D AV I D PAT R I C K C O L U M B I A T H E A M E R I C A N A S S O C I AT E S O F T H E O L D V I C AT G OT H A M H A L L
Trudie Styler and Darren Criss
Sir Wodehouse was knighted by Queen Victoria more than a century ago, with the actual investiture presented by her son, King Edward VII (great-grandfather of Queen Elizabeth II). Sir Wodehouse was 76 at the time of his son John’s birth. John’s mother, who was much younger than her husband, obviously, had previously held a position in her husband’s firm. Sir John’s grandfather Richardson was born during the reign of George III, who was king at the time of the American Revolution. In his teenage years, the young John had aspired to become an artist. When he was 36 QUEST
Dina Chartouni, Alec Baldwin and Isabella Chartouni
Jeff Goldblum and Kevin Spacey
17, he enrolled at the Slade School of Fine Art. Shortly thereafter, however, he was called up for the service in the Second World War. He soon fell ill, ending his military career, and he spent the rest of the war in London with his mother and his siblings. In his youth he’d met and befriended Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, both of whom later painted portraits of him. During daytime, he worked as an industrial designer before becoming a reviewer for The New Observer. In 1950, then in his mid-twenties, he met the art historian and prominent Cubism collector Douglas Cooper.
Katie Thomson
Kate Pakenham, Frank Converse and Maureen Anderman
Two years later, Cooper acquired a rundown castle, the Chateau Castille outside Avignon in Provence, which Cooper, with young Richardson’s assistance, began to transform into a private museum of his early Cubism collection. It was during that time that Sir John began to cultivate and acquire his now profound knowledge of art and its history. It was then also that he developed friendships with artists Fernand Léger and Nicolas de Staël and a close, life-long relationship with Pablo Picasso. In the early 1960s, now having forged a career as
an art historian and critic, he left behind his life with Cooper and moved to New York, where he organized a Picasso retrospective in nine galleries. Two years later, in 1964, he organized a Braque retrospective and was working with Christie’s. In addition to Sir John’s now famous erudition and talent as an art historian and writer, he had a social personality. He possesses a certain charm that combines brilliance, curiosity, and a natural eye for detail with a talent to amuse. Now in his 89th year, the newly knighted Sir John Patrick Richardson continues to possess an intellectual
PAT R I C K M C M U LL A N
Irwin Ackerman, Emily Ackerman and Mary Ackerman