone by Aristophanic comedy in England, and what became known as Britain consequent upon the 1707 Act of Union.
    [Show full text]
  • Scarica La Lista in Formato
    Artinvest2000, i principali movimenti artistici. http://www.artinvest2000.com Dalla lettera A alla G ASTRATTISMO Astrattismo tendenza artistica del XX Secolo. Abbandonando la rappresentazione mimetica del mondo esterno, trova in generale le sue ragioni nella riflessione sulle specificità della ricerca formale e della percezione visiva. Parallelamente allo sviluppo di una speculazione estetica tra positivismo e spiritualismo (K. Fiedler, Origine dell'attività artistica, 1887; W. Worringer, Astrazione e empatia, 1908), molti artisti tendono alla rifondazione del proprio campo d'azione attraverso lo studio degli elementi formali che costituiscono le fondamenta sintattiche del linguaggio visivo, innescando un processo di sempre più radicale semplificazione e scomposizione delle forme. Una tendenza del genere, complicata dall'interesse per il meccanismo dei procedimenti percettivi, sposta progressivamente in secondo piano o elimina del tutto ogni preoccupazione rappresentativa. Sono soprattutto il "Sintetismo" e il decorativismo simbolista e la stilizzazione "Art nouveau" carica di suggestioni irrazionali e vitalistiche. ad alimentare il terreno culturale sul quale, attorno al 1910, si sviluppano diverse tendenze astratte nell'ambito dei movimenti d'avanguardia tedesco, russo, ceco e ungherese. Loro antecedenti immediati sono i due grandi movimenti innovatori dell'inizio del secolo, "Fauvisme" e "Cubismo". A questa duplice matrice formale si collegano i due modi principali dell'astrattismo, entrambi cresciuti nella ricerca di un ordine e di
    [Show full text]
  • Interpreters of Life and the Modern Spirit
    THIS BOOK IS FROM THE LIBRARY OF Rev. James Leach Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2010 witin funding from University of Toronto littp://www.arcliive.org/details/interpretersoflOOIiend nterpreters of Li I and the Modern Spin by Archibald Henderson LONDON DUCKWORTH AND CO. 3 Henrietta Street, W. C. 1911 ^^\B R A^l"^ Printed by The Manhattan Press New York, U. S. A. To my Father and Mother, the Two who guided my first steps in the paths of literature, this venture into its wider fields is with all devotion dedicated. INTERPRETERS OF LIFE George Meredith . I Oscar Wilde 35 Maurice Maeterlinck 105 Henrik Ibsen 157 I. The evolution of his mind and art 159 II. The genesis of his dramas 243 George Bernard Shaw 285 The frontispiece is a photogravure from an unpub- lished picture of George Meredith by Alvin Langdon Coburn. GEORGE MEREDITH "Then, ah! then . will the novelists* Art, now neither blushless infant nor executive man, have attained its majority. We can then he veraciously historical, honestly transcriptive. Rose-pink and dirty drab will alike have passed away. Philosophy is the foe of both, and their silly cancelling contest, perpetually renewed in a shuffle of extremes, as it always is where a phantasm falseness reigns, will no longer baffle the contemplation of natural flesh, smother no longer the soul issuing out of our incessant strife. Philosophy bids us to see that we are not so pretty as rose-pink, not so repulsive as dirty drab; and that, instead of everlastingly shifting those barren aspects, the sight of ourselves is wholesome, bearable, fructifying, finally a de- light.
