Augustus John

18th August 2010, Bedford Gallery

I was speaking to someone the other day and mentioned that I was

giving a talk on Augustus John, the person I was speaking to

immediately knew the name and much about his life but when I

asked them which of his work they liked best, they were unable to

think of any. They are not alone. John has been somewhat neglected

by art historians, and though there is a large biography of his life

there is a definite absence of scholarship on his work. One writer

puts it down to him not being part of the weave of British art, he

inspired some imitators, especially amongst Slade students, but

they soon moved on, and though he moved in artistic circles he was

never part of a particular group. This idea of him being an outsider

was exemplified by the Royal Academies survey exhibition in 1987

British Art in the Twentieth Century: The Modern Movement were all

the greats of British art were shown together, but in which the work

of Augustus John was omitted. It was as if what Virginia Woolf had

called in 1908 ‘the age of Augustus John’ had never existed.

However another reason for the lack of critical writing is that John’s

work went rapidly down hill after about 1920. Anthony Blunt wrote

‘Everyone is agreed on the fact that Augustus John was born with a

quite exceptional talent for painting – some even us the word genius

– and almost everyone is agreed that he has in some way wasted it.’

The age of Augustus John, not only can be related to the work that

John produced but also to the legend that surrounded him. In the

public imagination of late Victorian and Edwardian society, he

represented the ultimate bohemian, an honour that he did not

except but one in which he was unable to contradict.

The legend consists of two parts, firstly his talent for drawing and

how he came by it and secondly his relationship with women.

The legend surrounding his talent is summed up on Brooke Bond tea

card from the 1960’s.

IMAGE: BROOKE BOND TEA CARDS 50 FAMOUS PEOPLE 1969

On the front is this picture of John and on the back a very brief

biography which starts with the sentence ‘Augustus John hit his

head on a rock whilst diving, and emerged from the water a genius!

The first part of this statement is true, but it can be argued that John

was a genius long before he hit his head.

Augustus was born in Pembrokeshire in 1878.

IMAGE: Augusta and Edwin John

His father Edwin John was a solicitor and his mother Augusta an

amateur painter. On his mother’s death when he was just six, his

father moved the family from Haverford west to Tenby. His

upbringing though it allowed him a lot of freedom, was marred by

his father who was cripplingly uncommunicative and who was

obsessed with social conventions. When Augustus’s sister, Gwen

was in Paris in 1910 she wrote to her friend ‘My father is here, not

because he has wished to see me or I to see him but because other

relations and people he knows, think better of him if he has been to

Paris to see me!’. Perversely it was Edwin John’s adherence to social

conventions that was to influence Augustus’s abhorrence of all

‘moral living’ as he called it.

IMAGE: The four John children with their nurse

Left to right: Gwen, Winifred, Thornton and Augustus

Augustus and his sister Gwen had been encouraged by their mother

to draw, and after the move to Tenby they used the attic as their

studio and took their sketchbooks with them wherever they went.

Their father, who admitted later that he was a less keen observer of

his sons work than his mother would have been, neither encouraged

or discouraged them in this practise. Augustus drawing continued at

school, where he got into trouble for drawing the masters and for

making a series of nude studies from his imagination which were

duly confiscated. His talent was recognised at Tenby art school

which he attended in 1893 where he decided he wanted to become

an artist. His father was more encouraging of this idea than you

would think. He had read in The Times, accounts of sales and

success in the art world and thought landscape painting a

gentlemanly pursuit, leading him to believe that an artist’s

profession was at least tolerably respectable. So with a legacy from

his mother to pay his fees, Augustus entered the Slade in 1894.

In his first years at the Slade he seemed an unremarkable

personality, possibly more quiet than the other students, he was shy

and poor and to begin with he spent most evenings at his aunt’s

house in Acton. The Slade set its emphasis on drawing and John

showed an early talent especially in his life drawings. He made

friends and he was happy there but he still had to return to Tenby in

the holidays.

