Fun at the Fair

John Piper, Beach and Starfish, 1933/34, copyright artist's estate/DACS 2016

I was mildly astonished to see so many people coming into the London Art Fair yesterday evening, as Tim Mainstone and I were leaving. Most of the visitors seemed to be fairly young, and I wished I had a clipboard handy so I could pretend to be a market researcher and find out what they had all come to see. I could have taken notes on the show as well. As it is, I can only a remember a few of the things I really liked.

As museum partner, Jerwood Gallery set the tone with a mixture of interesting Modern British paintings and drawings with a coastal theme, offset by Marcus Harvey's startling bronze of Margaret Thatcher as a sort of hideous mermaid. A particular highlight was the John Piper collage, 'Beach and Starfish', which must rank near the top of the chart, Piper-wise. I hadn't really looked at it carefully before, and was struck by the reference to Nazis in the newspaper used for the cliffs, and by the shiny fabric flag.

Peter Clark, Handle with Care, collage, 2015, artist's copyright, Portland Gallery

Interesting to compare a Piper collage of Knowlton Church, Dorset, which was on the Portland Gallery stand; a sketch, almost, in cut paper, that captured nicely the geometry of Neolithic circle and Medieval church. This was set alongside contemporary collage by Peter Clark, whose work hovers intriguingly between the 1960s and the present.

It can be tricky when the old and the new hang side by side, as the former can seem rather drab and the former too shiny, by which I don't mean literally gleaming but untouched by time. If a painting from the 1930s has survived this long and is being exhibited with a five figure price tag then it must have some worth (reasons the art-overloaded visitor), whereas new work is much harder to evaluate. You just have to trust your instinct, I suppose.

Patrick Hughes, Paolozzi Robotski, oil on board, 2015, artist's copyright, Flowers

I was immediately drawn to Patrick Hughes trompe l'oeil painting 'Paolozzi Robotski' at Flowers, initially because it was fun and subsequently (on the second go-round) because it was beautifully crafted.

Colour and the smell of oil paint attracted me to the Long and Ryle stand, plus they were busily hanging a large painting. Nothing like a bit of bustle in a gallery to catch the attention. Chatting with the staff I learned that I've walked past the gallery in Pimlico a hundred times without noticing; I liked several of their artists, contemporary painters with a sense of history, an upbeat approach and lots of style.

Simon Casson, Eegrass, oil on canvas, 2015, artist's copyright, Long & Ryle

The award for most entertaining object probably goes to Pertwee, Anderson and Gold for 'Byron's Bong', which was pretty much what the title suggests. Apparently it had been sold for a price in the tens of millions, which is only right and proper for such an important historical artefact.

Finally, two very different galleries from Edinburgh made me want to take an art tour north of the border. While The Scottish Gallery had (among other things) a couple of lovely works on paper by JD Fergusson, who I would rate alongside any British artist of the 20th century, Arusha Gallery had possibly my favourite artwork of the night, 'Woman with flowers' by Romina Ressia - a photograph that looked like a painting, of a woman who might have stepped out of a Hammershoi interior.

Romina Ressia, Woman with flowers, photograph, 2015, artist's copyright, Arusha Gallery

The London Art Fair is at the Business Design Centre, Islington, until the weekend.

Edward Seago at Portland Gallery

Edward Seago, Low Tide, Strand on the Green, oil on board

When I was approached by the Portland Gallery to write a book about Edward Seago I had little idea of the adventure ahead. Having lived in Norwich for several years I was familiar with his East Anglian landscape paintings, which I associated with those of his predecessors John Sell Cotman and John Crome, but beyond that I was aware only that he had enjoyed a long friendship with HRH the Duke of Edinburgh. So not entirely a blank canvas, but close to it.

Over the following two years a portrait of Seago – Ted, as he was always known by friends – gradually took shape, and I realised that this was no ordinary artist. His education, for a start, was far from conventional, since he was confined to bed for much of his childhood by a chronic heart condition. Yet he was impetuous and determined and, having made up his mind at an early age that he could only be an artist, he asked Bertram Priestman RA for technical help and sought patronage from Lady Evelyn Jones, daughter of the 4^th Earl Grey.

Edward Seago, After the Ploughing Match, oil on canvas, 1936

With their support the nineteen year-old Seago held his first solo exhibition in London and was an overnight success, although these early paintings of horses and their riders owed rather too much to Alfred Munnings. This didn’t prevent him seeking advice from the great man, who suggested he apply to the RA schools. Instead, after only a term at Norwich School of Art, Seago went off to join a circus as a sort of artist in residence, and for the next three years travelled constantly.

