James Holland, 20th Century Artist

Puffin Books and War on Land

This link cropped up on my Google Alerts feed for James Holland - if I can find a copy I will get some scans and update this blog, but in the meantime, please enjoy this article.  You may also want to support the Big Issue, as I'm guessing their sellers can't do their normal business, but still have needs.

 

If you happen to be in London in early March...

There is an exhibition featuring the works of the artist James Boswell.  As avid readers of this blog should be aware, James Holland and James Boswell were good friends, so it is interesting that as well as a number of James Boswell lithographs, there are also works by a number of other artists, including James Holland.  This is a rare opportunity to see a couple of works by Holland in a gallery.  See the pictures below for more information - I have edited out the details of the private view, because that is what it is, a private view.

Britain's seafaring heritage

In an earlier article, I mentioned the 1936 Three James's Desk Diary.  Social realism was very much the thing in the Thirties for Holland, and his cartoon which goes with the diary page for the first half of February shows the depressed state of a dockyard with derelict buildings and workers with no work.  This image appeared in the Left Review originally.

Scanned from 1936 James Fitton, Boswell, Holland

 

The Penny Wet

This painting comes from Holland’s post-War period in the late forties and fifties, when he was still attracted by social realism, but had the opportunity to use larger canvases and more colour. The subject is a dock area, and could be anywhere around the British coast – Hull and Lowestoft are possible sources of inspiration. The impression is of an early morning, once work has started at the docks but before wives and school children are out and about. The composition invites the viewer to walk on round the corner, to see what is beyond the pub.

This is a large painting and consequently spent time in Holland’s garage, subject to extremes of temperature and humidity, which hasn’t helped its condition. When I unearthed it from a pile of other works and asked if I might be allowed to take it away and give it wall space, Holland cleaned it up with his patent mixture of “terps and linseed” and signed it, and then looked at it for a long time. “I’d forgotten about this one – it’s good but it’s a bit bare, let me add some people.” I made a deal with him that he could add some people if he travelled to my house to do it – in some ways it is a shame he didn’t make the journey, on the other hand I actually like the lack of people. Here’s why.

For a few years I lived in Wallsend on Tyneside, near the Swan Hunter shipyard. The pub on the corner looks very like the one that used to stand just south of the Metro station, called the Carville Hotel. This (in my day) rather unpleasant dive always put me in mind of the yard workers’ pub known locally as the Penny Wet. That was actually the Station Hotel further up the hill (demolished in the 1960s to make way for the Forum shopping centre). The name was given as it was where dock workers got a penny tot of rum or similar before heading into work in the shipyards.

The painting does not show Wallsend – there is no steep slope down to the river for a start. However the traditions would have been the same up and down the coastline, even if the names of the pubs were different, and this would still have been the place of the shipyard workers.

The Penny Wet, oil on board, c1960, in a private collection

 

Inspiration from the Avignon Festival

The summer of 1977 Holland spent time at Mas Gouge with his family - I remember it not least as the news that Elvis had died had to be gleaned from the Midi Libre.  Rather than drive all the way through France to get back to Pembury, Holland decided to put the car on the train, so our final evening in the South was spent at Avignon, waiting for the time to meet up with the train as it came up from Italy.

The Avignon Festival didn't seem to be the major event it is today, or perhaps we were not so well tuned in to the French cultural scene at the time.  In any case it was over in August, but the Fringe goes on for weeks after, which is why our final meal, in a restaurant near to the Pope's Palace turned out to be quite so memorable.  We sat out on the terrace to enjoy the balmy evening and watch the people go by, and were rewarded with an amazing array of street performers throughout the meal.

The Fire Eaters were perhaps not what we needed when tucking into our first course, as the accelerant they swilled around was very pungent.  They were however particularly dramatic and made a great impression on me, not least as I was only 13 at the time.  There were also singers, jugglers and a trick cyclist of varying ability, but the most inspirational for Holland were the Comedia del Arte clowns.  Their costumes were vivid, their act more suited to an adult audience, their make up very stylized and with the fading light, made a truly dramatic final evening of our holiday.

Holland made a number of "napkin" sketches, and once back home set to work, driven by what he had seen.  There are lino cuts of fire eaters, dingy Spanish singers, a trick cyclist and a "normal" clown, but the Comedia del Arte clowns/dancers inspired a dramatic painting.

This oil on board painting has not been properly framed but mounted on a piece of white board, with a fine pine outer frame, and is in a private collection.  However it was so admired and discussed that Holland did do a lino cut version, with a limited print run done at home.  This does not have the range of colour of the original, but retains the liveliness and drama of the original.