It was in the summer of 1897, that John had the accident that was to

change the path of his career. Towards the end of the holidays he

went to bathe in the south sands, the tide was far out but on the

turn so he decided to practise his diving from Giltar Point. The water

looked deep enough to dive in but as he plunged head first into the

water as he wrote later ‘instantly I was made aware of my folly. The

impact of my skull on a hidden rock was terrific. The universe

seemed to explode’. He had ripped his scalp wide open, but possibly

due to the cold water didn’t lose consciousness. The doctor who

attended him told him that he probably owed his life to an

uncommonly thick skull. He was not able to go back to the Slade

until the autumn and after his long convalescence he was

transformed. Physically his hair had grown and so had a red beard,

he wore a smoking cap in black velvet and gold embroidery to hide

his wound and his clothes shabby.

IMAGE: Augustus Edwin John by George Charles Beresford, 1902

National Portrait Gallery

But it was his work and behaviour that was even more noticeable. In

the past his work had been described as ‘methodical’ now his

drawings showed astonishing vigour and spontaneity, and were

passed amongst the students to excited admiration. He still had

periods of shyness, but now had sudden out burst of high spirits

involving outrageous exploits. Leading Wyndham Lewis to describe

him as ‘a great man of action into whose hands the fairies had stuck

a brush instead of a sword’.

IMAGE Augustus Edwin John by Sir William Orpen 1900 National

Portrait Gallery

Augustus didn’t like this description for much the same reasons that

he disliked William Orpen’s portrait of him from 1900. He felt that

neither of them showed any trace of the shy dreamer he knew

himself to be. This aspect of his personality was eaten up by his

legend so much so that he even wrote himself ‘I am just a legend,

I’m not a person at all’.

The truth behind Augustus hitting his head was not that it endowed

him with genius; it is more likely that the confinement made

necessary by his convalescence made him more impatient with his

art and greatly magnified certain traits he already had such as his

obsession against confinement.

The second part of John’s legend is better known and didn’t appear

on the back of the Brooke Bond Tea card, possibly because it might

not have been palatable over a morning cup of tea. I think it is put

best by the Daily Telegraph in 1961 who refer to him as having

legendary ‘prowess with the fair sex’.

Much has been written about John’s prowess. Dora Carrington wrote

in her diary of him offering to relieve her of her virginity and

Wyndham Lewis wrote that women’s attraction to John was so great

that he wouldn’t be surprised if he was ‘worshipped as the deity of

masculinity,’ But although John was responsible for a lot of the talk,

he seemed to tire of it, Lady Cynthia Asquith who modelled for him,

wrote in her diary ‘Margot once asked John how many wives he

really had (he is rather a mythical figure) saying she had heard he

was a most immoral man. He indignantly replied, "It's monstrous -

I'm a very moderate man. I've only got one wife!" but talk

continued, to the point it was even fashionable for women in some

circles to say that their child was his.

The main cause of the gossip centred on the ménage a trois of John,

his wife Ida Nettleship and his lover Dorelia Mcneill. Though it is

easy to look at the sordid side of this relationship as well as the

many others that john engaged in. The more interesting story is the

women themselves and the affect they had on John’s work. Of all

the images John produced it is of the women in his life that are the

most successful.

The first of John’s women was Ursula Tyrwhitt

IMAGE: Portrait of Ursula Tyrwhitt c.1897 CHAG

They had met at the Slade and he would walk her home from school

everyday. It was her vagueness in their relationship that kept John

mystified and interested. She would be cold one day and very

friendly the next. When they were together they drew and painted

each other’s portraits and when they were apart they wrote love

letters. It was to Ursula, that John wrote throughout his

convalescence with tentative declarations of his feelings ‘Before you

came it was night – a starry beautiful night, but you brought as it

were the dawn which made the stars turn pale and flee’. However

marriage was out of the question as her father was averse to John’s

obvious unconventional ways. This study was probably made on one

of the many evenings that John and his sister Gwen organised at

their lodgings on Fitzroy Street, where they and their friends spent

sketched, using each other as models. The evenings meant that the

artists could shift their focus from the grand artistic designs they

were starting to produce at the Slade to the study of individual

models.

This drawing from 1898 may also have originated from one of these

sessions.

