Kenneth Clark
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Clark called his autobiography ‘a gallery of portraits’, and hoped that ‘the reader must deduce my character from the portraits of those who influenced me’.5 He adopted a detached, almost ironic tone in dealing with his life, which reminded some of the opening of David Copperfield, and others of Lytton Strachey. He told one reader that he had been fond of Tacitus in his youth, and ‘I hope you will have recognised traces of this influence in my use of certain epithets.’6
The first portrait – and the best – is that of his father, who sets the tone for the monsters that follow. Rosamond Lehmann simply wrote: ‘I lost my heart to your father.’7 Not surprisingly, there was a degree of whitewash in the portrait: no mention of their arguments over shooting, or of Clark having to pick his drunken father out of the gutter. However, by far the most memorable part of the book is Clark’s account of his own childhood, a beautiful and evocative piece of writing. His old colleague at the Arts Council, Ifor Evans, told him, ‘I think the first chapter is the best piece of serio-comic writing in English.’8 After the elegiac idyll of Clark’s Suffolk and south of France memories, Winchester blows everything apart with a classic intellectual’s description of the tribal barbarities of the English public school. Here again we confront one of the central questions about Clark: how it was that the young man who never fitted in was so successful at winning over those who mattered: his captivation of first Monty Rendall, then Bowra, Bell, Berenson, Sassoon and George V? He seems to have taken it for granted that they would fall under his spell (and later he would assume as much of his lecture and television audiences, not to mention his girlfriends). Perhaps it was because, alongside Clark’s good looks and charm, he had the effect on them that Bernard Levin observed: ‘And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew, that one small head could carry all he knew.’*5
Clark treated his memoirs as a literary exercise: they were intended first and foremost to be amusing, and he was indeed a master of the anecdote. However, this approach had disadvantages, as he acknowledged to Jock Murray: ‘I have been stung with remorse at the number of injustices which have crept into the book, chiefly on account of my being too anxious to entertain.’9 Throwaway remarks about living people – I.G. Robertson at the Ashmolean – or dead contemporaries – Ian Rawlins, the train enthusiast at the National Gallery – caused much offence.10 Most readers enjoyed such passages, including Burnet Pavitt, who thought the book was ‘as light as a soufflé…please, please follow it up, – and don’t spare the lemon juice…One or two (friends) received a piece of your mind, but without the candour (the drop of lemon), the pictures would have been so much less vivid.’11 Some complained that the memoirs were not revelatory enough, but Clark was of a generation that was uncomfortable with Freudian self-examination, as he told David Cecil: ‘I always feel that self-revelations are only half revelations, even in Rousseau. Perhaps St. Augustine is the only exception.’12
The world Clark describes seems distant, sealed-off and secure; in it everybody knows everybody, and the futures his friends can look forward to are never in doubt – Bobby Longden, for instance, is sure to become headmaster of Eton one day. However, Clark insists that the best part of it has been his friendships with artists and his home life, which caused some reviewers to raise their eyebrows. He described the book to Myfanwy Piper as ‘a slim volume – fifty more pages would have improved it, but I was so afraid of becoming a bore’.13 The tone is indeed self-deprecating, which British reviewers recognised as Clark’s Grand Manner; but it puzzled Americans, who wrote to him commiserating that he had been such a failure – which annoyed him. As he told his old Oxford friend Alix Kilroy: ‘I am so glad you enjoyed the Autobiography. It was meant to be funny and was accepted as such by most English reviewers. American reviewers, on the other hand, find it very sad, and think that I am a disappointed man. In fact I have been fortunate far beyond my deserts except in the last five or six years.’14 One of the most perceptive reviews was by John Russell in the New York Times, who quoted Leon Edel on ‘that finely attuned English amateurism which is the despair of Americans’.15 Time magazine noted Clark’s vein of self-contempt and his dislike of his own class;16 Anthony Powell in the Daily Telegraph saw in him both steel and charm, and identified two Kenneth Clarks – one cool, worldly and ruthless, the other highly strung, with a gift of extra-sensory perception.17 Geoffrey Grigson wrote a not unexpectedly hostile review in the Guardian, pointing out the name-dropping throughout the book.18 ‘But these were our friends,’ Clark protested – even though he would have admitted that as such, they had been chosen with discrimination.
