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Home , Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Camden Town Group, Gilbert Spencer, Graves Art Gallery, Lillian Browse, Malcolm Drummond

The Morris Dancer & The Rat Catcher The Morris Dancer & The Rat Catcher

Commercial Road Southampton SO14 7LY 023 8093 2705 [email protected] www.southampton.gov.uk/art MODERN BRITISH FIGURE PAINTINGS FROM SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY

The Morris Dancer & The Rat Catcher PREFACE

The Art Deco facade of Southampton City Art rummage amongst such treasures whilst selecting Gallery rises from its surroundings like a stately this show has been a rare privilege. ocean liner from the 1930s. A time when the city and its dockyards thrummed with the commotion Generous endowments by high-minded people of the golden age of trans-Atlantic glamour and who were proud of where they came from built Southampton was ’s gateway to the world. collections like Southampton’s before the age of cheap-day returns to the , or for that matter Time and the Luftwaffe have left their mark since weekends in New York to see the Met. In today’s those heady days, but the snowy facade of the culture of centralisation, funds are hoovered up Gallery and Civic Centre still radiates the bright by the great metropolitan hubs, where they are optimism of when they were first dreamed of. perceived to have the most impact and influence, leaving many regional institutions to languish and Inside, one passes through the vestibule – turning deteriorate. a bit of a blind eye to the wrestling and panto posters – and ascends the staircase to be dazzled We are all in search of something that we can’t by a succession of graceful pillars arching towards quite put our finger on, and with the gradual vaulted windows that flood the interior with emptying of our conventional places of worship sunlight. It is a cathedral made for art. the role of art galleries as places that offer contemporary insights into spiritual truths has Coming back down to earth, the realities of become more and more important. keeping everything afloat become apparent. A once revolutionary natural lighting system in the Southampton Art Gallery is very important outer galleries is boarded up, as are the stone nationally, and, crucially, even more so locally, but niches created to house an exquisite Rodin bronze to fulfill its neglected potential it really needs your and other sculptures. The Rodin still nestles in its support. packing case in the vaults below. I just hope that this exhibition, by drawing aside There are a number of outstanding Modern British the curtain to reveal what is only a fraction of this public collections around the British Isles, but of wonderful collection, will help set the ball rolling them all – thanks in no small part to the guiding again. hand of the great – Southampton stands out as being in a league of its own. It has Jonathan Clark the best collection of paintings in Southern England outside , amongst which happen to be some of my all-time favourites. So being allowed to

4 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 5 INTRODUCTION David Fraser Jenkins

A painting of some stranger brings this person from the collection at Southampton City Art up to our sight, and we can stare back, so that Gallery. we can see all that can be learned about them just from looking, with no words or memories, That ability to shout out clearly, those candid but just a sight of this individual, brought back views of plain speaking, have resulted in a to life. And that’s enough for a while ... but jostling line-up of highly individual voices, each luckily there’s more to it than that, since a resistant to stylistic grouping, so that to make painting grows out of an encounter in some of this a grand display of art historical themes artist’s working space, so the subject’s feelings would be to miss the point. But this frankness about being stared at may also be seen comes as much from the shadows as from reflected in their face and whole body: how the limelight, from painting that could just as they are seen at the time inescapably involves readily show you a naked woman surrounded also their own response to the artist. by breakfast cereal as a City gent strolling in St James’s Park. In fact, some of the most The ways that modern British artists successful paintings of all here (and these approached the demands of such levels are some of the most successful in modern of interpretation are often disarmingly British art) are those that most reveal a long straightforward, shouting out clearly just engagement with doubts and hesitations. how these forces of looking had to be negotiated. These are works that record an It would be quite difficult to find a more intimate meeting with the person that the distinguished group elsewhere outside artist has chosen to paint, whether a friend London. The quality of these works is or some chance encounter, and they are seen spectacular, and this is just a part of the as individuals, not models. This quest for Southampton collection, a collection that individuality is a dominant characteristic of the seems more than ever to lack support, exhibition of modern British figure paintings however confidently it is housed in its Art which has been selected by Jonathan Clark Deco palace in a major city. Many of the city

6 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 7 Page 48

Page 78 Page 34 Page 62

art collections in Britain deserve far more that equal gaze. It is as if Spencer thought that whole circus of this exhibition, and must be of an apparently gypsy subject. He found an visitors, but it may be that of all of them, it is he should know his place, and so showed him amongst the best pictures in it. intense, ceramic-like colouring, and achieved a this one that merits most to be better known slightly comic, his moustache rhyming with the warm application of paint that makes surface and better valued. chair-back. Although these people here in this There is another precarious border, apart and shape together. With great subtlety she exhibition were mostly on good terms, our from the social, which is also a part of comes across as two performers, one the One of the two title works for this exhibition, social sense has to be kept alert at all points, friendship, across which sexual desire is made-up dancer, and the other a friend, with ‘Morris Dancer’ (page 18), is posing out so as to sense some patronising, as here, and balanced and held back by fear of over- a smile on her face beneath her circus lipstick, of doors on his day off, ready for drawings to spot all the triggers to class association. stepping manners. Nothing could be more and a reflective, dreamy look, utterly complicit and photos by William Nicholson. This man polite than Claude Rogers’ ‘Miss Lynn’ (page as she is fondled by eye. was a well-known dancer, and the honesty Social awareness is not just a matter of 48), a tour de force of restraint in full colour, of this encounter is there to be seen in this costume. Norman Blamey’s ‘Vesting Priest as the virginal model, a ‘Miss’, turns her head The modern British artists between the most level of all looks, smack in the face, the with Apparelled Amice’ (page 78) is indeed and looks but does not share her mind. The wars were like an unruly family, the siblings ultimate level gaze, the more peculiar coming specifically about his costume (his ‘amice’ – a artist seems to have worked behind a glass all knowing each other, all squabbling after from what seems a man dressed absurdly, or scarf – and even his 'vesting'), which is laid out wall, thinking upfront of colour and design, the same treats, looking somewhat alike, yet as if we are imagining the bull’s first sight of beside him. But the point is that he disengages but otherwise constraining his touch on this pushing each other into different manners. the toreador. Here is a mutual pledge between his look from the world and gazes up, as he woman who is too young, and too unknown. The pictures were smallish, for thin gilt frames, two performers, the dancer and the artist, is transformed, at this moment in front of us, to hang beside the chimney breast or the both engaged in a funny-looking activity, but into his priestly role. Evidently this artist also But away from such English restraint, where bookcase and not shock the relations. The both open and serious, with the potential for believed, and maybe he knew this man, but he there was a particular licence, Mark Gertler rooms were like those seen in the mirror in good conversation and likely friendship, and certainly could not reach the kind of man that could exhibit a properly voluptuous ‘Seated Sickert’s ‘The Mantlepiece’ (page 34). This is both part of some ancient dispensation. he is becoming. Nude’ (page 62), who even looks as if she a brilliant performance of broken colour and were dancing to the pleasure of his sight. globules of light, the more so as it is a trick, The other exhibition title work, the pest- The pictures by Nicholson and Blamey are Gertler had made a specific Jewish identity as half the painting represents the totally flat control-officer described by equivalent, both knock-out portraits, and both with paintings like ‘The Rabbi and his surface of the mirror itself. Overall there is (page 60), whatever was his actual or former weird and troubling. These two full-lengths are Grandchild’ (page 68), and this dancing model a confusion of seeing and revealing, in which occupation, seated in his rat-skin coat, lacks the poles of the marquee that encloses the was more acceptable from a Jewish artist and outline drawing is disguised, and the sense of