Three colour lino print, limited run, some copies still available.

 

Birmingham before it was regenerated

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Holland was Head of Faculty, Visual Communication at Birmingham College of Art (then Polytechnic from 1971).  Of course all things change, and Birmingham Poly morphed into the University of Central England in 1992 and then into Birmingham City University in 2007.

Holland lived in digs with the artist Bill Gear with whom he had much in common - both had experienced Bergen-Belsen after the War, both had worked on the Festival of Britain and both now worked at the College of Art.

In this period, Holland produced a number of paintings in oil on board and on a large scale - many pictures were at least 3 feet wide - and in black interspersed with vivid colours not always associated with Birmingham and the Black Country.  A number of these will be shown on the website, but if looking for similarities with the area today, you will be challenged.  The picture below shows one of the many canal junctions in Birmingham, not at all the image the city would now like to project.

[Canal Junction, oil on board, unframed, available for purchase]

The University was invited to the private view of Holland's retrospective exhibition in London, and the representative that attended not only held Holland's old post, but had also been a student of his as well.  He said he had once had the temerity to draw a boat during class, and then spent a long time with Holland who explained exactly where he had gone wrong!

 

The Royal College of Art in the Twenties

The following text is drawn from the as yet unpublished memoires started by James Holland during his life.  It is part of a much longer chapter discussing the life changing experience of being a student at the Royal College of Art, but is edited down to show how my father and Henry Moore the sculptor came to know each other.  Their friendship and collaboration continued for many years, and included work on the Festival of Britain, but this sets out the first steps in their acquaintance.

There could hardly have been a more exciting time to be going to the Royal College of Art than in the Twenties.  This unique establishment was among the several results of the mid-19th century development of the international exhibition - indeed much of South Kensington, including the V&A Museum originated in this way.  In the Twenties its status was one of those compromises by which Whitehall solves so many of its problems - not quite a University itself, not exactly part of the University of London, it was administered directly by the Board of Education.  Among the palaces of South Kensington, its only outward evidence was an unassuming door in a mews at the back of the Imperial College of Science, which led to a range of large utilitarian studios, and a group of wood and iron huts, relics of an earlier exhibition behind the Natural History Museum.  In spite, or possibly because of these unpromising circumstances, the College had achieved a respectable record and gained a reputation particularly of its own.  During the period of its 19th century development and the following two decades a succession of worthy but now mostly forgotten principals had directed its courses, but in the early post-1918 years a much more adventurous appointment was made.

Will Rothenstein was known to have been a bright young man of the Nineties and after, a friend of Wilde and Frank Harris.  Whistler had been witty at his expense, Max Beerbohm had portrayed him more than once.  Shaw, Wells and Bennett had been his near-contemporaries and still remained his frequent companions.  There was scarcely a figure of note in the arts, in France and England, that he had not encountered.

He had been a dandy in his youthful days, as some contemporary drawings showed, but by the time of his appointment to the RCA he appeared as a tiny and slightly sinister figure of fascinating ugliness, attired in the soberest of clerical gray.  Beerbohm had illustrated this in a well-known series of caricatures, the confrontation of well-known characters by their youthful selves.  His utterances were delivered in a manner that invited, but did not always repay serious consideration.  This I should have discovered on my initial encounter with him, on the first morning of term, when he blinked up at my timorous and very unconfident figure drawing for some seconds, and then observed “You may deceive the critics but you will not deceive posterity” - a judgment which, being a rather immature student, bewildered and distressed me for many following months. 

As might be expected, Rothenstein persuaded a number of the better known younger artists to teach at the College.  In many cases they did not stay for long, probably finding Rothenstein’s requirements, if not his personality, not always acceptable.  Among these seems to have been Paul Nash, who during his short stay had considerable effect on two outstanding Design students, Eric Ravilious and Edward Bawden, probably doing something to counter-balance the notably gothic influence of Professor Tristram, so well-known for his recording and restoration of mediaeval wall painting.

An American sculptor, Cole, though now little remembered, had a whirlwind effect not only on the drawing of sculpture students, but on that of many young painters, and certainly was a considerable influence on the development of the young Henry Moore.  Never had the third dimension been so aggressively or colourfully attacked with every medium that would make a mark on paper. 

A very different but distinguished teacher was Randolph Schwabe, who later became Principal of the Slade School.  Like Alfred Stevens before him, his forte was life drawing, which he infused with all the ripeness and rotundity of the seventeenth century artists, Flemish and Italian.  A rather shy man, he would sit before a student’s board, and however angular and gawky the model, produce an elegant drawing of shoulder or haunch that might have been a study by Rubens, usually remarking as he moved on “you have got it rather better than I have”.