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Once the book was published, Clark left Jane for twelve days in November 1974 to make a film in Egypt with Michael Gill. He had always been fascinated by Egypt, and the growth of a civilisation on the banks of the Nile ‘with the suddenness of a sunrise’. In the Beginning had also appealed to him because ‘the extraordinary thing about Egyptian civilisation is that it lived entirely through images’.19 He also had to ‘replenish my bank account’;20 the admirable film was sponsored by Reader’s Digest, and made for PBS America.21
Clark arrived in Egypt with certain prejudices about its people, which his first encounter did nothing to dispel. He told Catherine Porteous: ‘Oh it was appalling…the hours of bureaucracy at Cairo airport, the lights kept going out and the immigration officials had to examine multitudinous documents by cigarette lighter!’22 Things improved once he was exposed to the works of art, and he felt ‘completely rejuvenated simply by talking about them’. On a return visit the following February he wrote to Janet from Luxor: ‘I am too old to work so hard…lots of sun, and I am red as a turkey cock…I have come to like the Egyptians – They are so anxious to be friends, and have a Biblical dignity up here…(not in Cairo!)…I am in the old Winter Palace, in King Farouk’s room – of an appropriate size. Nothing works – the lights go on and off and give shocks, this morning the tap of my bath blew off and water shot all over the room.’23 Unfortunately, artistic differences arose between Gill and Clark, who thought the result was ‘a disaster…Michael wanted to do an art film with lots of music. I wanted to do an ideas film…it has to be cut from 100 minutes to 58.’24 Gill put Hollywood music on the soundtrack, which made Clark roar with laughter during the screening. As he told an American friend, ‘The result is a parody of Chu Chin Chow.’25
Clark’s next venture was closer to home. John Sainsbury, his neighbour in Kent, approached him in 1974 with the idea of setting up a company, to be called Ashwood, making educational films about art, to be funded by his Linbury Trust. ‘K changed my life,’ Sainsbury noted, ‘and I thought this would be a wonderful thing – like having Ruskin on film.’26 The first offerings were to be five films on Rembrandt (of which only three were eventually made), presented by Clark and directed by Colin. But Clark soon realised he was past his best, as he told Myfanwy Piper: ‘I spent the summer writing five programmes about Rembrandt. The scripts didn’t seem bad, but, alas, when I came to perform them, last week, I found that I had lost the vital spark, I gave a very dismal performance (it happened to be one of Jane’s bad weeks which always depresses me). So no more television, which is a nuisance, as I need the money.’27 Further films were in fact planned, and Clark tried to persuade the leading critic of modern art David Sylvester to collaborate with him on a project about the origin and purpose of abstract art. Ashwood did not flourish, but nonetheless the venture had a happy outcome, since through it Clark introduced Sainsbury to John Hale, the chairman of the National Gallery (which acquired the rights to the three Rembrandt films), and this led to Sainsbury’s appointment to the gallery’s board of trustees; in Lord Sainsbury’s view, ‘Rembrandt led to the Sainsbury Wing. That’s my theory.’28
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Clark continued to write, although most of his output now consisted of introductions: he wrote a pleasing piece on Reynolds Stone when John Murray produced the definitive book of his engraved work. But only after a renegotiation of his fee did he
agree to write an introduction for an American edition of Vasari’s Lives of the Artists. Vasari, Clark thought, was ‘a turgid and inflated painter’ and no scholar, although a great storyteller and bringer to life of artists, and produced ‘the most vivid, entertaining, and convincing picture of Italian art at its greatest period’.29 Of greater significance was his introduction to a book of Henry Moore’s drawings, ‘with all the apparatus of criticism and scholarship. It is quite a big job. I am treating Henry as if he were an Old Master, with the difference that one cannot ring and ask Rembrandt when and why he did a certain drawing, and one can ask Henry.’30 He also began work for the World Wildlife Fund on a project that he soon regretted, Animals and Men – he was bullied into this by his Albany neighbour Fleur Cowles. The book turned out to be a potboiler which John Berger damned as ‘trivial, commercial kitsch’. Clark’s favourite project by far at around this time was an introduction to a book on Botticelli’s illustrations of Dante, ‘these beautiful visions, fluttering yet precise’.31 He dedicated this to the rapidly declining Jane. It was published just before her death, ‘and gave her more pleasure than anything else in the last month of her life’.32
He still occasionally made interventions on a public stage; he spoke in the House of Lords against a wealth tax on works of art.33 His opinions continued to be sought on major proposals, such as a Turner gallery at Somerset House (he was initially in favour, but on examination turned against the idea, believing the Seilern collection would be a more appropriate use of the rooms).34 He was not predictable in his attitudes or opinions, and would never automatically support the status quo.