8 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 9 Page 90 Page 64 Page 58 Page 50 Page 84 Page 76

desire uncertain, whether this is a child, some and intense red that cuts her away from been elevated to the drama of a Renaissance apart from huge earrings (page 84), and in the relation, or a young model. everything. The visual forces are so extreme altarpiece. Spencer’s ‘Resurrection’ people other lying full length inside what looks like a it is difficult to remain aware that the situation have formed up together in little clusters that red shape but is her summer dress, open at Auerbach’s approach to painting preserved was so ordinary, yet this is also a portrait. look a bit like flowers in a garden (page 72). the knees, and with a small bird cruising over a sense of living within the pigment, but William shows a massive assembly of and peering between her legs, desire happily heightened the power of the picture’s own The confrontation of artist and person can Arabs and camels, with Lawrence of Arabia, breaking through abstraction (page 86). returning gaze at the artist, as he addressed hardly become more prickly than in Spencer’s who all seem to be dancing and singing while the image on his easel. His model’s eyes record of the artist (page 64) holding toy rifles (page 76). Both these strange There is a rich cluster of well-chosen paintings dominate and terrify, while the artist fights seen in the act of turning up her nose (going visions were tributes, to a miracle and to a by Hilton at Southampton, the others back with an attempt to dissolve the image in to her left) and pursing her lips (going to her hero, in which the praise is implied by the rich completely abstract. But Southampton’s front of him. But the more broken the paint, right), sitting on the edge of her chair, perhaps design and colour, as unreal as can be. There modern British paintings are generally the more forceful the eyes, as in his head and taking no notice of the music from the wind- is a similar sense of adoration by accumulation outstanding, each delivering the impact that shoulders painting of his friend whose initials up gramophone behind her, and challenging in John Bratby’s piling of washing up and brings forward this very personal pleasure of were ‘JYM’ (page 90), who looks down, perhaps his interest in her bodily presence. He paints breakfast cereals that cuts right across his wife contact. The collection should not be held smiling. But both her eyes, of strikingly different her skin with a radiant light, not warm but as ‘Jean, and still life in front of window’ (page back by its modest fame. Trumpets should colours, are enlarged by vast ellipses, especially if reflecting a cold moon, frontal and without 50) as she sits without her clothes on, all the be sounding, flags waving on hilltops. This her left. This is image-making versus personal shadow. There is no constraint here, of parts of her body as nice as food, touchable, exhibition is a step towards that fanfare, and contact as an all-out battle. distance or class, but it feels disturbing that rewarding to the lips, as all the old decorum a chance to discover or savour again paintings the description is so vacant (and would do of painting is abandoned with pleasure. that of their kind are, quite simply, second to Many of these pictures seem to explode even if she were not his wife). none. from their frames. A young woman with the Two of the most enjoyable of such modern name ‘Dulcie’ (page 58) wearing a party The two largest paintings in this selection from paintings at Southampton were made by an David Fraser Jenkins is formerly senior curator frock, sitting athwart an armless chair, waiting, Southampton are extravagantly eccentric, abstract artist, Roger Hilton, when no longer at , and has published widely on and by the look of it wanting to get up and both of them accumulations of figures with young though not yet old. Pure colour and modern British artists including Gwen John, leave, was seen by Matthew Smith in such stylised rhythm and colours, as if some local design are invaded by outline drawings of a , Paul Nash, John Piper and tension that she could out-face the spaceless events were so momentous that they had woman, in one picture skipping about naked .

10 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 11 THE SCEPTRED ISLE

The last decades before the First World War saw vast empires manoeuvring, and the formalities of national cultures vying for superior elegance and stature. Britain set standards for style and prowess, particularly in that great metaphor for war, sport.

Sporting events became highlights of the social calendar – Cowes Week, races at Ascot and Newmarket, the Eton and Harrow match at Lords – which served as favoured subject matter for artists such as James Tissot, Wilson Steer and, later, . By the eve of the War, however, this was a swan song of empire. Many great estates were being broken up, the economic and civic make-up of the country was being altered forever, and the clouds of devastation were massing on the horizon.

At the same time a gathering of artists was providing an earthy response, something decidedly un-imperial, but just as English: the Group. With members including , , Bevan, and William Ratcliffe, the group took as their subjects the urban and the ordinary, determined to avoid the grand values which had dominated Victorian art.

Although Camden Town painting itself lasted only a few years, it had an enormous influence on British painting for the next half-century, turning artists’ heads (and the public’s perceptions) from duchesses to kitchen maids, and from drawing rooms to greasy spoons.

12 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 13 JAMES TISSOT (1836-1902)

The Captain’s Daughter (The Last Evening) 1873 oil on canvas signed and dated lower left 72.3 × 105 cm / 28½ × 41½ in

Provenance Acquired through the Smith Bequest Fund 1934

Exhibited Royal Academy, London, 1873 (no. 108) ‘In the Seventies’, Leicester Galleries, London, 1933 ‘James Tissot’, , , 1955 ‘Pictures from Southampton’, Wildenstein Gallery, London, 1970 ‘De Nittis and Tissot: Painters of Modern Life’, Palazzo Marra, Barletta, 2006 ‘James Tissot’, Chiostro del Bramante, Rome, 2015-16

Literature James Laver, Vulgar Society, 1936, p. 29 and illus. pl. 9 Christopher Wood, Tissot, 1986, p. 62

14 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 15 (1860-1942)

Watching Cowes Regatta 1892 oil on canvas signed and dated lower right 50.8 × 61 cm / 20 × 24 in

Provenance John Scaramanga (1898-1918) Angus Wilson and Paul Odo Cross Acquired through the Smith Bequest Fund 1963

Exhibited ‘Memorial Exhibition Philip Wilson Steer’, , London, 1943 ‘La Vie Intime’, Roland Browse and Delbanco, London, 1966, cat. pl. 31 Le Havre, , 1975 ‘Strands and Shorelines’, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, 1985

Literature Whitworth Art Gallery, Artist and Model, 1986, pp. 39 & 42

16 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 17 SIR WILLIAM NICHOLSON (1872-1949)

The Morris Dancer 1902 oil on canvas signed and dated centre right 127.5 × 102 cm / 50 × 40¼ in

Provenance The Hon. John Freemantle Acquired through the Smith Bequest 1939

Exhibited ‘William Nicholson: Retrospective Exhibition’, Nottingham Museum and Art Gallery, 1933 The British Council, London, Cairo, 1947 ‘The Art of Dancing’, Russell-Coates Art Gallery and Museum, Bournemouth, 1958 ‘1895-1916’, Arts Centre, New Metropole, Folkestone, 1974 ‘Art and Dance’, Leicestershire Museums and Galleries; Ferens Art Gallery, Hull, 1991

Literature Marguerite Steen, William Nicholson, 1943, p. 78 Lillian Browse, William Nicholson, 1956, p. 41 Doc Rowe, Comes the Morris dancer in … a celebration of fifty years of The Morris Ring 1934-1984, 1984, p. 8

18 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY MALCOLM DRUMMOND (1880-1945)

In the Park (St. James’s Park) 1912 oil on canvas signed lower right 72.5 × 90 cm / 28½ × 35½ in

Provenance Denys Sutton Acquired through the Smith Bequest 1953

Exhibited ‘Third Exhibition of The ’, Carfax Gallery, London, 1912 ‘Exhibition of The Camden Town Group and Others’, Public Art Galleries, , 1913-14 Summer Exhibition, Redfern Gallery, 1951 ‘Recent Acquisitions’, Southampton City Art Gallery, 1954 ‘Malcolm Drummond (1880-1945)’, Arts Council, London, 1963-1964 ‘Decade 1910-20’, Arts Council touring, Leeds, Reading, Manchester, and Leicester, 1965 Columbus, Ohio, 1971 ‘The Camden Town Group’, , Newcastle, 1974 ‘Malcolm Drummond (1880-1945)’, Maltzahn Gallery, London, 1974 ‘Cityscape’, Arts Council touring, Bradford, Portsmouth, Newcastle and Royal Academy, London, 1977-1978 ‘Paintings of London by Members of the Camden Town Group’, Anthony d’Offay Gallery, London, 1979 Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven, 1980 ‘Modern British Painting: From Reynolds to Nicholson’, Bilbao, 1997

