Joseph Webb the Lights That Flit Across My Brain

Joseph Webb the lights that flit across my brain Joseph Webb 1908-1962 the lights that flit across my brain Robert Meyrick A Retrospective Touring Exhibition of Prints, Drawings and Paintings first shown at Aberystwyth University, School of Art Gallery and Museum & National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth Summer 2007 Acknowledgements The prints and drawings in this exhibition are from the School of Art Collection at Aberystwyth University: twelve were purchased from the artist and London exhibitions between 1931 and 1933. The remainder was among 43 works acquired in 2005 from the artist’s estate with the support of the V&A/MLA Purchase Grant Fund and the Art Fund. The oil paintings are on loan from a private collection in Monmouthshire and the four rare impressions of Webb’s ‘mystical’ prints have been deposited on loan to the School of Art by the artist’s estate. The author would like to thank Beryl Gascoigne and Jane Furst for generously giving their knowledge, encouragement and friendship, and without whom this exhibition could not have been possible; Stuart Southall for inspiring the confidence and will to continue against mounting obligations elsewhere; Hilary and Helena Gerrish for their patience and hospitality, and the loan of additional works to the exhibition; the V&A/MLA Purchase Grant Fund and the Art Fund for their continued support; Neil Holland, Phil Garratt, Barry Charlton and Antoinette McKane of the School of Art for their assistance in mounting the exhibition; Michael Nobbs for the catalogue design; and Harry Heuser for his valued comments, proof reading and copy editing of the manuscript. Colphon Cover: Asylum, etching, 1930-31 Endpapers: Wallpaper design by Joseph Webb, undated Half Title: Joseph Webb Opposite Page: Doors of the Heart, oil, undated Opposite Title Page: An Astrologer Instructing his Pupils (detail), drypoint, 1932 Catalogue Design: Michael Nobbs and Neil Holland Photography: Andrew Baldwin and Neil Holland Print: Y Lolfa © Robert Meyrick School of Art Gallery and Museum | National Library of Wales Aberystwyth 2007 ISBN 978 1 899095 26 1 The measure of a man is not what he has done, important though that may be an indication; the true measure of a man’s capacity is what he longs to do. Joseph Webb, ‘A Note to Artists’, 17 February 1958 6 1 Hospitalfield Farm etching, 1927 (185 x 285 mm) Aberystwyth University ‘Thee, Chauntress, oft the woods among’ Landscape and Architectural Etchings, 192-194 AT AN EARLY AGE, Joseph Webb was the end of the 19th century, public attitude acclaimed a ‘master etcher’; his ecclesiastical- towards etching had changed significantly. looking structures Rat Barn, widely Old prejudices were overcome and etching considered to be his masterpiece, and the attained respectability as an art form. The iconic Dream Barn, were etched when he was so-called ‘Etching Revival’ culminated in the just twenty years old. By 1932, the British 1920s with an unprecedented market for Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum contemporary prints. Original yet affordable, had each acquired five of his prints. Soon modern etchings came to represent a symbol he was exhibiting in London, Chicago, New of refinement. The demand for etchings York and the Paris Salon. In 1933, aged 25, and the promise of commercial success led he staged his first solo exhibition at P. & numerous young artists, Webb among them, D. Colnaghi in Old Bond Street, the most to turn to printmaking. prestigious of the London print dealers and publishers. Its Director Harold Wright was a After the Great War, many British artists keen advocate of Webb’s work and, not long sought stability and assurance in past afterwards, they collaborated to compile a traditions. They learned from the study catalogue raisonné of his prints. Yet despite of earlier printmakers and their search this early promise and his absolute faith in for a style and subject took them in many his worth as an artist, Webb was unable to directions. Webb based his first print, Falls sustain his reputation and career. After 1933 of the Clyde (etching, 1927), on an etching he made prints only sporadically, finally of the same title by J. M. W. Turner. With giving up etching in 1947. Subsequently, he a shaft of sunlight dramatically piercing helped his common-law wife manage a café rain clouds, Cutting the Rick, a drypoint of in Reading and, during the last six years November 1927, is lit and composed in a of his life, ran a boarding house in South manner reminiscent of Rembrandt’s etching Kensington; few who encountered him would Three Trees (1643). The Gothic appearance have realised that he was an artist. of Hospitalfield Farm (etching, 1927), the use of chiaroscuro, densely etched lines, Webb was born in Ealing in 1908, the son and methods for rendering stone, roof tiles of a market gardener. He studied painting at and natural forms, not only acknowledge Ealing School of Art (1920-22) and in 1925 the