Clark had served as president of the London Library since 1965, despite not even being a member when invited to the post (similar perhaps to his chairmanship of ITA despite not owning a television). His role was mainly to preside over the library’s AGM,*6 but in 1975 he found himself embroiled in a crisis that took some trouble to defuse. The chairman, Michael Astor, who had done much to improve the economic position of the library, had not consulted the membership on several important changes – leading to an attack by some members, and the threat of legal action to the constitutional position of the committee. ‘We are the establishment and that is enough for them,’ Astor dismissively told Clark.35 Clark nevertheless had a degree of sympathy with the malcontents, who were led by the journalist Christopher Booker, although he believed that ‘they have made a great mistake in trying to hitch their grievance on to legal quibbles’. They were not ‘merely a bunch of destroyers. I think it was a real mistake to make all those alterations in the entrance hall etc. without informing the members or the staff more fully.’36 He continued to steer a moderate line, doing his best to reconcile the committee and its opponents. He finally handed over the presidency to Noel Annan in 1980, and his portrait, small cigar in hand, is still the last photograph that members see on the stairs before they enter the reading room.
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Clark’s taste for Early Church reading had not abated: ‘I like information, especially about early Christianity, which seems to me the most extraordinary episode in the world. Alas, I seem to have read everything available on the subject. I shall re-read St Augustine’s Confessions (sublime) and perhaps St Jerome’s Letters (very good).’37 Possibly for this reason he developed a taste for giving talks in churches, during the lunch hour at St James’s Piccadilly, opposite Albany, and particularly at St Mary-le-Bow in Cheapside, a church with a tradition of lectures that went back to the seventeenth-century natural philosopher Robert Boyle. The latter talks were known as ‘Bow Dialogues’, and were conducted as an interview by the rector or his wife. Clark did several of these, answering questions on Church history, contemporary art and society, usually with a lawyer’s exactitude – although sometimes he let himself go: ‘Today is similar to the slack period after the death of Giotto; there was another slack period around 1570 when patrons like Rudolph II didn’t know where to go, another slack period after death of Poussin. We are in a slack period today, but it differs in that these blighters today think they are all marvellous. It is an art that only appeals to a côterie. The greater part of it is rubbish and hoax, done by smart alecks.’38
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Clark’s greatest public recognition came in spring 1976, when he was made a member of the Order of Merit, the highest award for distinguished service (usually for intellectual achievement, and restricted to twenty-four living members) that the British monarch can bestow. Letters of congratulation poured in once again, but as he told Noel Annan, ‘I feel like sinking through the floor before anyone finds out what a fraud I am.’39 He enjoyed his first gathering of the members of the Order at the palace: ‘Funny thing, I thought it was made up entirely of academics and scientists. Not a bit: All my old pals were there, the whole lot of them. Well, Henry Moore, Graham Sutherland…that’s funny isn’t it? It was a very amusing old boys meeting. We were just the old gang.’40
He had one other royal engagement that year. Although he usually tried not to leave Jane’s bedside, in the month before her death he went, rather surprisingly, to stay at Lennoxlove House in Scotland, seat of the Duke of Hamilton. The Queen Mother was also a guest. As he told Janet: ‘QM loves art society – too much standing – I have lost my royal legs – QM looked at everything and talked to everyone…at dinner yesterday I was the only member of the middle-classes. All the rest were Dukes (Argyll rather nice) Earls (Selkirk nice, Minto less so) and of course the new Duke of Hamilton who seems to be a brave type. It is all so incredibly not me that it is faintly amusing – but only faintly – and to tell the truth I am sorry I came.’41
