Artists' Letters: Three Stories from the Paul Mellon Centre Archive Collections

D R A W I N G R O O M D I S P L AY S

Artists' Letters Three Stories from the Paul Mellon Centre Archive Collections

1 October 2018 – 14 January 2019 1

Introduction

This display uses letters from artists to tell three fascinating art-historical stories, pieced together from materials found in the Paul Mellon Centre Research Collections.

More specifically, “Artists’ Letters” has been generated by fragments of correspondence, newspaper pages, notes and diaries found in the archives of the art critic Brian Sewell (1931–2015), the art historian and editor Lionel Benedict Nicolson (1914–1978), and the librarian Frank Simpson (1911–2002). The display focuses, in turn, on the twists and turns of the relationship between Sewell and the artist, Maggi Hambling; the story of a fledgling Oxford University arts society called the Florentine Club; and the history and provenance of a little-known painting by Augustus John.

It is our hope that these stories capture your imagination, as they have ours, and that they might entice you to take a closer look at the archives we hold at the Paul Mellon Centre.

Front cover: Detail from item 9 Inside front cover: Item 1

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Large Flat Display Case The Friendship of an Artist and a Critic: Maggi Hambling and Brian Sewell The Brian Sewell Archive contains correspondence pertaining to his life and work as an art historian and art critic for the London Evening Standard—a correspondence that often reveals much about the nature of Sewell’s relationships with members of the art world. This part of the display documents the seemingly unlikely friendship that developed between Brian Sewell and the artist Maggi Hambling (b.

1945).

Contact between the two is first documented in the archive by a letter that Hambling wrote to Sewell in 1987, in which she invited him to view her exhibition Maggi Hambling: Paintings, Drawing and Watercolours at London’s Serpentine Gallery.

She wrote soon after the Gallery had weathered the Great Storm of that year, and her letter semijokingly refers to the fact that “the Serpentine stands undamaged in the midst of terrible destruction” [item 1]. Like other letters found in Sewell’s archive, this handwritten invitation demonstrates the keenness of artists to attract the critic's attention, and to generate what they hoped might be approving reviews of their work.

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The earliest article in the archive written by Sewell about Hambling was probably not one that she would have appreciated. In a review written for the Evening Standard published in June 1997, the critic was scathing about Hambling’s sculpture of the poet and dramatist Oscar Wilde, which had recently been installed behind St Martin-inthe Fields, as the first monument to the poet erected outside Ireland [item 2]. The critic was repulsed in part by the sculpture’s subject: in a slew of acidic terms that some of his enemies might have applied to Sewell himself, he describes Wilde as “that fop of epigram and aphorisms, riposte, quip, quill and verbal vanity”. More importantly, Sewell raged against the work itself, which he declared was the product of an artist who was a “barely competent draughtsman” and a sculpture that betrayed “not the slightest talent, intelligence or skill” [item 3].

Item 2

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Such criticism turned many artists against Sewell. However, Hambling had a more resilient nature. She later wrote about Sewell that “I would never condemn anyone who made me laugh” [item 9]; and, focusing on the offending article, she noted that, thanks to Sewell’s famously vitriolic views about so much contemporary art, her work “had been served a feast of the best possible street cred”.

A few years later, Sewell and Hambling were to find themselves working side-by-side. “Only being invited to the RA’s annual dinner would have surprised me more”—so began Sewell's article about being included on the judging panel for the 2005 BP Portrait Award, a prize that he had relentlessly criticised in the past [item 4].

The National Portrait Gallery’s then Director, Sandy Nairne, sent letters of invitation to both Sewell and Maggi Hambling, asking them to join him on the panel [item 5].

Both accepted, and took their places alongside fellow judges Juliet Horsley and Des Violaris. During the judging process, Hambling asked Sewell to make her laugh as often as possible. He duly obliged. This, alongside their bonding over a mutual love of dogs and hatred of Woolworths picture frames, set in motion an unlikely friendship that would last until the end of Sewell’s life.