    [Show full text]
  • The Theatre of Dionysus
    29 NOVEMBER 2018 The Theatre of Dionysus PROFESSOR EDITH HALL On the south slope of the Athenian Acropolis, you can visit the ancient Athenian theatre of Dionysus today. It is here that some of the first dramas as we know them were ever produced. The first excavators to explore the site were the Greek Archaeological Society in 1838. The site contains not only the theatre but the remains of two temples of the god Dionysus, one which was probably built in the 6th century BCE, when Athenian state theatre began to be performed, and the other rather later, after most of our surviving plays premiered. The introduction of theatre began under the tyrant of Athens, Peisistratus, who ruled for most of the mid-6th century BCE. He was responsible for a major expansion of Athenian festivals, including those for Dionysus, an ancient Greek god whose worship goes back to Mycenaean times and is intimately connected with wine cultivation, colonisation, poetry and theatre. But the theatre in which plays were performed in Dionysus’ honour was not originally built of stone. It probably had permanent wooden benches from around 498 BCE, that is, not long after the Athens expelled the tyrant family and inaugurated their first democracy in 507 BCE. The stone theatre we can see today was not to be built until the fourth century, well after the premieres of the great dramas which we can see performed on our 21st- century stages. The theatre consisted of a central dancing floor, circular in the case of Athens but rectangular in some other early theatres.
    [Show full text]
  • “Uproar!”: the Early Years of the London Group, 1913–28 Sarah Macdougall
    “Uproar!”: The early years of The London Group, 1913–28 Sarah MacDougall From its explosive arrival on the British art scene in 1913 as a radical alternative to the art establishment, the early history of The London Group was one of noisy dissent. Its controversial early years reflect the upheavals associated with the introduction of British modernism and the experimental work of many of its early members. Although its first two exhibitions have been seen with hindsight as ‘triumphs of collective action’,1 ironically, the Group’s very success in bringing together such disparate artistic factions as the English ‘Cubists’ and the Camden Town painters only underlined the fragility of their union – a union that was further threatened, even before the end of the first exhibition, by the early death of Camden Town Group President, Spencer Gore. Roger Fry observed at The London Group’s formation how ‘almost all artist groups’, were, ‘like the protozoa […] fissiparous and breed by division. They show their vitality by the frequency with which they split up’. While predicting it would last only two or three years, he also acknowledged how the Group had come ‘together for the needs of life of two quite separate organisms, which give each other mutual support in an unkindly world’.2 In its first five decades this mutual support was, in truth, short-lived, as ‘Uproar’ raged on many fronts both inside and outside the Group. These fronts included the hostile press reception of the ultra-modernists; the rivalry between the Group and contemporary artists’
    [Show full text]
  • Ooktyn Academy of the Musc 45TH SEASON
    170g-P, 600 4.1 1?-1 -7[02 110E-C , 6°°1?`- 1859 1861 f ooktyn Academy of the Musc 45TH SEASON GRAND OPERA By Notable Casts from The Metropolitan Opera Company of New York Saturday, November 14 Monday, November 23 Wednesday, December 2 Monday, December 14 Tuesday, December 22 1 1908 Monday, January 4 Thursday, January 14 Tuesday, January 26 Thursday, February 4 Wednesday, February 17 Friday, March 5 Wednesday, March 17 Wednesday, March 24 Monday, April 5 1909 THE OFFICIAL 1 PROGRAMME FOR WEEK OF DECEMBER 5, 1908 NO. 33 Copyright applied for New York and Boston Publishing Company 1904 1908 r THE PEARL PRESS, 375 Pearl St., Brooklyn 1 1 Mrs. Henry Smock Boice ( Miss Susan S. Boice, Soprano The Brooklyn STUDIOS Academy of Music Carnegie Hall, Man., Mon., Th., Sat. 400 Washington Av., B'klyn. Tel., 608 Prosp't at Art of Singing, French Lyric Diction, Classes 176 to 194 Montague Street in French, German and Italian. Best Methods. ;Incorporated Round Hats " For the Purpose of Encouraging and Culti- vating a taste for Music, Literature and the Arts" Tuesday, March 15 Elizabeth 1859 Dedicated Rhind Tuesday Evening, January 15 374 Fulton Street FIRST PERFORMANCE OF OPERA Tuesday Evening, January 22 Tocques Brooklyn FIRST DRAMATIC PERFORMANCE 1870 "Confidence is not gained in a day" 1908 Monday Evening, December 23 1861 ARTHUR J. HEANEY to Loans on Diamonds and Jewelry and Destroyed by Fire on Monday Morning, November 30, o 214 and 216 Atlantic Ave. 1903 Tel., 3182 Main Brooklyn Telephone, 423 Main All Our Publications Y.
    [Show full text]