A memorable feature of the College week was the series of lectures on the history of European Art given on Friday afternoons in the V&A lecture theatre by Hubert Wellington, the College Registrar.  As a member of the Camden Town group - which had included Gilman, Ginner and Brennan - he had come under the influence of Sickert.  He succeeded in infusing his lectures with so much of his own charm, enthusiasm and sensitivity that no student would willingly have missed one of them.  History of Art is now a required and assessable part of many courses, and the profession of art historian has itself become a recognised career, and has expanded accordingly. 

The highly individual reign of Rothenstein was only one of the factors that made the Royal College in the mid-Twenties such an exciting institution and experience.  During the first years of the decade numbers of ex-servicemen, survivors of the 1914-1918 war, had returned to their local art schools on demobilisation, and as some acknowledgment of their services received comparatively substantial grants.  In due time, many of them came to the College.  Such students were older and in every sense more mature than those who came only from an academic background.  They were not to be pushed around by anybody, and set the standards for much of the student life of those years, not least in their ability to hold their liquor.  Particular features were A K Lawrence, to become a well-known R.A., Henry Moore, Vivien Pitchforth, Raymond Coxon, Gerry Cooper.

The centre of student life was the Students Common Room, which consisted of two large wood and iron huts in Queens Gate, one being a kitchen and canteen, the other perhaps best described as a smoking room.  Far from elegant, in truth both dark and shabby, it was run at that time entirely by the students, the staff, from Principal down, it was understood, requiring specific invitation to be admitted.

The various well-established student groups had their own tables, and the fresher who inadvertently took his plate of spaghetti or sausages and mash to one of these was soon aware of his intrusion.  Three of these groups were particularly well defined.  At the largest table sat the most senior fine art students, including those who would sit for the Rome Travelling Scholarships.  Classical, or perhaps academic in outlook, they never the less included Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth.  They favoured black, wide-brimmed hats, bought in Paris or Florence, and a restrained traditional bohemianism in dress, with the exception of Lionel Ellis, a painter who would have appeared over-dressed for the most outrageous Latin Quarter extravaganza.  The Common Room Chairman and other student officers would be found at this table, and the deafening banging of spoons and cups was the prelude to announcements being made from this rostrum.

Across the room, a smaller table was appropriated to perhaps the most dedicated group, the Fauves of the period.  This was headed by one of the most remarkable students that the College has produced.  Barnett Freedman was known as “Soc.” since his dialectic domination of his disciples as well as any student activities in which he decided to interest himself was felt to be somewhat Socratic. 

While the senior group, certainly those with their eyes on the Rome scholarships, were devoted to the Italian painters of the early Renaissance, with Piero della Francesca as perhaps the ideal, for the ascetics Rembrandt was the master, Cezanne not far behind.

The third definable group was in effect a threesome, consisting of Douglas Percy Bliss, already distinguished by his MA, Eric Ravilious, and Edward Bawden.  Awesomely scholarly and literate, it was from this group that several attempts were made to establish a worthy college magazine, or rather periodical.  I recall Mandrake and Gallimaufry as two of these, perhaps over-precious to survive and now difficult to find.

In the lifetime of most human institutions there can be a period when circumstances and personalities combine to produce, if not a Golden Age, at least a time of great euphoria, a time when all seem to accept the same standards and objectives, and differences are confined to minor issues.  The College, the Students Common Room formed indeed at this period a most happy and well-balanced community, the maturity and experiences of the senior students, who knew just how far to go and when to stop, compensating for the inevitable, but occasional, follies of the younger elements.  As the ex-service numbers decreased, the average student age fell, and with it went much of the feeling of community that had enhanced the earlier days, remarkable enough in a non-residential college with its students scattered through the bedsits of Kensington, Chelsea, Camden Town and Hampstead.

 

Mentioned in passing

I had to admit that the title for this post is probably in rather bad taste, however it is an apt description.  I was made aware today of the passing of Dorrit Dekk - a female graphic designer at a time when the sector was predominantly male by all accounts.  Her obituary in The Guardian is charmingly written, but for me the novelty was to read about her working contacts with my father.

She worked for the Central Office of Information and also on the Festival of Britain, contributing to the travelling land exhibition.  She sounds like she was a great character, and I am sorry I never got to meet her.