etched work of Charles Meryon and was awarded a scholarship to the Patrick Frederick Landseer Griggs, but also present Allan-Fraser of Hospitalfield School of Art in a foretaste of the monumental structures Arbroath. He took up etching in 1927 under Rat Barn and Dream Barn that Webb the supervision of Henry Daniel, a Slade- envisioned the following year. [Illus.1] He trained landscape painter and printmaker. By admired, studied and assimilated the work of past exponents—Rembrandt, Blake, the print, for it shows his interest in buildings late canvases of Turner, and the mystical of mixed styles and form that have grown paintings of Charles Sims among them—yet and developed over time; it was here that his style and approach are peculiarly his own. he learned to elaborate and reassemble architectural elements to envision new and Hospitalfield stands on the site of a medieval fantastic structures. pilgrim hospice on the Angus coastline in Scotland’s agricultural heartland. In 1843, Webb learned etching at Hospitalfield, but painter and patron of the arts, Patrick Allan he principally studied painting there, more remodelled the House, reviving 16th-century especially portraiture. Mr Dion Murray (oil, 9 detail and decoration. Irregular in design, 1928), a portrait of a fellow student or model, with its crenallated gable, bartizan towers, is one of the few examples to survive from and triple oriel windows, the building is a his time in Scotland. [Illus.2] Webb would precursor to the Arts and Crafts Movement continue to favour the technique used here: in Scotland. Hospitalfield Farm, however, a relatively course linen canvas and a light is of Webb’s invention. It is an important grey ground, monochrome under-painting 2 Mr Dion Murray oil, 1928 (760 x 630 mm) Private Collection 3 Dawn, An English Village etching, 1928 (212 x 333 mm) Aberystwyth University and small brushstrokes carefully applied to Based on observations at Barnwood, a render the subtly of tonal values. Mostly he small village 2½ miles east of Gloucester, used a limited palette to compensate for his The Horse Doctor (etching, 1928) recalls colourblindness. Webb would undertake a Dutch genre etchings by Rembrandt and number of society portraits during the 1930s his contemporaries, Adriaen and Isack to supplement his income. In the catalogue van Ostade, and Cornelius Bega. [Illus.4] of an Exhibition of the Engraved Work of Joseph Webb admired the narrative aspect of their Webb ARE, at Bent Tree Studio, Harrow- informal scenes of local peasantry, and on-the-Hill (1932), he ‘begs to advise his possibly was mindful here of Rembrandt’s patrons that he is also a portrait painter and etching The Ratkiller (1632), in which an he is prepared to accept commissions in this itinerant worker sells his services from door medium. He will gladly quote for portraiture, to door. In Webb’s use of the medium for according to the sitter’s requirements’. its intrinsic quality of mark, The Horse Doctor owes much stylistically to Rembrandt’s Webb returned to London in 1928 to swiftly executed genre subjects. The lightly- continue etching under Hubert Schröder sketched Tewkesbury (drypoint, 1928), seen at Chiswick. Webb adored the British from across the River Avon, brings to mind countryside. Whether driving or walking, he the first landscape etchings Rembrandt never failed to be ‘absorbed and enthralled’. made on walks along the Amstel river and (Gascoigne 1985) In search of suitable drew directly on to the plate. Gloucester subjects for etchings and paintings, he Mills with Severn and Avon (drypoint, 1928) travelled that summer to Gloucestershire and Painswick Mill (drypoint, 1928) were and southeast Wales, returning along the probably begun in situ. With its complex West Sussex coast. A solitary person, he arrangement of gables, dormer windows, bell travelled alone, and either camped or lodged tower and chimneys, Painswick Mill prefigures inexpensively. Dawn, An English Village Webb’s extraordinary constructions such (etching, 1928) was the most sophisticated as Rat Barn and Asylum. It was, however, a and resolved etching to result from his time faithful depiction of an actual building, one in Gloucestershire. [Illus.3] Showing the of the many woollen mills to once thrive at 10 sleepy Cotswold village of Wotton-under- Painswick, six miles southeast of Gloucester. Edge, viewed from a nearby hill at sunrise, it was his first etching to be burnished and re- Crossing into Wales, Webb set out on the etched through several finely wrought states, Wye Valley Walk. In Monmouthshire he the softened forms and focus recapturing the made drawings for Chepstow from the Cliff and artist’s experience of an early morning haze. Chepstow, both etched in 1928. [Illus.5&6] 4 The Horse Doctor etching, 1928 (151 x 126 mm) Aberystwyth University 11 Strategically positioned high on cliffs had ‘pictured the actual place, through a above the River Wye, this magnificent romantic, imaginative vision’.

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