IMAGE: Portrait of Ida Nettleship, Ursula Tyrwhitt and Gwen John

c.1898-9 Yale Centre for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

This magnificent work is typical of the Slade school training, which

closely followed the style of 18thcentury drawings. The figures are

elaborately dressed very different to his later work, his sister Gwen

is shown at the back but what is more interesting is the inclusion of

the figure on the left who is Ida Nettleship, John’s future wife and

also one of Ursula’s closest friends.

IMAGE Ida Nettleship and her Father

Ida Nettleship another Slade student was the daughter of John

Nettleship the renowned animal painter, although friends with

Ursula, Ursula seems to have not minded when John’s affections

moved to Ida.

Ida and John had a long engagement in which John was not faithful.

The courtship was made difficult by Ida’s mother’s objections to

John. Amongst his friends John was seen as a god like figure but to a

perspective mother in law he was viewed somewhat differently.

IMAGE: Augustus Edwin John by Charles Slade, 1902 National

Portrait Gallery

Michael Holroyd in his biography wrote ‘The person she saw was no

melodramatic Christ like figure, but simply a lanky, unwashed youth,

shifty eyes and uncouth to the point of rudeness, with a scraggy,

reddish beard, long hair, and scruffy clothes.’

However Augustus did succeed in marrying Ida mainly because she

was unwilling to live in sin and she became John’s principal model

from 1901 until 1904.

IMAGE: Merikli 1902 oil on canvas Manchester city galleries

This work was painted whilst the John’s were living in Liverpool,

where John had accepted the post of painting instructor at an art

school affiliated with Liverpool University College. Titled ‘Merikli’ the

Romany word for ‘jewel’, it shows John’s growing interest in gypsy

culture. The painting is very conscious of the Dutch masters and

though very beautiful it suffers from John’s technique of applying

the paint so thickly that when it dried it cracked. This was a

recurring problem; three years later in 1905 Walter Bayes wrote ‘in

his present exhibition his two large figure works are simply

unintelligible from accidents in the drying’. It wasn’t until 1909 that

he started to achieve success in this medium.

IMAGE: Augustus, Ida (holding David) and Gwen John

From 1902 Ida spent much of her time looking after her children;

she was to have five boys within five years leaving her own artistic

work to fall by the way side. She wrote that she started a family

because ‘there is nothing else to do now that painting is not

practical, and I must create something’. This ‘ultimate impediment

of domesticity’ as Gwen John called it was to affect a lot of the Slade

female students, who once married lost any hope of continuing their

careers. Augustus too was aware of its burdens he wrote in another

female student, Gwen Salmond's, obituary ‘in the grand epoch of

the Slade the male students cut a poor figure…in talent, as well as

looks, the girls were supreme. But these advantages for the most

part came to nought under the burdens of domesticity’. Augustus

was not only talking about Gwen in this obituary but also about

himself. Though some of his best work depicts idyllic domestic

scenes to take it as his them he had to be free of its burdens, so

would often leave his family disappear off to his studio.

Ida understood this and facilitated Augustus in his work, taking her

role as his model very seriously, to the extent that she once said

that she would rather one of her children die than lose the ability to

sit for him. She understood that a picture was a collaboration, in

which Augustus depended on the stimulation of attraction. However,

the attraction unfortunately was not always for her and there are

very few portraits of Ida after 1903 when he met Dorelia McNeill a

young secretary.

IMAGE: Ida Nettleship and Dorelia McNeill by Augustus Edwin John

about 1905-6 Private Collection

This is one of the few drawings of the two women together, taken

from life. Their differences are very apparent, Ida is shown with a

wide open face whereas Dorelia as in most of her portraits is given a

more knowing look.

There are many stories of how Augustus and Dorelia met. A popular

one was that Augustus overtook him in a London street one day,

looked back and was unable to avert his eyes for the rest of his life.

But really he met her through his sister Gwen.

Dorelia had been attending evening classes in art and had begun to

be invited to parties where she met Gwen. John became obsessed

with her a fact that he didn’t keep from his wife, he simply

introduced the two women and left Ida to decide what should be

done. But to begin with he had to fight for attentions with his sister

who after introducing her to him whisked her way on a walking tour

of France with the eventual goal of walking to Rome. During this

period she became Gwen’s model and it is interesting to see the

difference in her depiction by the two siblings.