Her obituary can be found at http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/jan/07/dorrit-dekk

 

Teaching in the Blitz

Soon after the heaving bombing of London, the Blitz, commenced I was offered the post of art master at a south east London grammar school.  The very successful headmaster had been killed in a raid, and the incumbent art master had wisely decided to move his young family to a less vulnerable area.  I was glad enough of the job, and I already knew something of the excellent reputation of this school.  Built on low and swampy ground on the borders of London and Kent, the school was strategically placed to get all the air raid alerts – and most of the raids – for the two areas.  My academic responsibilities consisted, during the early weeks, of escorting groups of boys to the sodden covered trenches in the school grounds the record number of such excursions in one school day being nine.  The boys seemed to be the least affected by the incessant day and night raids, and when they showed one snapshots of heaps of brick and slate and said with some pride “that’s our house sir”, it was difficult to know if commiseration or congratulations were expected.

Camping in a Hampstead flat, the early morning winter journey, often before the All Clear had sounded after a night of raids, could involve finding a way through streets deep in rubble and broken glass, with police, heavy rescue squads, firemen and bomb disposal crews still at work.  Nor was the evening return any more pleasurable, the warning sirens wailing before home was reached.  As daylight raids gave way to the nightly Blitz it was possible to concern myself more with my teaching activities.

My predecessor, an enthusiastic and eventually well-recognised art teacher, had set very ambitious standards throughout the school, backed by the unfortunate headmaster.  The staff included a group of bright young Cambridge graduates and the upper school reflected their lively and uninhibited influence, though the jejune frankness of the Sixth Form was hardly appreciated by some of the older masters, and I found it difficult to return the appropriate reply to the bulldog pipe-smoking sixth former who insisted “personally I can’t bear to look at anything earlier than Picasso.”

As the prolonged night blitz on London tapered off, life became more controlled at the school, only fire-watching duties making their demand when with the agreeable handicraft master I spent several nights a week on Parker Knoll cushions arranged on a study floor, sleeping more sweetly than I can remember having slept before or since.  The older schoolmasters then, if not today, were expected to acquire or cultivate a degree of mild eccentricity, and we were not without a few of these.  One had taken to heart the official plan to grow more food, and beside sowing the playing fields with buckwheat, had built a catwalk from his first floor flat to a neighbouring flat roof, down which his two or three hens teetered every morning until it was time to install them in the portable pen constructed on the carrier of his cycle, through the bars of which they peered as he rode down the High Street on his way to school.  It was the same master who woke us from our fire-watching slumbers at midnight to satisfy his urge to cycle at top speed down the considerable length of the lino-covered corridor that extended from end to end of the extensive school buildings.

Teaching art and design at this secondary level I found both challenging and rewarding, particularly if by making an unexpected approach I could persuade boys to look with newly opened eyes at what went on around them.  Is it a national failing that we don’t want to see the world in which we exist?  In trains running through the most romantic and beautiful scenery, in planes flying over the Alps or over an enchanting coastline it is apparently a sign of ill-breeding or naïveté to look out of the window.  Instead the worldly-wise and blasé traveller throws himself into his seat, opens his executive type briefcase, and is buried in business papers or a paperback until the end of the journey.  Give him a coffee table book of coloured photographs of mountains or sea and he is engrossed by it.  It seems that we have little confidence in our capacity to see our world for ourselves, and need to be told what to look at and when.  We depend on the news reel, the printed page and television to package the visible world for us and label as ‘fit for human consumption’.

As some sort of routine re-established itself and we re-adjusted to new circumstances, I found more and more demands for work reaching me from various sources.  A weekly cartoon for TRIBUNE, then under the editorship of Aneurin Bevan was one commitment, which involved a phone discussion to decide on a subject and how it might be treated, then producing the artwork for despatch by an early train.  The cartoons produced under these conditions were topical enough, but hardly marked a milestone in political cartooning, though occasionally a more than usually apt idea might spark some response from the readership.  The Ministry of Information was also commissioning with increasing frequency ideas and artwork for its Exhibitions and Displays Division, and eventually it made more sense to join that Division than to try to cope with its requests while engaged in full time teaching.

 

Hallowe'en

Each year I mean to load up this picture on Hallowe'en and each year I fail.  Sorry this is a day late, but I would like to share this charming whimsey from one of Holland's sketch books as my take on the 31 October.

The church is loosely based on St Peters in the Woods (the true parish church of Pembury) while spiders and snakes were supplied by Holland's vivid imagination.  The skull also comes from his imagination, but also from life classes and anatomy when he was a student.  He also whittled a very pretty small skull out of wood from a holly tree that he felled in the garden.

Happy Hallowe'en for 2014 perhaps!