Augustus John
Page 107
99 John’s letters to Grant Richards are in the University of Illinois Library, Urbana.
100 John to Campbell Dodgson, 11 September 1917. Imperial War Museum, London.
101 NLW MS 218180 fol. 125.
102 Arthur Symons to Quinn, 22 November 1917.
103 Lytton Strachey to Clive Bell, 4 December 1917.
104 William Orpen to William Rothenstein, 23 February 1918.
105 John to Tonks, 21 February 1918. The Library, the University of Texas at Austin.
106 John to Lady Cynthia Asquith, 5 October 1917.
107 John to Alick Schepeler, 2 February 1918.
108 D. H. Lawrence to Cynthia Asquith, 2 November 1917. The Letters of D. H. Lawrence Volume III 1916–21 (ed. James T. Boulton and Andrew Robertson 1984), p. 176.
109 John to Evan Morgan, 27 October (1915).
110 Augustus to Dorelia n.d.
111 Augustus to Dorelia n.d.
112 The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield Volume I 1903–7 (ed. Vincent O’Sullivan and Margaret Scott 1984), pp. 316–17.
113 From the Dorothy Brett Papers, Department of English, University of Cincinnati, Ohio.
114 John to Quinn, 13 December 1918.
115 John to Evan Morgan, 1 March 1918.
116 John to Arthur Symons, 22 February 1918.
117 Blasting and Bombardiering. An Autobiography 1914–26 (1927), p. 198.
118 Augustus to Dorelia, 3 February 1918.
119 ‘Lord Beaverbrook Entertains’ was intended to occupy pages 79–81 of Finishing Touches but, for reasons of libel, was dropped at proof stage and the chapter ‘Gwendolen John’ was substituted. This was done by Daniel George, of Jonathan Cape, after John’s death. It was subsequently published in the amalgamated Autobiography (1975), pp. 369–71.
120 Augustus to Dorelia n.d. (February-March 1918). NLW MS 22778D fols. 6–9.
121 John to Gogarty, 24 July 1918. This correspondence is at Bucknell University.
122 John to Cynthia Asquith, (April) 1918.
123 Augustus to Gwen John, 18 November 1918. NLW MS 22305D fols. 122–4.
124 The Times, 4 January 1919, ‘War Story in Pictures – Canadian Exhibition at the Royal Academy’.
John Singer Sargent was less impressed. ‘I have just come from the Canadian Exhibition, where there is a hideous post-impressionist picture, of which mine [‘Gassed’] cannot be accused of being a crib,’ he wrote to Evan Charteris. ‘Augustus John has a canvas forty feet long done in his free and script style, but without beauty of composition. I was afraid I should be depressed by seeing something in it that would make me feel that my picture is conventional, academic and boring – whereas.’ But William Rothenstein thought it ‘superb’. See his Men and Memories Volume II p. 350.
125 P. G. Konody ‘The Canadian War Memorials’ Colour (September 1918). See also P. G. Konody Art and War (1919). John’s decoration, eventually called ‘The Canadians opposite Lens’, is now in the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, together with four compositional studies for the picture, numerous solid drawings of soldiers, and some oils done in thick juicy textures.
126 John to Cynthia Asquith, 24 July (1919).
127 ‘My dear Comrade,’ Beaverbrook wrote to John on 26 August 1959, ‘…I was quite willing to build a Gallery in Ottawa but the Canadians did not have a suitable site and also there seemed little enthusiasm for the project.
‘Now there is a beautiful Art Gallery by the River in Fredericton built by me and in it you will find two John drawings and two John paintings with a third on the way.
‘How I wish that big picture might be handed over to us for exhibition there.’
Among those pictures now at the Beaverbrook Gallery, New Brunswick, is a small version (oil on canvas 14½ by 48 inches) of his large war picture, entitled ‘Canadians at Lieven Castle’.