As well as producing a remarkable body of paintings and drawings, Seago found inspiration for a lively autobiographical book, ‘Circus Company’, which he wrote with the help of poet laureate John Masefield. The pair went on to collaborate on several titles, including ‘The Country Scene’ – a sumptuous quarto volume filled with Masefield’s poetry and Seago’s evocative paintings – and ‘Tribute to Ballet’, at which point war intervened.

Edward Seago, Suffolk Village, oil on board

Edward Seago, A Sussex Fishing Village, watercolour

When Seago was commissioned to the Royal Engineers in the autumn of 1939 he took the opportunity provided by his first full time job to take stock of his career, which had so far perhaps given him more success than fulfilment. His first childhood sketches had been of the ever-changing sky, and he now perceived that his true vocation lay here, in the study of light and atmosphere. There would be notable achievements in portraiture, particularly two paintings of Queen Elizabeth II on horseback, but Seago otherwise devoted the second half of his life to landscape painting.

His vision was wide-ranging. Factories and building sites interested him as much as Norfolk beaches; he was inspired equally by sparkling Venetian canals and the dirty skies of a London winter. A great admirer of John Constable’s oil sketches, he painted rapidly, with expressive brushwork that he rarely attempted to conceal, and in later life worked from memory. Having trained his mind to recall the significant details of any scene, he astounded house guests with his ability to paint faraway places in his Norfolk studio. He was, as HRH the Duke of Edinburgh put it, like a conjuror pulling rabbits out of a hat. And, yes, his best work has a touch of magic.

Edward Seago, The Spritsail Barge, oil on board

An exhibition of Edward Seago's paintings, including many that have never been shown before, begins at the Portland Gallery next week. The paintings shown are all included, and each link will take you to the relevant page on the gallery's website. The text above is from the catalogue essay.

My book on Edward Seago is out now from Lund Humphries. 

The estate of Edward Seago is represented by the Portland Gallery.

Forgotten, Remembered: Algernon Newton & Alfred Munnings

I remember years ago reading a novel by Milan Kundera, in which I first came across the Stalinist policy of erasing disgraced political figures from photographs. The idea of deliberately removing someone from the historical record seemed to my young mind thoroughly fiendish; little did I know that a comparable fate had befallen a number of 20th century British artists whose work was deemed unfashionable by the opinion-makers of the age.

It is not difficult to make an artist disappear. If you run a museum you leave their work languishing in the basement, and if you publish books you contrive to overlook them. If you leave, say, Eric Ravilious, out of your survey of 20th century British art, then the chances are that art history teachers will ignore him too. So the next generation grow up having never heard of him, and his vanishing is complete. The artist doesn't need to be dead, although it helps. Fashion in art is just as brutal as fashion in Cold War-style Stalinist politics; in both cases, a few influential people control the flow of information to the public, and use their power as they see fit.

Algernon Newton, The House by the Canal, 1945 (Harris Museum & Art Gallery)

People now find it incomprehensible that Ravilious was so neglected, but his work was too thoughtful and too localised for the post-war champions of Pop Art, Abstract Expressionism and so on. In the era of 'The Shock of the New' artists vied to push the great experiment of Modernism to ever wilder extremes; what significance could a painting of an old bus or a lighthouse have in that age of grand gestures?

Following Rav's rehabilitation, art lovers are now wondering whether there are other artists of a similar calibre waiting to be rediscovered. One of those whose name is suggested as 'the next Ravilious' is Algernon Newton, whose work is currently on show at the Alex Katz Gallery, off Piccadilly; it's worth going along just to see the gallery, which occupies several floors of a grand old town house.

Algernon Newton, Dawn, 1936 (Ferens Art Gallery)

The paintings themselves vary greatly in size, but whether working at the scale of a postcard or filling a wall, Newton approached his work with the same meticulous care. His best known pictures show long urban vistas in the manner of Canaletto but with a completely different mood - an unsettling atmosphere, Andrew Graham-Dixon suggests in his fascinating catalogue essay, that reflects Newton's mental state in the aftermath of the Great War and the break-up of his family. Richard Dorment of the Telegraph disagrees with this biographical interpretation, arguing instead that Newton's idiosyncratic style reflects his artistic influences.

Whichever side you take in this welcome debate it seems clear that Newton was an artist of unusual vision, a painter who apparently controlled a terror of impending apocalypse with luminous glazes and fastidious attention to detail. He painted ever brick in his buildings and every leaf on his trees, even in the many large paintings he produced during a long and prolific career. Strikingly, after a tumultuous and frustrating youth, Newton went on painting into his eighties, depicting downland landscapes with the same painterly precision and poetic mystery he exhibited in his earlier work.