Literature The Artist, 1979 Simon Watney, English Post , 1979 Julian Spalding, Lowry, 1987, p. 29 R. Ash, Spirit of London, 1991 Art Treasures of England, 1998, p. 424-5 The Open University, Modern Art and Modernism, Manet to Pollock, 1983-92 Wendy Baron, Perfect Moderns: A History of The Camden Town Group, 2000 University of Northumbria at Newcastle, The Geography of Englishness, 2001

20 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 21 (1865-1925)

A Sale at Tattersalls 1911 oil on canvas 50.8 × 61 cm / 20 × 24 in

Provenance Purchased from the artist by Mrs Horsfall, Carfax Gallery 1913 Col. J.J. McConnel Acquired through the Chipperfield Bequest (with grant from the V&A) 1974

Exhibited ‘R P Bevan’, Carfax Gallery, 1913 London Group, 1926 Arts Council, 1956 ‘Robert Bevan Centenary Exhibition’, P & D Colnaghi, London, 1965 ‘Modern British Painting: From Reynolds to Nicholson’, Bilbao, 1997 ‘Uproar! The First 50 years of ’, Ben Uri Gallery, London, 2013-14

Literature R A Bevan, Robert Bevan, a memoir by his son, 1965, pl. 29 Frances Stenlake, From Cuckfield to Camden Town, the story of the artist Robert Bevan, 1999

22 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 23 HAROLD GILMAN (1876-1919)

Portrait of Sylvia Gosse circa 1912-14 oil on canvas signed lower right 67 × 49 cm / 26¹⁄³ × 19¼ in

Provenance Acquired through the Chipperfield Bequest 1950

Exhibited ‘The Camden Town Group’, Southampton Art Gallery, 1951 Autumn Exhibition, Bournemouth Art Club, 1952 ‘Modern Art in Britain 1910-1914’, Barbican Art Gallery, 1997, cat. p. 95 ‘British Painting Between the Wars’, Reading Museum and Art Gallery, 1963 ‘Decade 1910-20’, Arts Council, touring, Leeds, Reading, Manchester, Glasgow and Leicester, 1965 ‘Harold Gilman, An English Post-Impressionist’, The Minories, Colchester; The Ashmolean, ; Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield, 1969 ‘Camden Town Group & Related Pictures’, Plymouth Museum and Art Gallery, 1974 ‘The Camden Town Group’, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, 1974 ‘Sylvia Gosse - Painter & Etcher’, Hastings Museum and Art Gallery, 1978 Arts Council touring exhibition, Stoke, York, Birmingham and the Royal Academy, London, 1982 ‘Modern Art in Britain 1910-1914’, Barbican Art Gallery, 1997, cat. p. 95 ‘The Camden Town Group’, Tate Britain, 2008 ‘Uproar! The First 50 years of the London Group’, Ben Uri Gallery, London, 2013-14

Literature The Listener, November 1950

24 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 25 WILLIAM RATCLIFFE (1870-1955)

The Coffee House 1914 oil on canvas signed lower right 51 × 61.3 cm / 20 × 24 in

Provenance Acquired through the Smith Bequest 1953

Exhibited ‘Recent Acquisitions’, Southampton City Art Gallery, 1954 ‘Contemporary Paintings from Southampton Art Gallery’, Exeter Art Gallery, 1955 ‘The Camden Town Group 50th Anniversary Exhibition: The Minories’, Colchester, 1961 ‘The Camden Town Group and Related Pictures: A Loan Exhibition from Public and Private Collections’, Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery, 1974 ‘The Camden Town Group: Paintings and Drawings Borrowed From Southampton Art Gallery and Collection in the North of England’, Newcastle, Laing Art Gallery, 1974 ‘Edwardian Reflections’, Bradford Metropolitan District, 1975 ‘Cityscape’, Arts Council touring, Bradford, Portsmouth, Newcastle and the Royal Academy, London, 1977-78 Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven, 1980

Literature Quentin Bell, The Camden Town Group (2): Opposition and Composition, 1963-4, p. 70 Richard Stone, The Century of Change: British Painting Since 1900, 1977, p. 32

26 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 27 SIR ALFRED MUNNINGS (1878 -1959)

After the Race oil on canvas signed lower right 99 × 129 cm / 39 × 51 in

Provenance Purchased from the Artist 1937 Acquired through the Chipperfield Bequest

Exhibited Royal Academy, London, 1937 Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts, 1937 An Artist’s Life Retrospective Exhibition of Works of Sir Alfred Munnings, The Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, Bournemouth, 1955

Loan The Sir Alfred Munnings Art Museum, Castle House, Dedham, , 1978 to 1998

28 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 29 L S LOWRY (1887-1976)

The Floating Bridge, Southampton 1956 oil on canvas signed and dated lower right 50.8 × 76.3 cm / 20 × 30 in

Provenance Acquired through the Chipperfield Bequest 1956

Exhibited ‘Recent Paintings by L. S. Lowry’, The Lefevre Gallery, 1956 ‘L. S. Lowry RA (1887-1976)’, Tate Gallery, London, 1966 ‘L. S. Lowry’, Le Havre, 1975 ‘L. S. Lowry RA 1887-1976’, , London, 1976 ‘Strands and Shorelines’, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, 1985 ‘L. S. Lowry Centenary Exhibition’, Salford Art Gallery, 1987 ‘L. S. Lowry’, Barbican Art Gallery, London, 1988

Literature Betty Doe, The Floating Bridge Remembered, The Lady, May 1984, p. 846 J. P. Brown, Songs of Old Hampshire, 1987

30 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 31 LOAFING AND GRAFTING

What most people got up to, most of the time, became serious subject matter for British art in the 20th century. Previously, ingrained requirements – refined ideas of status, education, natural forms, traditional concepts of beauty – had kept industrial landscape, street life, and the less dramatic activities of war, off the list of obvious subjects for art.

This new investigation into realism, an avenue underpinned by seismic societal change, was in part a search for a new catechism, one that discarded the old lore extolling the nobility of labour and the glory of sacrifice in battle, replacing it with the lure of grittiness and girders, and the inevitability of trouble and melancholy.

In different ways, artists like Percy and Paul Nash found oblique ways to confront and disseminate the harshness, even the banality, of conflict. The thriving levels of industry that built up around both World Wars, celebrated from Christopher Nevinson to LS Lowry, brought toil and teamwork centre stage.

This prepared the way for a post-war revolution – political, social and artistic – encompassing music, theatre, literature and painting, most famously represented by the Kitchen Sink artists (more properly ‘The Beaux Arts Quartet’), the best known of whom was John Bratby, whose celebration of the humdrum lives of ordinary people reached its height when they were chosen to represent Britain at the Venice Biennale in 1956.

32 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 33 WALTER SICKERT (1860-1942)

The Mantlepiece 1907 oil on canvas 76 × 50.8 cm / 30 × 20 in

Provenance Acquired through the Smith Bequest 1932

Exhibited Chicago, 1938 ‘Sickert’, The National Gallery, London, 1941 ‘Sickert’, Temple Newsam, Leeds, 1942 Johannesburg, 1948 ‘Sickert’, Hove Art Gallery, 1950 ‘Camden Town Group’, Southampton City Art Gallery, 1951 ‘Works by Sickert’, Arts Council, Edinburgh, 1953 ‘British Contemporary Paintings’, Arts Council, touring, various northern galleries, 1953-54 ‘Coronation Exhibition’, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, 1953 ‘Contemporary Paintings from Southampton Art Gallery’, Exeter Art Gallery, 1955 Amsterdam, 1957 ‘Walter Richard Sickert’, Fine Art Society, London and Edinburgh, 1973 ‘Edwardian Festival Exhibition 1895-1916’, Arts Centre, New Metropole, Folkestone, 1974, cat. no. 40 ‘The Camden Town Group’, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, 1974 ‘From Sandby to Sickert’, Holburne Museum, Bath, 1992 ‘Modern British Painting: From Reynolds to Nicholson’, Bilbao, 1997, cat. no. 24 ‘Homes and Garden Exhibition’, Geffrye Museum, London, 2004 ‘Degas and Britain’, Tate Britain, London, 2006 ‘The Camden Town Group’, Tate Britain, London, 2008