Item 4

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Hambling had won Sewell over. In the article in which he documented his time on the BP judging panel, he wrote publicly about his fondness for the artist: “Maggi Hambling, the most generous of judges, understanding, boisterous, impetuous, determined, eccentric, egregious and loveable (now).”

Sewell’s new opinion of Hambling was sealed in his most treasured of gifts—a positive exhibition review.

Having accepted Hambling’s letter of invitation to her

Waves and Waterfalls exhibition at the Marlborough Gallery in 2006, Sewell not only reproduced one of Hambling’s paintings in his subsequent article, but also praised the artist’s practice, stating that her work “succeeds where Leonardo fails” [Item 6].

This was a compliment that made Hambling roar with laughter. She wrote to Sewell after having read the review and thanked him for his discernment “over the business of that Leonardo” [item 7].

Item 7, back

“I imagine you with your dogs”, Hambling wrote in August 2014, as Sewell’s health was declining [item 8]. It seems that the critic took comfort in his friendship with Hambling towards the end of his life and much of the correspondence between the two in the archive, from long letters to short postcards, reflects this friendship, particularly their shared love of dogs.

Item 7, front

The artist reflected on their feeling of mutual respect, and gestured to one of their favourite topics of conversation, in the obituary she wrote for The Observer after Sewell’s death in September 2015: “his surviving dogs are not alone in lamenting their often misunderstood, but never boring, fellow creature”. [item 9]

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Large Flat Display Case: Object List 1

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Letter from Maggi Hambling to Brian Sewell Dated 19 October 1987 (AR: BS/2/5/8a)

Postcard from Maggi Hambling to Brian Sewell Dated 3 August 2014 (BS/2/5/8h and BS/2/5/8j)

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Detail from A Conversation with Oscar Wilde by Maggi Hambling Courtesy of Maggi Hambling

Brian Sewell remembered by Maggi Hambling, The Observer, 27 December 2015

3 Draft article titled Maggi Hambling written by Brian Sewell, Evening Standard, 12 June 1997 (AR: BS/5/1/468a)

4 Poster for the 2005 BP Portrait Awards at the National Portrait Gallery Lent by the National Portrait Gallery, London (NPG59/1/223, NPG Archive)

Item 8, front

5 Two invitation letters from Sandy Nairne, Director of the National Portrait Gallery to Brian Sewell and Maggi Hambling Lent by the National Portrait Gallery, London (NPG67/27/1, NPG Archive)

6 Saved from drowning in the sea of postmodernism, Evening Standard, 3 February 2006 (AR: BS/5/1/468b)

7 Postcard from Maggi Hambling to Brian Sewell Dated 7 February 2008 (AR: BS/2/5/8b and BS/2/5/8e)

Item 8, back

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Small Flat Display Case

Benedict Nicolson & the Florentine Club, 1934-1936 The Benedict Nicolson Archive contains the letters, diaries, and research materials of a distinguished editor of The Burlington Magazine. The majority of the material concerns Nicolson’s formative years (1930s–1940s), before he took up this post.

Amongst the collection are materials that offer an insight into the brief and little-known history of an Oxford arts society, led in the 1930s by Nicolson [item 16] and his fellow undergraduate and housemate Jeremy Hutchinson [item 15]. It was called the Florentine Club.

their views regarding its character differed vastly from Jenkinson’s who felt that the club should have as wide a membership as possible.2 Instead, they wanted the club to be a highly selective one, so as to ensure regular attendance and intelligent discussion. In April 1935, Nicolson and Hutchinson led a coup. They culled the existing Club of many of its members, reducing its numbers from fifty to twentyeight.3

In the autumn of 1934, Ronald Jenkinson, a student at Worcester College, approached Nicolson and Hutchinson, about starting a new club, where members with an appreciation for art and sculpture could attend talks by critics and artists [item 10]. Jenkinson envisioned the club as a means of generating interest in the study of art history, an academic subject that was not offered at Oxford at the time.1 Initially, both Nicolson and Hutchinson readily agreed to the idea of the club. However, it quickly became apparent that Item 10