Jane’s bedside was now as likely to be at the Nuffield Hospital in London as the Garden House in Kent. She suffered a series of setbacks before she died. In March 1975 Clark wrote to Janet: ‘She had a very severe diabolical visitation last night…kept the TV on full blast to keep him away…the devil was due for a return. He has been away for months, and I have been expecting the old boy for a long time. Physically, I think these visitations may be a sign of health, as they are a form of rebellion.’42 Another setback came with the death of Lord Crawford in December 1975, which had a strong emotional effect on her: ‘Jane still weeping at the death of David Crawford – the only man she ever loved without qualification!’43 Clark wrote an obituary for Crawford, describing his goodness and listing the great public services he had performed. By February 1976 he was warning Morna Anderson that ‘Jane is very ill and in pain – lives on painkillers. I think she doesn’t any longer hope to recover.’44 In April the Clarks changed their Albany apartment from B5 to B2, so that Jane no longer had to be brought upstairs.
One day Jane asked for pen and paper, the significance of which Clark did not immediately recognise. Her mind, which up to that point had been very confused, had cleared, and she wrote letters of farewell to the family. Together she and Clark spent a happy afternoon holding hands and discussing the Florentine artists of the quattrocento.45 He read her Keats’ ‘Eve of St Agnes’ until she said, ‘I am feeling a bit sleepy.’ He said, ‘We will read some more tomorrow,’ to which she answered calmly and even gratefully, ‘I shan’t be alive tomorrow.’ She immediately went to sleep, and never woke up.46 Alan takes up the story from the castle: ‘woken this morning by banging noises at main door. “Lady Clark died last night.” Jane and I dressed quickly, hoping to beat Col. Found my father in “tremendous form” wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, having just eaten brown eggs and grapefruit…then went to see Mama…found her face composed, determined, rather beautiful, not in any way distorted.’47
Jane’s funeral was a miserable affair. It took place in a soulless local Kent crematorium, and apart from immediate family, only her two brothers and their adult children were present; Clark did not even invite them back for tea or a drink. In fact he made no effort whatsoever – just as at the wedding fifty years earlier. A chilling sidelight on the story concerns the butler Leonard Lindley, who had gone on a rare holiday abroad with his wif
e, and missed Jane’s death and funeral. He had been devoted to her, and was staggered on his return to find a matter-of-fact note from Clark informing him that Lady Clark had died – and giving instructions for his breakfast.48
Jane’s will was a matter of some speculation, because she had rewritten it so often. Clark felt sure that she owned nothing, but he had forgotten that he had made a great deal over to her in the days before spouses were exempted from death duty tax. The family were surprised not only by how much she left, but also that the main beneficiary was Alan and not Colin. Alan had received an inkling of this when earlier in the year he had by accident been sent a copy of his mother’s latest will, in which he had been surprised to read that he was the residual beneficiary, though at the time he thought it must be a misprint.49 But besides having fallen out of favour with his mother, Colin only had stepchildren at this time, and Jane wanted to keep the money on the Clark side of the family. This was a blow for Colin, but as Alan wrote in his diary, ‘a tremendous liberation for me’.50 However, Jane had left her greatest treasure, the Henry Moore shelter sketchbook, to the British Museum – as both Clark and Moore himself had hoped.