Literature Browse and Wilenski, Sickert, 1943, pp. 46-7 Sickert, BBC TV film, 1954 Lillian Browse, Sickert, 1960, p. 109 G.H. Hamilton, Painting and Sculpture in Europe 1880-1940, 1972, p. 33 Wendy Baron, Sickert, 1973, p. 354 J.F. Buyck, Painting in Belgium 1830-1914, 1981 Artscribe, 1987, p. 34 Associazione Brescia Mastre, Impressionism in Europe, 2001

34 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 35 PERCY WYNDHAM LEWIS (1882-1957) PERCY WYNDHAM LEWIS (1882-1957)

Drawing of Great War (No. 1), retitled The Menin Road 1918 Drawing of Great War (No. 2) 1918 watercolour watercolour signed lower right 38.1 × 54.2 cm / 15 × 21³⁄8 in 29.8 × 46.6 cm / 11¾ × 18³⁄8 in Provenance Provenance Acquired through the Smith Bequest 1952 John Quinn Richard Wyndham Exhibited Acquired through the Smith Bequest 1952 ‘St. Pancras Painters’, St. Pancras Town Hall, London, 1953 ‘Recent Acquisitions’, Southampton City Art Gallery, 1954 Exhibited ‘The Art of War’, Morley College, Westminster, London, 1956 ‘St. Pancras Painters’, St. Pancras Town Hall, London, 1953 ‘Wyndham Lewis’, Manchester City Art Gallery, 1980 ‘Recent Acquisitions’, Southampton City Art Gallery, 1954 ‘Wyndham Lewis and ’, Tate Gallery, 1956, cat. no. 18 Literature Strasbourg, 1969 Walter Michel, Wyndham Lewis: Paintings and Drawings, London, 1971, p. 194, pl. 34, no. 276 ‘Wyndham Lewis’, Manchester City Art Gallery, 1980 Toulouse, Wolfsburg, 2003

Literature Walter Michel, Wyndham Lewis: Paintings and Drawings, London, 1971, p. 194, p. 34, no. 288

36 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 37 CHRISTOPHER NEVINSON (1889-1946)

Loading Timber at Southampton Docks 1917 oil on canvas signed lower right 50.8 × 61 cm / 20 × 24 in

Provenance Acquired through the Smith Bequest 1962

Exhibited ‘C. R. W. Nevinson, War Painting’, Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield, 1934 Le Harvre, 1975 ‘A Terrific Thing - British Art 1910-16’, touring, Norwich, Southampton, Oxford, 1977 ‘Cityscape’, Arts Council touring, Bradford, Portsmouth, Newcastle and the Royal Academy, London, 1977-78 ‘C.R.W. Nevinson: 1889-1946’, Kettles Yard, Cambridge, Birmingham Art Gallery, Southampton Art Gallery, Bolton Art Gallery, 1989-89, cat. p. 16, pl. 22 ‘Modern British Painting: From Reynolds to Nicholson’, Bilbao, 1997 ‘C. R. W. Nevinson: The Twentieth Century’, , London, 2000 ‘A Crisis of Brilliance: Young British Artists, 1908-1922’, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, 2013 ‘A Soldiers Journey’, Sea City Museum, Southampton, 2014-15 ‘Shorelines’, St. Barbe Museum and Art Gallery, Lymington, 2015-16

Literature P. G. Konody and Grant Richards, Modern War Paintings by C. R. W. Nevinson, 1917, pl. 79 H. W. Nevinson, Rough Islands, 1930, pl. 144 Royal Academy Magazine, Nevinson, March 1989 Museo de Bellas de Bilbao, Modern British Painting: From Reynolds to Nicholson, 1997 St. Barbe Museum and Art Gallery, Shorelines, 2015

38 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 39 EDWARD BURRA (1905-1976)

Café 1930 watercolour signed and dated lower right 7 66 × 50.5 cm / 26 × 19 ⁄ 8 in

Provenance Acquired through the Chipperfield Bequest 1958

Exhibited Waddington Galleries, London, 1958 ‘Edward Burra’, Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield and Sunderland Public Library, 1976-77 ‘Cityscape’, Arts Council touring, Bradford, Portsmouth, Newcastle and the Royal Academy, London, 1977-78 ‘Thirties’, Hayward Gallery, London, 1980 ‘Modern British Painting: From Reynolds to Nicholson’, Bilbao, 1997 , 2008 ‘Full Circle’, Solent Showcase Gallery, Southampton, 2016

Literature Sir , Edward Burra, 1945, p. 14, pl. 16 Sir John Rothenstein, Modern English Painters, vol. 3, 1956, p. 106 Studio International, July – August 1975, p. 32 BBC TV, The Thirties, 1979 Andrew Causey, Edward Burra: Complete Catalogue, 1985, no. 57

40 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 41 LESLIE COLE (1910-1976)

Naval Base – Women’s Royal Naval Service Sick Bay 1942 oil on canvas signed and dated lower right 54.5 × 77.4 cm / 21½ × 30½ in

Provenance Presented by the War Artists Advisory Committee 1947

Exhibited ‘In Their Own Words – Soldiers’ Thoughts from Afghanistan’, Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, Bournemouth, 2012-13

Literature Meirion & Susie Harries, The War Artists, 1983

42 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 43 JOHN MINTON (1917-1957)

Rotherhithe from Wapping 1946 oil on plywood signed and dated lower left 91.5 × 122 cm / 36 × 48 in

Provenance Presented by The Contemporary Arts Society 1950

Exhibited ‘Recent Paintings by John Minton’, Lefevre Gallery, 1946-47 ‘First Anthology, 1925-50’, Arts Council, London, 1951 Bournemouth Art Club, 1952 ‘British Contemporary Paintings from Southern and Midland Galleries’, Arts Council touring, 1953-54 ‘John Minton 1917-1957’, Reading Museum and Art Gallery and Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield, 1974-75 ‘John Minton’, The Fine Art Society, touring, London, Eastbourne, and Glasgow, 1979 ‘AIA, The Story of the Artists International Association, 1933-1953’, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford; touring, Bradford, Nottingham, Edinburgh and London, 1983-84 ‘100 Years of Art in Britain’, Leeds City Art Gallery, 1988-89 ‘A Paradise Lost (The Seed at Zero)’, Barbican Art Gallery, London, 1988

Literature John Russell, From Sickert to 1948, 1948, p. 113, pl. 104 The Studio, September 1948, p. 69 , Dance Till the Stars Come Down, 1991, p. 76

44 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 45 L S LOWRY (1887-1976)

The Canal Bridge 1949 oil on canvas signed and dated lower right 7 71 × 91.2 cm / 28 × 35 ⁄ 8 in

Provenance Acquired through the Smith Bequest 1951

Exhibited Bournemouth Arts Club, 1952 ‘Contemporary Paintings from Southampton Art Gallery’, Exeter Art Gallery, 1955 ‘Recent Paintings by L. S. Lowry’, The Lefevre Gallery, 1956 ‘Modern Paintings from Southampton Art Gallery’, Worthing Art Gallery, 1957 ‘L. S. Lowry - Centenary Exhibition’, Salford Art Gallery, 1987, cat. p. 89, fig. 44 ‘Lowry and the Painting of Modern Life’, Tate Britain, London, 2013

Literature Mary Ingham, L. S. Lowry, 1975, pl. 5 The Foundry Creative Media Co., The Essential History of Art, 2000 Punch, issue 115, September 2000, p. 20

46 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 47 CLAUDE ROGERS (1907-1979)

Miss Lynn 1951 oil on canvas signed lower left 7 108 × 177.3 cm / 42 × 69 ⁄ 8 in

Provenance Presented by the Arts Council of Great Britain (to commemorate The Festival of Britain) 1953