128 Now in the Imperial War Museum, London. Oil on canvas, 93½ by 57 inches.
129 Augustus to Gwen John, 18 November 1918. NLW MS 22305D fols. 122–4.
130 Keith Clements Henry Lamb (1985), p. 50.
131 Richard Shone Bloomsbury Portraits (1993), p. 45.
132 Augustus to Dorelia n.d. (December 1917). NLW MS 22777D fols. 148–9.
133 Gwen John to Ursula Tyrwhitt, 22 November 1917. NLW MS 21468 fols. 109–10.
134 Augustus to Gwen John, 18 November 1918. NLW MS 22305D fols. 122–4.
135 Augustus to Dorelia n.d. (mid-December 1917). NLW MS 22777D fols. 148–9.
136 Ibid.
137 Augustus to Gwen John, 18 November 1918. NLW MS 22305D fols. 122–4.
138 Gwen John to Ursula Tyrwhitt (September-October 1918). NLW MS 21468D fols. 121–2.
139 Augustus to Gwen John, 20 August 1919, 17 September 1919. NLW MS 22305D fols. 126–7.
140 Augustus to Gwen John, 18 November 1918. NLW MS 22305D fols. 122–4.
141 Augustus to Gwen John, 23 June 1920. NLW MS 22305D fol. 133.
142 Chiaroscuro pp. 254–5.
143 Augustus to Gwen John, 18 November 1918. NLW MS 22305D fols. 122–4.
144 Beatrice, Lady Glenavy To-day We Will Only Gossip (1964), p. 111.
145 In a letter to Cynthia Asquith.
146 Lady Cynthia Asquith, Diaries 1915–18 (1968), p. 471.
147 John to John Sampson n.d. (February 1919). NLW MS 21459E fol. 58.
148 John to Frances Stevenson, 13 February 1919. NLW MS 21570E.
149 John to Cynthia Asquith n.d.
150 Horizon Volume VIII No. 48 (December 1943), p. 406.
151 John to Cynthia Asquith, I February 1919.
152 John to Cynthia Asquith n.d.
153 His secondment for duty with the War Office was terminated on 22 September 1919; and then, without delay (on 23 September) he was struck off the strength of the Canadian War Records – though with two medals: the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.
154 John to Cynthia Asquith, 17 September 1919.
155 John to Ottoline Morrell, 14 March 1920.
156 John to Eric Sutton, 6 April 1920. Written from the hospital, 12 Beaumont Street, London WI.
157 John to Cynthia Asquith, April 1920.
CHAPTER IX: ARTIST OF THE PORTRAITS
1 In Aldous Huxley’s Point Counter Point, for example, where he appears as the forty-seven-year-old John Bidlake ‘at the height of his powers and reputation as a painter; handsome, huge, exuberant, careless; a great laugher, a great worker, a great eater, drinker, and taker of virginities’. Professor Grover Smith, editor of The Letters of Aldous Huxley, writes (22 February 1970) that ‘it is said that John was indeed the prototype of the artist John Bidlake in Point Counter Point. Aldous nowhere wrote that this was the case; but he was extremely cautious and tactful where his literary models were concerned.’
John is said to be the prototype of characters in several novels – the artist in Margery Allingham’s Death of a Ghost; Struthers in D. H. Lawrence’s Aaron’s Rod; Tenby Jones, the ‘lion of Chelsea’, in Henry Williamson’s The Golden Virgin and The Innocent Moon; the sculptor Owen in Aleister Crowley’s The Diary of a Drug Fiend (Crowley noted this in his own copy of the novel); the musician Albert Sanger in Margaret Kennedy’s The Constant Nymph (though in part this may be based on Henry Lamb). Gulley Jimson in Joyce Cary’s The Horse’s Mouth, though popularly supposed to be based on Stanley Spencer, also contains some aspects of John – in particular the urge to paint large murals. Cary and John knew each other a little in Paris, when Cary was studying art there. Cary mentions John in his letters and diary of 1909–10; and in the autumn of 1956, writing to Ruari Maclean, he suggested John might do illustrations for the Rainbird edition of The Horse’s Mouth. Nothing came of this, though John admired the novel. Judy Johncock in Ronald Firbank’s Caprice (for which John designed a book jacket) also owed something to him.
Of Somerset Maugham’s The Moon and Sixpence John Quinn wrote (9 September 1919): ‘The description of the artist, red beard and all, and his words and manner and the first par
t of the book up to the time he leaves France, is obviously based upon a superficial study of Augustus John. The second part of the book, the Tahiti part, is obviously based upon the life of Gauguin.’
2 See ‘Cat’s Whiskers: Philip Oakes talks to Kathleen Hale’ Sunday Times (19 March 1972).
3 Kathleen Hale A Slender Reputation (1994), pp. 85–90.
4 Christopher Wood to his mother, September 1925.
5 Vivien John ‘Memories of Carrington and the John Family’ The Charleston Magazine (Spring/Summer 1995), p. 33·
6 John to Ottoline Morrell, 29 September 1911.
7 Romilly John The Seventh Child (1932), pp. 165–6.
8 Ibid. p. 167.
9 Cecil Gray Musical Chairs (1948), p. 228. It was because of such behaviour that Gerald Summers addressed his ‘Lines to Augustus John’s Car’.
Thou miscreant, who, forgetful of thy freight,
Leapt from the level stretches of the road,
Scaled the steep bank and met thy certain fate,
O’erturned and spilled thy all too precious load…
Let yokels leave their furrows on hot heels,
With anxious arms to place thee on thy wheels.