Alfred Munnings, The Start, 1950 (Richard Green Gallery)

If you want to follow Newton with something rather different I recommend popping round to Richard Green for a look at an artist who has been thoroughly 'disappeared' from most accounts of 20th century British painting. I knew very little about Alfred Munnings, self-taught Norfolk painter of horses and landscapes, until I saw James Fox's startling series about modern British art. Whether out of genuine interest or a desire to cause a stir, Dr Fox decided to rehabilitate the former President of the RA, whose famous 1949 outburst against Modernism in general and Picasso in particular had earned him his erasure from the art history canon.

I must admit that I thought Dr Fox had gone a bit far with Munnings. I couldn't see what was so great about his crowd-pleasing pictures of racehorses. Walking into the Bond Street gallery, however, it was immediately clear that this artist had something; his subject matter may have been less than challenging but the way he painted was startling. Nothing measured about Munnings. Look up close at a picture and you see a welter of paint applied this way and that, not stroked but slapped and slathered. But the clumsy jumble of colours is transformed as you step away and there, extraordinarily, is the horse or circus troupe or whatever it may be, brought to life without great subtlety but with considerable panache.

This was an exhibition to warm the cockles on a cold December afternoon in a recession, and the accompanying article by Brian Sewell only added to the fun. Odd to think that Munnings (1878-1959) and Newton (1880-1968) were almost exact contemporaries.

Mary Fedden at the Portland Gallery

Other highlights in the vicinity include a celebration of the life and work of Mary Fedden, which has just opened at the Portland Gallery. Understandably, this is dominated by the more decorative paintings from the last twenty years of her life, but there is more than enough variety to make it worth the short jaunt across Piccadilly. A couple of early pictures show that classic brownish Slade palette, but the real scene stealers are a set of gorgeous little watercolours of animals and birds.

FFI: Richard Green, Daniel Katz, Portland Gallery.

Mary Fedden at the RWA

Mary Fedden, Fruit Dish, 1992

These are strange times at the Royal West of England Academy, an institution which has traditionally served the region's artists with a genteel lack of concern for footfall or fashion. With the appointment of a new director, Trystan Hawkins, the old dowager has been given a thorough makeover, with a cafe installed where the New Gallery used to be and a summer exhibition designed to pull in the crowds and - judging by the merchandise on offer - part them from their cash.

There's a giant Damien Hirst sculpture of a 1960s Spastics Society collecting box on the balcony and an exhibition, combining behind-the-scenes photographs and paintings, of professional ballroom dancers. The paintings are by Jack Vettriano, who is 'arguably one of the country's most popular living artists', according to the exhibition flyer. The photos, by Jeanette Jones, capture the tension, excitement  and fear of a tough competitive world; the paintings offer a less emotionally intense, more glamorous vision.

Mary Fedden, Window Still Life, 1994

The president of the RWA, Simon Quadrat, has recently resigned in protest at the populist programming, and you can see his point. The director's response is that people will come to see Hirst and Vettriano and, having paid their £5, will have a look at paintings by Lisa Milroy, sculpture and works on paper by Elisabeth Frink, and a mini-retrospective of Mary Fedden.

There are three gorgeous etchings made by Frink in the 1970s, but I really came to see Fedden, an RA and former president of the RWA who is now in her nineties and still painting. She was born in Bristol during World War One and, after studying at the Slade, returned to paint and teach here. The Second World War and marriage to Julian Trevelyan took her away from the city, and today she lives beside the Thames in London.

Mary Fedden, Red Tulips, 2010

The Portland Gallery in London held a major retrospective of her career a couple of years ago, but the RWA show is different. For one thing, it has the great virtue of being small. While a big show can be a lot of fun I think I prefer a one-room exhibit; rather than rush from picture to picture, trying to take them all in, you can relax, focus on one or two favourite paintings, and compare work easily. It's fascinating to see a still life painted in the early 1950s (and perhaps in need of a clean) beside one made in the 1990s.

There are some intimate details - a watercolour of an elephant painted for a friend - but most of the work is of a familiar kind: still lifes of fruit and flowers and jugs, with perhaps the view from a window beyond, also some landscapes. What one tends to lose when looking at reproductions, apart from the texture of the paint, are the subtle variations in colour that add so much to the feeling of a painting. There really is no substitute for seeing a painting live...

Perhaps the next stage in the 'Your Paintings' scheme should be for participating museums and galleries to put on a whole host of one-room shows - not massive, expensive affairs but small, manageable exhibitions. Look what 'Ravilious in Essex' has done for the Fry Art Gallery and tourism in Saffron Walden (3000 extra visitors in a couple of months). Many other artists have a dedicated hard core of fans who would willingly travel for a small, well-thought-out, show.

Mary Fedden, Lilies, Bird and Zebra, 1999

The pictures shown are from the database of Mary Fedden's work at the Portland Gallery, London, which represents her.

You can see photos of the work hanging at the RWA here (scroll down a bit)...