Exhibited Arts Council Festival of Britain Exhibition, RBA Galleries, 1951 ‘Claude Rogers Paintings and Drawings 1927-1973’, University of Reading and touring, London, Birmingham, Southampton, Bradford and Sheffield, 1973 ‘Art and the University from 1860’, Reading Museum and Art Gallery, 1976 ‘20 Paintings from 1951’, Sheffield City Art Gallery, 1978 ‘Claude Rogers Paintings and Drawings’ Ben Uri Art Society, London, 1992, cat. p. 8 ‘Modern British Painting: From Reynolds to Nicholson’, Bilbao, 1997

Literature Arts Council 6th Annual report, 1950-1951, pl. 3 Studio, August 1951, p. 44 The Artist, September 1951, p. 5 Anthony O’ Hear, Modern Painters - Claude Rogers (1907-1979), 1992 R. Shane, The Century of Change: British Painting Since 1900, 1997

48 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 49 JOHN BRATBY (1928-1992)

Jean and Still Life in Front of Window 1954 oil on board 1 122 × 108 cm / 48 × 42 ⁄ 2 in

Provenance Bequeathed by Arthur Jeffress in 1963

Exhibited Works from the Arthur Jeffress Collection, Worthing Museum and Art Gallery ‘London British Paintings 1952-1977’, Royal Academy, London, 1977 ‘150th Anniversary Painting Exhibition’, , London, 1988 ‘John Bratby Portraits’, National Portrait Gallery, London, 1991 ‘Transition – British Art of the Fifties’, Barbican Art Gallery, London, 2002 ‘The Naked Portrait’, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, 2007 ‘In the Shadow of War’, Djanogly Art Gallery, University of Nottingham, Lakeside Arts, 2014-15

Literature Royal Academy of Arts, British Painting 1952-1977, 1977 Robin Gibson, John Bratby Portraits, 1991

50 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY FLESH AND BLOOD

With the tradition of portraiture in British art stretching back some six centuries, it has formed a backbone of the country’s art history, and a way of understanding that a key task of art might be to reveal something of the human condition. Those six hundred years provided 20th century artists with much to escape from and much to reference: the depiction of the English face has long held a reputation for straightforwardness, an avoidance of pomposity, a trait that snowballs in the first half of the new century, with the swirling influences of modernism, an evolving anti-establishment culture, and the emerging interest in psychological personality.

The choice of sitters sheds light on this evolution. Running alongside formal commissions from the great and the good were, as the 20th century developed, more intimate, more vulnerable portraits of lovers, artists’ models, fellow artists, and self-portraits. Sickert’s portrait of himself, ‘The Juvenile Lead’ (p. 54), for example, caught the artist in a moment of unguarded doubt; and Matthew Smith’s ‘Dulcie’(p. 58), shows his model locked in the contemplation of a distant melancholy thought.

With the work of , portraiture in the period following the Second World War embarked on the investigation of even more meticulous psychological detail and intense personal relationships. At the same time Francis Bacon virtually left identity behind in a quest for psychological analysis. By the time of the ‘60s, a fresh breeze was to blow in on the back of Pop Art: celebrity culture brought famous personalities into play, and the clear-cut realism of David Hockney answered to a new demand for portraiture to be more direct, less intellectually contaminated.

52 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 53 WALTER SICKERT (1860-1942)

The Juvenile Lead 1908 oil on canvas 51 × 45.8 cm / 20 × 18 in

Provenance David Niven Acquired through the Chipperfield Bequest 1951

Exhibited ‘Camden Town Group’, Southampton City Art Gallery, 1951 ‘Sickert’, Arts Council, Edinburgh, 1953 ‘Contemporary Paintings from Southampton Art Gallery’, Exeter Art Gallery, 1955 ‘Pictures from Southampton’, Wildenstein’s Gallery, London, 1970 ‘Sickert’, Metropole Arts Centre, Folkestone, 1972 ‘Walter Richard Sickert’, Fine Art Society, London and Edinburgh, 1973 ‘The Camden Town Group’, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, 1974 ‘Fitzroy Street Group’, Fine Art Society, London, 1976 ‘Sickert’, Arts Council touring, Hull, Birmingham, Glasgow and Plymouth, 1977-78 ‘Portraits by Walter Sickert’, Victoria Art Gallery, Bath, 1990 ‘Sickert Paintings’, Royal Academy, London, 1993 ‘Modern British Painting: From Reynolds to Nicholson’, Bilbao, 1997 ‘Head First’, Abbot Hall Art Gallery, , 1998 ‘Walter Richard Sickert’, Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal, 2004 ‘The Camden Town Group’, Tate Britain, London, 2008

Literature Browse and Wilenski, Sickert, 1943, pl. 30 Studio, L’homme a la Billicoque, vol.127, 1944, p. 142 Benedict Nicholson, Burlington Magazine, September 1951, p. 304 Sir John Rothenstein, Modern English Painters, vol. 1, 1952, p. 48 The Listener, February 1953, p. 272 Lillian Browse, Sickert, 1960, p.109 Sir John Rothenstein (intro), Sickert, 1961, pl. 8 Wendy Baron, Sickert, 1973 in the Modern Period 1893-1939, 1978, Wendy Baron, The Camden Town Group, 1979, pp. 19, 156, 391 L. Gillard, The Artist who painted Jack the Ripper, 1983, p. 52 Kenneth McConkey, Edwardian Portraits, 1987 Wendy Baron, The Camden Town Group, Perfect Moderns, 2000 Tate Britain seminar, The Art of Murder: Representation and Crime in Late Victorian Britain, 2003 Wendy Baron, Sickert: Paintings and Drawings, 2006

54 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 55 (1883-1960)

Edie McNeil 1911 oil on canvas signed and dated lower right 127.5 × 76 cm / 50¼ × 30 in

Provenance J. L. Behrend George Behrend Sir Michael Sadler Acquired through the Chipperfield Bequest 1938

Exhibited ‘Camden Town Group’, Southampton Art Gallery, 1951 ‘Modern Paintings from Southampton Art Gallery’, Worthing Art Gallery, 1957 Arts Council touring, Manchester, Sheffield, Newcastle, Bolton, Bradford and Carlisle, 1960 ‘The Camden Town Group’, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, 1974 ‘Edwardian Reflections’, Bradford Art Gallery, 1975 ‘Henry Lamb’, Manchester City Art Gallery and Arts Council touring, 1984 ‘Modern British Painting: From Reynolds to Nicholson’, Bilbao, 1997 ‘The Edwardians: Secrets and Desires’, The National Gallery, London, 1997

Literature G. Kennedy, Benn’s Contemporary British Artists, 1924, p. 12, pl. 2 Studio, November 1945 Nicolette Devas, Two Flamboyant Fathers, 1966, p. 46 Keith Clements, Henry Lamb, 1985, pp. 114-5

56 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 57 SIR MATTHEW SMITH (1879-1959)

Dulcie 1915 oil on canvas signed with initials lower right 82.5 × 77 cm / 30½ × 30¼ in

Provenance Acquired through the Smith Bequest 1951

Exhibited ‘Paintings by Matthew Smith’, Lefevre Gallery, London, 1942 Autumn Exhibition, Bournemouth Art Club, 1952 ‘Contemporary Paintings from Southampton Art Gallery’, Arts Council, touring, 1955 ‘Three Masters of Modern British painting’, touring Bath, Carlisle, Shrewsbury, Bournemouth, Manchester and Cheltenham, 1958 ‘Matthew Smith’, Royal Academy, London, 1960 ‘Decade 1910-20’, Arts Council touring, Leeds, Reading, Manchester, Glasgow and Leicester, 1965 ‘Matthew Smith’, Arthur Tooth & Sons, and Roland Browne & Delbanco, London, 1976 ‘Matthew Smith’, Barbican Art Gallery, London, and touring to Rochdale, Milton Keynes and Exeter, 1984 ‘One City a Patron’, Collins Gallery, Glasgow, 1985 ‘Jewish Painters in an English Context’, Brighton Polytechnic, 1986 ‘Art Treasures of England’, Royal Academy, London, 1988 ‘From Sandby to Sickert’, Holburne Museum, Bath, 1992 ‘Modern British Painting: From Reynolds to Nicholson’, Bilbao, 1997 ‘British Modern Art’, Gosport Gallery and Willis Museum, Basingstoke, 2015-16