10 The Collected Poems of Oliver St John Gogarty (1951), p. 27.
11 Romilly John The Seventh Child p. 167.
12 Lucy Norton to the author n.d.
13 Montgomery Hyde to the author, 17 November 1969.
14 Poppet Pol to the author, 27 February 1970.
15 Cecil Gray Musical Chairs pp. 228–9. Another description of this incident is given in Adrian Daintrey’s autobiography I Must Say (1983), p. 126.
16 Romilly John The Seventh Child p. 168.
17 John to Quinn, 20 April 1917.
18 Augustus to Dorelia n.d.
19 Quoted in Anthony Sampson ‘Scholar Gypsy. The Quest for a Family Secret’ (unpublished), Chapter 2.
20 Ibid. Chapter 8.
21 John to Sampson, 30 December 1930 and n.d. (Liverpool University Library).
22 ‘Scholar Gypsy. The Quest for a Family Secret’ Chapter 6.
23 Sampson to John, 21 November 1918. NLW MS 22785D fols. 21–2.
24 John to Sampson, 6 January 1919. NLW MS 21459E fol. 56, and 7 September 1919 (Liverpool University Library).
25 Sampson to John, 26 August 1919. NLW MS 22785D fols. 27–8.
26 John to Sampson, 14 July 1920, 25 January 1924. NLW MS 21459E fols. 61–3.
27 John to Sampson, 29 January 1927. NLW MS 21459E fol. 64.
28 Kathleen Hale A Slender Reputation p. 92.
29 John to Conger Goodyear, 4 January 1928. See Conger Goodyear Augustus John (privately printed).
30 John to Ada Nettleship n.d. (1928).
31 John to William Rothenstein, 29 September 1921.
32 Romilly John The Seventh Child p. 169. The portrait of Roy Campbell is in the collection of the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh.
33 John’s essay on Firbank was written for Ifan Kyrle Fletcher’s Ronald Firbank (1930); see pp. 113–15. ‘In his life as in his books he left out the dull bits and concentrated on the irrelevant.’
34 See John’s tribute to A. R. Orage in the New English Weekly (15 November 1934).
35 T E. Lawrence to William Rothenstein, 25 April 1925.
36 Philippe Jullian DAnnunzio (1971), p. 182.
37 Originally called the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, it was begun in 1749 and intended as the grandest palazzo of them all, though stopping at ceiling level when the Venier family ran out of money. Along the entrance terrace are the heads of eight stone lions which gave the palazzo its name. In 1949 it was bought by another exaggerated figure devoted to the Pekinese dog, the American art collector Peggy Guggenheim (1898–1979). The house still holds her art collection and is owned by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.
38 Horizon Volume VIII No. 48 (December 1943), p. 413.
39 John’s half-length portrait (privately owned) was probably painted first and left unfinished. The more famous and flamboyant picture (Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada), ‘originally full-length in pyjamas’, Sir Evan Charteris noted, ‘was cut in half by John himself. A laboratory examination showed a ‘single, bold brushstroke traversing the full width of the canvas which marked the new lower extremity’. In 1942 John painted a final portrait of Casati (National Museum of Wales, Cardiff), a less assured handling of a less dominating figure, seated in a chair, a black cat on her lap, done in his El Greco manner.
40 Of the two versions of this picture, one, which John presented to Casati, was bought by Lord Alington and passed into the collection of his daughter, the Hon. Mrs George Marten. The other, which is misdated April 1918, was first exhibited at the Alpine Club in London early in 1920. ‘It’s a most marvellous show,’ T. E. Lawrence wrote to John, adding the information that ‘the Birm[ingham] F[ine] A[rt] Gallery say it would be bad for the women of the town to hang [‘La Marchesa Casati’] there.’ The picture was acquired in 1934 by the Art Gallery of Ontario from Sir Evan Charteris, through Lord Duveen, for £1,500 (equivalent to £47,000 in 1996). In a letter (26 February 1934) to the gallery, Duveen wrote: ‘I consider it to be an outstanding masterpiece of our time. It is no exaggeration to say this will live forever, which is true of very few pictures of modern times. You have bought a masterpiece for practically nothing… Such painting of the head, for instance, I have never seen surpassed by any artist, and you can safely place it for comparison alongside the great Velasquez, Giorgione or even Titian! That is what I think about this picture.’ In 1987 it was voted the most popular painting in the gallery.