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Item 15

One of the first people to speak at the newly reorganised Club was the famous art critic and theorist Clive Bell. He wrote to Nicolson in the months leading up to his scheduled paper, confirming that the title of his talk was going to be “What Next?”, and declaring his intention to provoke discussion by suggesting that the abstract art movement, by which he meant Cubism and PostImpressionism, had run its course [Item 13]. After the lecture, Bell wrote again to Nicolson in order to return a cheque of 15s. that he had been paid as an honorarium for his talk, generously suggesting that the fledgling club could find a better use for its funds [Item 14]. Though 12

it is not known whether other speakers returned their fees in this way, it is evident that the Florentine Club had enough funds available to them to provide first-class travel for the artist Duncan Grant, who came to speak to the Club only a few months later [Item 17].

Grant gave a paper to the Club on 21 February 1935. The paper itself, however, appears not to have gone down quite as well as might have been anticipated. In Nicolson’s diaries, he commends Grant for being a perfectly amiable man— charming even.

However, he goes on to write that the artist’s talk had been “incomprehensible” [item 11]. The feeling of disappointment may have been mutual, for Grant, too, suggested that his paper had been “rather dull”, in a letter that he wrote to Nicolson several days after his visit to Oxford. [item 18] On 13 June 1936, the shortlived Florentine Club hosted a commemorative dinner as its last event [Item 12]. The guests included Clive Bell, Jeremy Hutchinson, future Director of the British Museum, John PopeHennessy, and twenty others. After

a moment of panic at the lack of sherry at Nicolson’s university accomdoation in Beaumont Street, the evening’s festivities got underway with dinner at a local restaurant and with speeches from various members of the party, including Nicolson. In recounting this event in his diary, Nicolson describes speaking about his desire that “the Florentine Club go out with a bang rather than a whimper.”

Item 16

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Detail from item 12

Alongside the talks given by Bell and Grant, the Club had hosted speeches from a number of other notable individuals during its brief history, including Kenneth Clark, Herbert Read, and Helmut Ruhemann. Diary entries from 1936 reveal that Nicolson spent some time pulling together various documents relating to the activities of the Club with a view to writing a more formal history. Sadly, this account has been lost. Instead, we are left to trace the Club’s short but sparkling life through his diaries and letters.

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Small Flat Display Case

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Benedict Nicolson Diary 1934, July-December (AR: LBN/1/5)

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Photograph of Jeremy Hutchinson at 7 Beaumont Street Courtesy of Vanessa Nicolson (AR: TN/5)

Benedict Nicolson Diary 1935, January-June (AR: LBN/1/6)

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Benedict Nicolson Diary 1936 (AR: LBN/1/8)

Photograph of Benedict and Nigel Nicolson in 7 Beaumont Street Courtesy of Vanessa Nicolson (AR: TN/6)

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Letter from Clive Bell to Benedict Nicolson Dated 28 January 1935 (AR:LBN/TN/3)

Letter from Duncan Grant to Benedict Nicolson Dated 23 February 1935 (AR: LBN/TN/1)

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Letter, envelope, and cheque from Clive Bell to Benedict Nicolson Dated February 1935 (AR: LBN/TN/4a, b, & c)

Letter from Duncan Grant to Benedict Nicolson Dated: 25 February 1935 (AR: LBN/TN/2)

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Detail from item 14

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Upright Display Case The sale of Augustus John’s La Belle Jardinière (The Beautiful Gardener) The Frank Simpson Archive includes material relating to the workings of the art dealers M. Knoedler & Co (1846–2011). It includes correspondence between the dealers and the artists they represented, often regarding the sale of their work.

In 1944, Knoedler & Co wrote to the artist Augustus John (1878–1961) regarding the sale of La Belle Jardinière, a painting of John’s muse and eventual second wife Dorelia, that the painter had completed some thirty years beforehand [items 19 and 20]. From the notes that accompanied their letter it is apparent that the firm, in preparation for selling the painting, had already asked John to newly sign the work, which he had done a year beforehand, in 1943 [item 22]. Yet they still required more information about the painting from the former Slade School prodigy, who was purported to be riddled with self-doubt and taking too much solace in alcohol.