Literature Picture Post, October 1949 The Sunday Times, October 1976

58 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 59 GILBERT SPENCER (1892-1979)

The Rat Catcher 1922 oil on canvas signed and dated top right 3 144.8 × 82 cm / 57 × 32 ⁄ 4 in

Provenance Acquired from the artist through the Smith Bequest 1953

Exhibited ‘Recent Acquisitions’, Southampton City Art Gallery, 1954 ‘Contemporary Paintings from Southampton Art Gallery’, Exeter Art Gallery, 1955 ‘Retrospective Exhibition of the work of Gilbert Spencer R. A.’, Reading Museum and Art Gallery, 1964 ‘Modern British Painting: From Reynolds to Nicholson’, Bilbao, 1997

Literature Sir John Rothenstein, Modern English Painters, vol. 3, 1956, pp. 232-3

60 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 61 MARK GERTLER (1891-1939)

Seated Nude: (Gypsy at her Toilet) 1924 oil on canvas signed with initials and dated top centre 1 1 102 × 71.4 cm / 40 ⁄ 8 × 28 ⁄ 8 in

Provenance Acquired through the Chipperfield Bequest 1954

Exhibited Whitechapel Gallery, 1949 ‘Contemporary Paintings from Southampton Art Gallery’, Exeter Art Gallery, 1955 ‘Paintings from Southampton Art Gallery’, Aldershot Libraries, 1955 ‘Modern Paintings from Southampton Art Gallery’, Reading Museum and Art Gallery, 1955 Oslo, Copenhagen, 1956 ‘Modern Paintings from Southampton Art Gallery’, Worthing Art Gallery, 1958 ‘Mark Gertler’, The Minories, Colchester, and touring, London, Oxford and Sheffield, 1971 ‘Mark Gertler: Paintings & Drawings’, Nottingham Arts Centre & Castle Museum, and Leeds City Art Gallery, 1992 ‘The Artists Model: From Etty to Spencer’, York City Art Gallery, 1999 Kenwood House, London, 1999 Djanogly Art Gallery, University of Nottingham, 1999 ‘Mark Gertler – A New Perspective’, The Ben Uri Gallery, London, 2002

Literature John Woodeson, Mark Gertler, 1972, pp. 347-77, pl. 42 Marcia Allerbuck, Mark Gertler: A Study of his Life, Apollo 1974, p. 336 Martin Postle and William Vaughan, The Artist’s Model: From Etty to Spencer, 1999, p. 103

62 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 63 SIR (1891-1959)

Portrait of Patricia Preece 1933 oil on canvas 83.9 × 73.6 cm / 33 × 29 in

Provenance Mrs J L Behrend Acquired through the Smith Bequest 1954

Exhibited Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London, 1934 ‘A Loan Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings’, British Institute of Adult Education tour, 1935-36 Southampton City Art Gallery Opening Exhibition, 1939 ‘Recent Acquisitions’, Southampton City Art Gallery, 1954 ‘Stanley Spencer’, Tate Gallery, London, 1955 ‘Four Modern Masters’, Cannon Hall, Barnsley, 1959 ‘Sir Stanley Spencer’, Worthing Art Gallery, 1961 ‘Sir Stanley Spencer 1891-1959’, Plymouth Museum and Art Gallery, 1963 Le Havre, 1975 ‘Stanley Spencer 1891-1959’, Arts Council touring to Brighton Art Gallery, Glasgow Art Gallery, Leeds City Art Gallery and Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 1976-77, cat. p. 55, pl. 4 ‘Twentieth Century Portraits’, National Portrait Gallery, London, 1978 ‘Stanley Spencer RA’, Royal Academy of Arts, 1980, cat. p. 24 Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven, 1981 ‘One City a Patron’, Collins Gallery, Glasgow, 1985, cat. p. 46 ‘Artist and Model’, Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester, 1986, cat. pp. 39, 42 ‘Stanley Spencer – The Apotheosis of Love’, Barbican Art Gallery, London, 1991 ‘From Sandby to Sickert’, The Holburne Museum, Bath, 1992 ‘Perspectives of Love’, Stanley Spencer Gallery Summer exhibition, , 2013

Literature Maurice Collis, Stanley Spencer, 1962 pp. 121, 244

64 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 65 ALL SOULS

There are powerful, idiosyncratic voices producing examples of religious art in Britain in the early 20th century; both with a Jewish heritage, like Mark Gertler and the sculptor , and the distinctly Christian, like Eric Gill and Stanley Spencer.

Spencer’s own, highly personalised vision, was largely based on his home village of Cookham, which he used as the setting for many of his Biblical scenes. He depicted fellow villagers as participants in Old and New Testament stories, and referred to Cookham as ‘a village in Heaven’. His is a visionary role in British art, comparable to that of William Blake, with few contemporary parallels.

With the aftermath of the Second World War, commissions for religious works increased. The new Coventry Cathedral was the flagship example, and included works by Graham Sutherland (his vast tapestry ‘Christ in Glory’), John Piper, Geoffrey Clarke and Elizabeth Frink. Walter Hussey made his mark as Vicar of St Matthews, Northampton, commissioning works from Sutherland and , before becoming Dean of Chichester Cathedral and working with John Piper, Geoffrey Clarke, Cecil Collins, Ceri Richards and Marc Chagall (and composers Leonard Bernstein and William Walton).

A much larger number of artists were inspired by philosophy, both Eastern and Western, than by formal religion. Existentialism, if sometimes vaguely used, had an impact on many painters in the 1950s, including Francis Bacon and Roger Hilton, and Alan Davie was among many artists who claimed Zen Buddhism as an inspiration.

66 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 67 MARK GERTLER (1891-1939)

The Rabbi and his Grandchild 1913 oil on canvas signed and dated lower left 50.8 × 45.8 cm / 20 × 18 in

Provenance Mrs. R. Samuels Acquired through the Chipperfield Bequest 1954

Exhibited New English Art Club, London, 1913 Leicester Galleries, London, 1941 Ben Uri Gallery, London, 1944 Whitechapel Gallery, London, 1949 ‘English Portraits’, Arts Council, London, 1950 ‘Exhibition of Works of Art from Private Collections in the North West and North Wales’, Manchester Art Gallery, 1960 ‘Mark Gertler’, The Minories, Colchester, and touring to London, Oxford and Sheffield, 1971 ‘Edwardian Reflections’, Bradford Art Gallery, 1975 ‘Jewish Artists 1845-1945’, Belgrave Gallery, London, 1978 and 1979 ‘Jewish Art’, Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum, 1979 ‘Jewish Artists 1845-1945’, Bradford City Art Gallery, 1979 ‘Jewish Painters in an English Context’, Brighton Polytechnic, 1986 ‘When We Were Young’, City Arts Centre Edinburgh, 1989 ‘Chagall to Kitaj - Jewish Experience in the Art of the Twentieth Century’, Barbican Gallery, London, 1990-91 ‘Mark Gertler Paintings and Drawings’, Nottingham Arts Centre and Castle Museum, Leeds City Art Gallery, 1992 ‘Modern British Painting: From Reynolds to Nicholson’, Bilbao, 1997 ‘Mark Gertler- A New Perspective’, The Ben Uri Gallery, London, 2002 Ghent 2007-08 ‘Young British Artists 1908-1922’, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, 2013

Literature Glenda Abramson, Jewish Culture, 1989 Stern Art Dealers, The Ben Uri Story 1915-2000 Manchester University Press, English Art 1860-1914: Modern Artists and Identity, 2000, p. 188 Lisa Tickner, Modern Life & Modern Subjects: British Art in the Early Twentieth Century, 2000, p. 168 The University of York, English Art: 1860-1919: Modern Ties 2000 Ben Uri Art Society, The Ben Uri Story - from Art Society to Museum and the Influence of Anglo-Jewish Artists on the Modern British , 2001, p. 12

68 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 69 CHRISTOPHER WOOD (1901-1930)