41 This portrait is in the National Museum of Wales.
42 John Pearson The Life of Ian Fleming (1966), p. 13.
43 Ibid. p. 15.
44 Fergus Fleming Amaryllis Fleming (1993), p. 20.
45 Chiquita to the author n.d.
46 Chiquita to the author n.d.
47 Mrs Val Fleming to Seymour Leslie, 16 May 1923.
48 Fergus Fleming Amaryllis Fleming p. 119.
49 John to Viva King n.d.
50 William Rothenstein Since Fifty: Men and Memories Volume III 1922–38 (1939), p. 19·
51 John to William Rothenstein, 6 May 1929.
52 The picture (73½ by 65 inches) now belongs to the Tate Gallery (4043) which also owns a charcoal study (4448).
53 Mme Suggia ‘Sitting for Augustus John’ Weekly Dispatch (8 April 1928).
54 Suggia continued: ‘Directly I heard his footsteps hush and his tread lighten I strained all my powers to keep at just the correct attitude. In a picture painted like this, a portrait not only of a musician but of her instrument – more of the very spirit of the music itself – the sitter must to a great extent share in its creation. John himself is kind enough to call it “our” picture.’
55 See Michael Holroyd Lytton Strachey (1994 edn), pp. 435–6.
56 Gerald Moore Am I too Loud? (1962), pp. 108–9.
57 Burlington Magazine CXX 909 (December 1978), p. 869.
58 Horizon Volume VIII No. 36 (December 1942), p. 424. See also Michael Millgate Thomas Hardy. A Biography (1982), p. 552. There was a curious aftermath in which John reappeared, his identity merged with that of George Meredith, author of Modern Love, in a dream where Hardy found himself carrying a heavy child up a ladder to safety, while the John-Meredith chimera looked on unconcernedly. Hardy, who must have known John’s prowess as a father, had no children – though always wished to have had them. See Times Literary Supplement (16 June 1972), p. 688.
59 In a letter to John, Florence Hardy wrote (8 February 1929): ‘He [Hardy] had the greatest respect and liking for you not only as an artist but as a man. I can think of few people he liked so much.’ NLW MS 22781D fols. 90–1. John last met Hardy at Dorchester ‘during a performance of “Tess”. He introduced me to the leading actress, a Miss Bugler… whom he greatly admired. He told me her husband, a respectable butcher at Bridport, “was quite inadequate” and pointed out that her figure was perfect if
only she could be persuaded to remove her clothes’. John to Christabel McLaren (later Lady Aberconway), 5 February 1928. British Library Add. MS 52556 fol. 72.
60 See Cyril Clemens My Chat with Thomas Hardy (1944), Introduction by Carl J. Weber. The picture was formally presented by H. T. Riches to the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, after J. M. Barrie had refused Sydney Cockerell’s petition to present it (‘I don’t think they ought to ask me to do these things.’ See Basil Dean Seven Ages [1970], pp. 212–13). See also Friends of a Lifetime: Letters to Sydney Carlyle Cockerell (ed. Viola Meynell), p. 310. The Fitzwilliam also has a drawing of Hardy by John.
61 T E. Lawrence to his mother, 22 November 1923. The Letters of T. E. Lawrence (ed. Malcolm Brown 1988), p. 250.
62 John to Hardy, 20 November 1923. Thomas Hardy Memorial Collection, Dorset County Museum, Dorchester.
63 Chiaroscuro pp. 148–9.
64 Andrew Boyle Montagu Norman (1967), pp. 218–20; see also p. 252.
65 Horizon Volume X No. 56 (August 1944), pp. 132–3.
66 Ibid. p. 132.
67 Augustus to Dorelia n.d. (1 November 1928). NLW MS 22778D fols. 121–2.
68 Lord D’Abernon Papers, British Library 48932.
69 Ibid. 48936.
70 Augustus to Dorelia n.d. (3 September 1928). NLW MS 22778D fols. 95–6.
71 Lord Leverhulme to A. Wilson Barrett, editor of Colour. Blumenfeld Papers, House of Lords Library.
72 Daily Express (15 October 1920). See also the editions of 8 and 9 October. Also the Literary Digest (27 November 1920) and American Art News (13 November 1920).
73 John to T. E. Lawrence n.d. NLW MS 22775C fol. 58.
74 Edward Morris Lord Leverhulme ‘Painting and Sculpture’ (Royal Academy of Arts, 1980). See also Nigel Nicolson Lord of the Isles (1960), p. 11, and W. P. Jolly Lord Leverhulme (1976), pp. 190–6.
75 Chiaroscuro pp. 150–1. See also Horizon Volume X No. 56 (August 1944), pp. 134–5.
76 Ibid.
77 Lord Conway of Allington to John from the Imperial War Museum, 5 May 1935. NLW MS 22779E fol. 173.
78 Sunday Dispatch (28 September 1930). See also News Chronicle (29 September 1930); Daily Mail (29 September 1930), and The Scotsman (30 September 1930).