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Having requested his signature, Knoedler’s asked John for advice on varnishing, for information on the painting’s exhibition history, the location in which the picture was painted, and for details of the date it was completed. The last question was one that they seem to have asked twice of the artist, for at one point in their notes they state, in a rather irritated tone, “how could one ask him the same thing again [?]”. Still, they remained polite to the artist, declaring that they were “sorry to have to bother” John with yet more requests. From his short reply [Item 21] John makes clear that the location of the painting was not Hanley “wherever that is” but was in fact Alderney Manor, the former home he shared with Dorelia. He also states that the painting was “never publicly exhibited” and was acquired by Sir James Dunn. Knoedler & Co’s notes reveal that, at the time of their correspondence with John, the painting was the property of Mrs O’Brien, the former wife of Sir James Dunn, who had originally acquired the painting during his brief friendship with the artist.

Item 19

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John also confirms to Knoedler & Co that the subject is indeed his wife Dorelia, or "DoDo" as referred to by the accompanying notes.

When writing to John, Knoedler & Co state that “an important provincial museum” was interested in purchasing the painting. A note in the archive suggests that this was most likely Birmingham Museum & Gallery.4 However, they were not the final purchasers. Ernest Daryl Lindsay, who throughout the 1940s and 1950s was acquiring paintings for the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne through the Felton Bequest, became enthralled with the picture, writing in 1945 that he “must get this painting”.5 He succeeded, and the painting remains in Melbourne to this day.

Upright Display Case 19 A reproduction of La Belle Jardinière by Augustus John, c. 1911, oil on canvas, 188.6 x 77.7 cm, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Felton Bequest, 1946 (1543-4)

20 Letter to Augustus John from Knoedler & Co Dated 14 August 1944 (AR: FHS/3/1/1/90a)

21 Letter to Knoedler & Co. from Augustus John Dated August 21 1944 (AR: FHS.3.1.1.90b)

22 Research notes about La Belle Jardinière compiled by Knoedler & Co (AR: FHS/3/1/1/90c)

The correspondence included in this display provides a small insight into the value of the Frank Simpson Archive as a resource not only for provenance research, but also for understanding the mechanisms of the art market and the relationships between dealers and artists.

Item 21

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Endnotes Small Flat Display Case 1. Caroline Elam, “Benedict Nicolson: Becoming an Art Historian in the 1930s”, The Burlington Magazine 146, no. 1211 (2004): 76–87.

2. Benedict Nicolson Diary, 20 January 1935 (AR: LBN/1/6).

3. Caroline Elam, “Benedict Nicolson: Becoming an Art Historian in the 1930s”, The Burlington Magazine 146, no. 1211 (2004): 76–87.

Upright Display Case 4. Letter from Knoedler & Co to City Museum & Art Gallery Birmingham, dated 23 August 1944.

5. Letter to Sir Keith Murray from Ernest Daryl Lindsay, dated 17 May 1945, quoted in Tedd Gott, Laurie Benson, and Sophie Mattiesoon (eds), Modern Britain, 1900–1960: Masterworks from Australian and New Zealand Collections

A special thank you to those who have helped us put this display and pamphlet together, including those who have kindly leant us items to exhibit and reproduce: Maggi Hambling, Vanessa Nicolson, The National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, and the National Portrait Gallery. We would also like to thank those who have provided invaluable help and guidance at the PMC, and in particular Bryony Botwright-Rance.

Display and brochure produced by Harriet Fisher and Nermin Abdulla Item 22

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The Centre is confident that it has carried out due diligence in its use of copyrighted material as required by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended).

If you have any queries relating to the Centre’s use of intellectual property, please contact: copyright@paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk

For more information about our research Collections see our website: www.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk. Alternatively contact us by email at collections@paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk or phone 020 7580 0311 22