Breton Woman at Prayer 1930 oil on card 53.6 × 64.5 cm / 21¼ × 25¹⁄³ in

Provenance Collection of the artist’s mother Acquired through the Chipperfield Bequest 1947

Exhibited ‘Christopher Wood’, Redfern Gallery, London, 1947 Autumn Exhibition, Bournemouth Art Club, 1950 ‘British Painters in France’, Royal West of England Academy, , 1953 ‘British Contemporary Paintings from Southern and Midland Galleries’, Arts Council, 1953 (illus. cover) ‘Contemporary Paintings from Southampton Art Gallery’, Exeter Art Gallery, 1955 ‘Modern Paintings from Southampton Art Gallery’, Worthing Art Gallery, 1958 ‘Christopher Wood’, Redfern Gallery, London, 1959, cat. pl. 18 ‘Christopher Wood (1901-1930)’, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, 1966 ‘Christopher Wood’, Kettles Yard, Cambridge, 1974, cat. pl. 16 ‘Christopher Wood’, Arts Council touring, Colchester, Aberdeen, Eastbourne and Exeter, 1974 Le Havre, 1975 ‘From Sandby to Sickert’, Holburne Museum, Bath, 1992 ‘Christopher Wood’, Tate Gallery, St. Ives, 1996-97 ‘Modern British Painting: From Reynolds to Nicholson’, Bilbao, 1997 ‘Christopher Wood’, Pallant House, Chichester, 2016

Literature Redfern Gallery, Christopher Wood, 1938, p. 63 Sir John Rothenstein, Modern English Painters, vol. 3, 1974, p. 26 Redfern Gallery, Christopher Wood, 1959, pl. 18 Henri Belbeoch, Douarnenez au Bonheur des Peintres, 1992, pl. 174

70 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 71 SIR STANLEY SPENCER (1891-1959)

The Resurrection with the Raising of Jairus’s Daughter (triptych) 1940-47 oil on canvas 1 3 76.8 x 87.4 cm / 30 ⁄ 4 × 34 ⁄ 8 in (middle panel), 1 76.8 × 50.8 cm / 30 ⁄ 4 × 20 in (side panels)

Provenance Acquired through the Smith Bequest 1950

Exhibited Autumn Exhibition, Bournemouth Art Club, 1952 ‘British Contemporary Paintings from Southern and Midland Galleries’, Arts Council, 1953 ‘Contemporary Paintings from Southampton Art Gallery’, Exeter Art Gallery, 1955 ‘Stanley Spencer’, Tate Gallery, 1955 ‘Modern Paintings from Southampton Art Gallery’, Worthing Art Gallery, 1957 ‘Four Modern Masters, (A. John, M. Smith, S. Spencer and J. Epstein)’, Cannon Hall, Barnsley, 1959 ‘Sir Stanley Spencer’, Worthing Art Gallery, 1961 ‘Stanley Spencer: Religious Paintings’, Arts Council – Welsh Committee, touring Cardiff, Bangor, Haverfordwest and Swansea, 1965 ‘Decade ’40 – Painting, Sculpture and Drawing in Britain 1940-49’, Arts Council touring, London, Southampton, Carlisle, Durham, Manchester, Bradford and Aberdeen, 1972-73 ‘Stanley Spencer 1891-1959’, Arts Council touring, to Brighton, Glasgow, Leeds, Cambridge, 1976-77 Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven, 1981 Summer exhibition, Stanley Spencer Gallery, Cookham, 1982 ‘Stanley Spencer - The Apotheosis of Love’, Barbican Art Gallery, London; Kelvingrove Art Gallery, Glasgow; Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, 1991 ‘Light of the World’, City Art Gallery, Edinburgh, 1999 Millennium Exhibition, Stanley Spencer Gallery, 2000 ‘Stanley Spencer’, Tate Britain, London, 2001 ‘Stanley Spencer’, Ulster Museum, Belfast, 2002 ‘Stanley Spencer: Paradise Regained’, The Hepworth, Wakefield, 2016

Literature Britain Today, July 1950, pp. 36-7 Sir John Rothenstein, Modern English Painters, vol. 2, 1956, p. 194 Maurice Collis, Stanley Spencer, 1962, p. 197 Duncan Robinson, Stanley Spencer, 1979, pp. 71-2 Duncan Robinson, Stanley Spencer, 1990, p. 100, pl. 81 Kenneth Pope, Stanley Spencer, 1991 Keith Bell, Stanley Spencer: A Complete Catalogue of Paintings, 1992 Edward Lucie-Smith, Visual Arts in the 20th century, 1996, pl. 17

72 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 73 74 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY WILLIAM ROBERTS (1895-1980)

Revolt in the Desert 1952 oil on canvas signed lower right 3 244.7 × 144.8 cm / 96 ⁄ 8 × 57 in

Provenance Ernest Cooper Acquired through the Smith Bequest 1958

Exhibited Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, 1952 ‘William Roberts, A.R.A.’, Arts Council, London, and touring to Newcastle and Manchester, 1965-6, cat. p. 52 ‘Narrative Painting in Britain in the 20th century’, Camden Arts Centre, London, 1970 ‘Lawrence of Arabia’, National Portrait Gallery, London, 1988-89 ‘William Roberts’, Hatton Gallery, Newcastle, and Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield, 2004 ‘Lawrence of Arabia: The Life the Legend’, Imperial War Museum, London, 2005-06

Literature Paintings by William Roberts A.R.A. 1917-1958, 1960 p. 52 Charles Grosvenor, Iconography - The Portraits of T. E. Lawrence, 1988

76 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 77 NORMAN BLAMEY (1914-2000)

Vesting priest with Apparelled Amice 1991 oil on panel signed with initials lower right 3 1 167 × 107 cm / 65 ⁄ 4 × 42 ⁄ 4 in

Provenance Acquired from the artist through the Chipperfield Bequest Fund, with grants from the National Art Collections Fund and the Museums and Galleries Commission 1993

Exhibited Royal Academy, London, 1991 ‘Norman Blamey’, Norfolk Institute of Art and Design, Norwich, 1992 ‘Norman Blamey’, Victoria Art Gallery, Bath, 1992 ‘Norman Blamey’, Fine Art Society, London, 1992-93

78 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 79 NEW LANGUAGES

Ideas of abstraction in British art began as a series of experiments in the years leading up to the First World War, stoked by exhibitions of Cézanne and Matisse organised by . Manifestos appeared: in 1914 Percy Wyndham Lewis set up the modernist Vorticist group, with its strands of cubist fragmentation, objectives that were taken up with harmonic power by Henri Gaudier-Brzeska.

Another peak of modernist development followed in the 1930s, with the transformation of the old Seven and Five Society by , Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore and John Piper into a catalyst for abstraction, and the staging, in 1935 at the Zwemmer Gallery, of the first exhibition of entirely abstract works in Britain. This was art that gloried in the created object, and had a purity of faith in surface, line and space.

Artists working in St Ives after the Second World War brought a further important phase of British abstraction. Bryan Wynter recorded a visceral engagement with the land, making his own scuba equipment to experience and paint underwater currents; Peter Lanyon took up gliding to comprehend and paint the landscape of invisible currents in the skies; and Roger Hilton took to mapping inner, pyschological landscapes, buffeted by Existentialism and sex.

From quite another experimental direction, the School of London brought painterly ideas to the fore, and the work of artists such as Leon Kossoff and Frank Auerbach, who used a heavy impasto of paint to make a forceful, physical object, and a new vibrant vehicle to convey his perceptions of the sitter.