IMAGE The Student by Gwen John 1903-4 Manchester City Art

Galleries

Gwen paints her with delicacy, inside, in an enclosed world, reading

or reflecting, modestly dressed and rarely smiling.

Augustus projects his own fantasies onto her.

IMAGE: Woman smiling 1908-9 Tate (I’ll come back to in a sec)

You can see the development of John’s work leading up to this

picture and also the development of Dorelia as a model.

We see her go from shy secretary

IMAGE: Dorelia Asleep by Augustus Edwin John 1903, Yale Centre for

British Art Paul Mellon Collection

To temptress

IMAGE: Dorelia standing before a fence by Augustus Edwin John

about 1905 Tate

To seductress

IMAGE: Woman smiling by Augustus Edwin John 1908-9 Tate

Whilst Gwen and Dorelia had been in France, Dorelia had met

another artist called Leonard and run away with him to Bruges.

Frantic letters went back and forth from Augustus and Gwen to her

begging for her return but what is most fascinating is Ida’s reaction.

She had been made miserable since Dorelia’s departure and

Augustus’s work had suffered. She realised that the only way for her

marriage to work was to come to some sort of arrangement where

she shared her husband. She wrote to Gwen and Augustus of her

wishes which Gwen conveyed to Dorelia ‘Ida wants you to go to

Gussy – not only wants but desires it passionately. She had written

to him and to me. She says ‘She, Dorelia, is ours and she knows it.

By God I will haunt her till she comes back’’

Dorelia returned and the ménage-a-trois began.

Ida was right, Dorelia was important to his work. The work

‘The Smiling Woman’ is an example of this. With Dorelia he could

project his fantasies of women on to her. In his pictures, Dorelia is

shown as tall, with a swan’s neck and well-proportioned head, as

mother figure or a seductress seen against a vibrant landscape.

IMAGE: Dorelia John by Charles Slade 1909 National Portrait Gallery

But in reality she lived in a town and was rather short.

IMAGE: Woman smiling by Augustus Edwin John 1908-9 Tate

This image was painted for the exhibition of Fair Women at the New

Gallery in 1909 and as with Merikli it shows his belief in the tradition

of the Dutch masters. It also goes even further to show his Romany

influences.

The painting was critically well received Roger Fry wrote that ‘Here

for once is a figure without any of the social pretence, the veils and

subterfuges of modern life. It is character seen with the

uncompromising frankness of the middle ages. This woman is

essentially modern, but she belongs no the less to the fifteenth

century.’

With her coquettish smile and confident pose John’s Dorelia was a

challenge to the other artists and well as other women.

Ida and Dorelia were able to bond over their children, Dorelia having

two more sons for Augustus. At some points to women were

pregnant at the same time and found living together sometimes

more preferable when John was not there.

It may have been this that led John to start a new relationship with

Alick Schepeler.

IMAGE: Head of Alexandra (Alick) Schepeler by Augustus Edwin John

Fitzwilliam Museum

Alick was the embodiment of John’s romantic ideal; she was part

Irish and part germane and had been born in Russia, making her

way to England as a child through Poland. She was employed as a

secretary by the Illustrated London News, and for a number of

years, became John’s favourite model next to Dorelia.

IMAGE: Portrait of Alexandra (Alick) Schepeler by Augustus Edwin

John 1906 Fitzwilliam Museum

His relationship, with her jeopardised his relationship with Dorelia

and Ida, who did not take kindly to a third woman. He told them that

he found domestic life smothering and that his painting could not

advance with out her, relations became so bad with his original

muses that he wrote to Alick ‘I think I have about done with family

life or perhaps I should say it has done with me – so there is nothing

to prevent us getting married now’. But in fact he was not proposing

to leave his wife and Dorelia but just add to their number.

However no one seems to be happy with this arrangement, Dorelia

planned to leave them all once her youngest son Romily was a bit

older, and Ida writes of wanting to leave too but is constrained by

her financial reliance on Augustus and Alick was confused as to

where she stood in all of this.