80 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 81 HENRI GAUDIER-BRZESKA (1891-1915)

Self Portrait 1913 pastel on paper signed with initials top right 3 3 51.7 × 36.5 cm / 20 ⁄ 4 × 14 ⁄ 8 in

Provenance H. S. Ede J. Wood Palmer Acquired through the Chipperfield Bequest 1954

Exhibited ‘Henri Gaudier-Brzeska’, Arts Council Gallery, London, 1955-56, cat. p. 1 Orléans, 1956 ‘British Self Portraits from Sickert to Present Day’, Arts Council, London, 1962 ‘Decade 1910-20’, Arts Council touring, to Leeds, Reading, Manchester, Glasgow and Leicester, 1965 ‘A Terrific Thing - British Art 1910-16’, Castle Museum, Norwich, and touring to Southampton and Oxford, 1977 ‘Gaudier-Brzeska’, Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, 1977 ‘Twentieth Century Portraits’, National Portrait Gallery, London, 1978 ‘Modern Art in Britain 1910-1914’, Barbican Art Gallery, London, 1997, cat. p. 94 ‘Head First’, Hayward Gallery, London; Abbot Hall Gallery, Kendal, 1998 ‘Alfred Wolmark Exhibition’, Ben Uri Gallery and Museum, London, 2004 ‘We the Moderns: Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and his European Contemporaries’, Kettles Yard, Cambridge; The Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield, 2007 ‘Falling Stars, World War 1 as the End of the Road’, Kunsthalle zu Kiel, 2014-15

Literature H. S. Ede, A Life of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, 1930, pp. 196-7 Studio, June 1957 Ezra Pound, Gaudier-Brzeska A Memoir, 1960, pl. 11 Mervyn Levy, Gaudier-Brzeska: Drawings and Sculpture, 1965, pl. 57 Barbican Art Gallery, Modern Art in Britain 1910-1914, 1997, p. 94

82 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 83 ROGER HILTON (1911-1975)

Figure 61 1961 oil and charcoal on canvas 1 92 × 76 cm / 36 ⁄ 4 × 30 in

Provenance Bequeathed through the Dr. David and Liza Brown Bequest 2002

Exhibited British Pavillion, 32nd Venice Biennale, 1964 ‘Into Seeing New: Roger Hilton’, Tate St. Ives, 2006-07

Literature Dr. David Brown, Roger Hilton - Last Paintings, 1974, fig. 1 Tate Gallery, St. Ives Artists Series: Roger Hilton, 2007 Andrew Lambirth, Roger Hilton: The Figured Language of Thought, 2007, p. 155

84 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 85 ROGER HILTON (1911-1975)

Figure and Bird 1963 oil on canvas 117 × 178 cm / 46 × 70 in

Provenance Bequeathed through the Dr. David and Liza Brown Bequest 2002 previously on loan from 1971

Exhibited ‘Roger Hilton Paintings and Drawings 1931-1973’, Serpentine Gallery, London, 1974 ‘Roger Hilton’, Hayward Gallery, London, 1993 ‘Roger Hilton’, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, 1994 ‘Roger Hilton’, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, 1994 ‘Into Seeing New: Roger Hilton’, Tate St. Ives, 2006-07

Literature Independent on Sunday, Autumn 1996, illus Andrew Lambirth, Roger Hilton: The Figured Landscape of Thought, 2007, p. 189

86 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 87 HOWARD HODGKIN (b. 1932)

The Second Visit 1963 oil on board 40.5 × 50.7 cm / 16 × 20 in

Provenance Nancy Balfour Presented by the Contemporary Art Society 2001

Exhibited ‘Howard Hodgkin: Recent Paintings’, Arthur Tooth and Sons, London, 1964, cat. no. 4 ‘Howard Hodgkin: forty-five paintings 1949-1975’, Arts Council touring exhibition, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, Serpentine Gallery, London, Turnpike Gallery, Leigh, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, Aberdeen Art Gallery and Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield, 1976, cat. no. 13

Literature Norbert Lynton, Great High Spirits, the New Statesman, vol. 67, 31 January 1964, pp. 179-80 Maria Price & John Elderfield, Howard Hodgkin: The Complete Paintings, 2006, no. 46, p. 72

88 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 89 FRANK AUERBACH (b. 1931)

J Y M 1 1981 oil on board signed lower right 56 × 50.8 cm / 22 × 20 in

Provenance Acquired through the Chipperfield Bequest with grants through the V&A Museum and the National Art Collections Fund 1982

Exhibited ‘One City a Patron: British Art of the 20th century from the Collections of Southampton Art Gallery’, Scottish Arts Council touring exhibition, Glasgow, Dundee, Perth, Ayr and Edinburgh, 1985 ‘Artist and Model’, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, 1986 ‘Current Affairs - British Painting and Sculpture in the 1980s’, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, 1987 ‘A Century of British Collecting – Impressionism and After', National Art Collections Fund, Sotheby’s, London, 1989 ‘From London: Bacon, Freud, Kossoff, Andres, Auerbach, Kitaj’, Scottish Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, 1995 Lausanne, 1995-96 ‘British Modern Art’, Gosport Gallery and Willis Museum, Basingstoke, 2015-16

Literature Marlborough Gallery, Frank Auerbach: Recent Paintings and Drawings, 1982, p. 8 British Council, The Proper Study: Contemporary Figurative Painting from Britain, 1984, p. 33 Whitworth Art Gallery, Artist and Model, 1986, pp. 4-7 David Fraser Jenkins, A Land Without Art, NACF Magazine, Autumn 1987, p. 24 Ray Smith, The Artists’ Handbook, 1987, pp. 196-7 Fundacion Coleccion, Thyssen Bornemisza, The Mirror and the Mask, Portraiture in the Age of Picasso, 2007 Museum of Zaragoza, Goya and the Modern World, 2008-9

90 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 91 IMAGE CREDITS

All images in this publication are reproduced © Southampton City Art Gallery except where listed below:

Page 2: detail of 'The Morris Dancer' by Sir William Nicholson © Desmond Banks

Frank Auerbach: © Frank Auerbach, courtesy Norman Blamey: © Estate of Norman Blamey. All rights reserved, DACS 2017 John Bratby: © John Bratby Estate by courtesy of Julian Hartnol / Bridgeman Images Edward Burra © Estate of the Artist, c/o Lefevre Fine Art Ltd., London Roger Hilton: © Estate of Roger Hilton. All rights reserved, DACS 2017 Howard Hodgkin: © Howard Hodgkin Henry Lamb: © Estate of Henry Lamb L.S. Lowry: © The Estate of L.S. Lowry. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2017 John Minton: © Royal College of Art Alfred Munnings: © Estate of Sir Alfred Munnings. All rights reserved, DACS 2017 William Nicholson: © Desmond Banks William Ratcliffe: © The Artist’s Estate William Roberts: © Estate of John David Roberts. By permission of the Treasury Solicitor Claude Rogers: © Crispin Rogers Matthew Smith: © The Artist’s Estate Gilbert Spencer: © Estate of Gilbert Spencer. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2017 Stanley Spencer: © The Estate of Stanley Spencer. All Rights Reserved, 2017 Bridgeman Images Percy Wyndham Lewis: © The Wyndham Lewis Memorial Trust / Bridgeman Images

All effort has been made to identify and contact copyright holders for the reproductions included in this publication. In cases of errors or omissions please contact the publishers so that we can make corrections in future editions.

92 | SOUTHAMPTON CITY ART GALLERY 93 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Text © Jonathan Clark, David Fraser Jenkins, Sandy Mallet and Southampton City Art Gallery Designed by Graham Rees Printed by Deckers Snoeck Catalogue © Southampton City Art Gallery

Published by Jonathan Clark Fine Art for Southampton City Art Gallery ISBN: 978-1-5272-0548-2

Staff at Southampton City Art Gallery Catalogue research and production: Tim Craven, Curator of Art, Dan Matthews and Andrew Ball Exhibitions Team: Dan Matthews, Andrew Ball, Stu Rodda and Jess Whitfield Conservation: Rebecca Moisan, Ambrose Scott-Moncrieff and Benedict Hall

Curators Jonathan Clark & Sandy Mallet

[email protected] jonathan clark fine art www.jcfa.co.uk

This catalogue has been produced in conjunction with the exhibition: The Morris Dancer and The Rat Catcher: Modern British Figure Paintings 17 February – 13 May 2017 at the Southampton City Art Gallery.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any other information storage or retrieval system without prior permission in writing from the gallery.

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