However events were unfolding that was to make all this irrelevant.

On 9th of March 1907, Ida walked to a hospital in Paris where she

and Dorelia were living and gave birth to her fifth son Henry, she

was never able to leave due to complications and on the 14th March

she died.

The death of Ida affected John greatly, not only because he had to

battle Ida’s family for custody of the children but because all though

there were many other women in his life he truly did love her.

This is reflected in his work where he started to produce large

decorative allegorical scenes of mothers and children in the open

air.

IMAGE: Family Group by Augustus Edwin John 1908-9 Dublin City

Gallery

This image from 1908 shows the harmonious family of Ida and

Dorelia for which he had hoped. He had made studies for the

composition as early as 1905 but didn’t paint it until after Ida’s

death placing her in the centre of the group staring out. The flowers

the children are giving Dorelia are violets. They symbolise the

violets that Gwen had brought to Ida when she was dying and which

the nuns had placed in her folded hands after she died.

IMAGE: Lyric Fantasy by Augustus Edwin John 1913-1914 Tate

This work which remained unfinished again shows Ida this time to

the right; Dorelia is playing the guitar whilst their children dance

around. Again John is depicting a pre modern idyll heavily based on

his impressions of gypsy lives. It was whilst he was at Liverpool that

he became interested in the Romany culture. He learnt the Romany

language from the universities librarian who eventually published

The Dialect of the Gypsies of Wales. It was through him that he was

also admitted to the gypsy’s site on the outskirts of Liverpool. I think

the thing that attracted him was there supposed freedom, they did

what they wanted, went where they wished and they were

answerable to no man.

IMAGE The Way Down to the Sea by Augustus Edwin John 1909-11

Private Collection

The Way Down to the Sea, again depicts Ida and Dorelia as well as

Dorelia’s sister and Euphemia Lamb, the wife of Henry Lamb. There

are numerous studies for this picture that show the subtle changing

poses that both Dorelia and Ida made until John found the pose that

he wanted.

The studies of Ida were made before her death and show her

wearing a hat which was removed from the final piece.

IMAGE: Ida c.1900-1907 CHAG study for way down to the sea,

IMAGE: pg 119 Tate Ida, study for way down to the sea 1906,

This picture is typical of john exceeding the limits of the page, so

has had to insert the raised foot on the right

IMAGE: pg 32 drawings Ida in a large hat collection of the late

Morton H Sands

IMAGE: pg 121 Dorelia Standing 1908 Martin Summer Fine Art

In the drawings of Dorelia, she again appears much taller than she

was and is shown in the long skirts and buttoned blouses she made

for herself.

IMAGE: pg 53 drawings Dorelia, Full Length, Arm over head 1908

Royal Cornwall Museum

Each image shows just a slight shift in feet, arms or head

IMAGE: pg 54 drawings Dorelia Standing with left arm above head,

Manchester City Art Galleries.

Again shows john going beyond the limits of the paper and having to

add her hand in below

IMAGE: Dorelia, seated in a landscape by Augustus Edwin John

c1910-1912

private collection

After travelling with a group of gypsies in 1910 across France John

found a villa in Martigues looking over a lagoon, where he continued

this theme of depicting his family in primitive landscapes

The richly coloured paintings that he produce were shown in an

exhibition that coincided with the first Manet and the Post

Impressionism exhibition at the Grafton Gallery which introduced

the work of Picasso, Gauguin and Matisse to the English for the first

time. Though, John was not deliberately producing post

impressionist work, the similarities in the styles added to John’s

commercial success and further added to John’s reputation.

But as the years passed John’s star faded and his reputation and

income became dependent on his numerous portrait commissions,

the best of which were of people he knew and had asked to paint,

finding no knew subject matter outside this field

IMAGE: Dorelia John & Augustus Edwin John, by Cecil Beaton 1960

National Portrait Gallery

Following his death in 1961 it was asked how future generations of

artists would assess his work. It was widely agreed that the last 25

years of his life should be ignored. So I am leaving him there so as

not to taint your minds and let you just remember the legend of

Augustus John.