Page 26 - Studio International - December 1967

Maris also sometimes reached the five
Reminiscences thousand pounds limit. Corot and Millet probably music-hall sketches.' After think-
ing about this we put on the London walls
among the men of Barbizon sometimes an effective poster advertising Epstein's
of a dealer more than double. . . . Venus alone. The result was still larger
In London and the South of England the crowds swarming in, mostly abusive. The
taste of the rich man was more often for popular journalist proved right in the end. A
eighteenth-century portraits, particularly of music-hall comedian entertained his audi-
pretty women and children by Romney and ence with a comic song which included a
Hoppner as well as Gainsborough and verse on the theme of Epstein's Venus. In
Reynolds. These are sometimes sold for spite of, or because of, its fame and the
more than double the price of the best controversy which raged round it at the
Corots. time, it did not find a purchaser in this
In my early years there was little interest in country. It was eventually bought by the
modern foreign art and no knowledge of Irish-American collector, John Quinn....
what was happening on the Continent. I In 1920 Jacob Epstein felt ready for a
used to talk to the young artists and students second exhibition. The great centre-piece
among whom I had many friends and asked was a bronze over seven feet high-the
'In those years . . . the Leicester was the them sometimes what French art they Risen Christ. As seen by Epstein, Christ was
chief exhibition gallery in London,' said Sir liked. They mostly seemed to think that a gaunt, emaciated figure closely wrapped
Kenneth Clark at the memorial service for Puvis de Chavannes was the greatest of the in cerements and pointing to the 'stigmata'
Oliver Brown, who died in December 1966. French School. There were some who on his right hand. The sculpture dominated
During the first fifty years of this century the admired Bastien-Lepage, Eugene Carrière, the room. It held many people spell-bound
Leicester Galleries, largely under the aegis of Jean Charles Cazin and even Maurice but seemed to shock others. There were
Oliver Brown, played an extraordinarily rich Denis. They were also immensely impressed still many pious people whose ideal image
role in art life, putting on the first single with Rodin who had succeeded Whistler as of Christ was pictured in Holman Hunt's
exhibitions in Britain of Cezanne, Renoir, President of the International Society. famous work The Light of the World. The
Van Gogh, Pissarro, Picasso and Klee, and extreme comments in the popular press
supporting an impressive list of British Abuse for Epstein brought large crowds. On many days over a
artists- Gaudier-Brzeska, Epstein, Sickert, By far the most notable art event of the thousand persons passed through the turn-
Wyndham Lewis, Henry Moore. period 1914-18 was the first important stile and once or twice over fifteen hundred.
Shortly before his death Oliver Brown com- exhibition of sculpture by Jacob Epstein. We had many abusive letters, mostly illiter-
pleted the MS of his memoirs, and the We had been planning this exhibition for ate; there were postcards and envelopes
following reminiscences are from 'Exhibition: some time and we were able to open it in addressed to 'Christ', Leicester Square. The
the Memoirs of Oliver Brown', to be published February 1917. It consisted of twenty-two popular prelate, Father Bernard Vaughan,
in January by Evelyn, Adams & Mackay. bronzes and four carvings. The centre- fulminated in diatribes written and spoken
They are reproduced by kind permission of piece was a tall, marble carving, Venus. The against the artist and his work. I can
the publishers and the Trustees of the exhibition created something of a sensation remember one old lady saying to me, 'I can
Estate of Oliver Brown. in London. Jacob Epstein was not unknown never forgive Mr Epstein for his representa-
A further selection will be published in our to the London public-indeed he was never tion of our Lord: it's so un-English!'
January 1968 issue.
a man to escape attention-but he had
Inside looking out
received little praise and much abuse. He
Turn-of-century taste
had exhibited his great Rock-drill in the [During the last war the gallery's window
No foreign pictures seemed to have been early London Group. He received from the on Leicester Square was blown out in an air
acquired by the Tate until 1916. architect, Charles Holden, a commission to raid and replaced by drop scenes painted
That the establishment at Millbank for make the carvings on the facade of the by various artists, of whom John Piper was
the first ten or fifteen years tended to per- building of the British Medical Association one.;
petuate the taste of the Nineties is un- which were attacked by the Press and I missed the old window front during the
doubted. . . . certain London County Councillors. remaining years of the war! I used often to
There was in the late nineteenth century The 1917 exhibition produced a copious peep through the heavy curtains and catch
and early twentieth century a well-defined press. There were many serious and the bewildered faces of the passers-by
market for certain foreign painters in this appreciative articles and, of course, much when we had placed some example of
country. The taste was for the painters of of the vulgar abuse and trivial scoffing modern art in full view of the street. It
Barbizon: Corot, Millet, Daubigny, Theo- which pursued Epstein throughout his life. brought to mind a time in the early twenties
dore Rousseau, Troyon and Diaz, and they The Timescalled hi m 'A Masterof Portraiture', when we had placed a cubist work by
were' favoured by the businessmen from the Daily Telegraph critic wrote a serious Picasso in the window. An artist friend of
the North and Glasgow in particular. The and admiring article.... But few had a word mine passing by one night listened to a
wealthy industrialists who favoured these of praise for the great carving of Venus or cockney youth and his girl friend who had
painters of Barbizon also had a liking for the the other abstract or semi-abstract works. paused outside on their way from some
modern Dutch school: Josef Israels, the However there were few of these. Epstein place of amusement in the neighbourhood.
three brothers Maris, and Anton Mauve had for a time been associated with the After a long silence the girl asked, 'Would
(the uncle of Vincent Van Gogh), but these Vorticists but he had broken away from this that be valuable, Fred ?"Oh, I expect so,
works of the modern Dutch seem now to group.... they wouldn't put it there if it wasn't.'
have gone out of fashion. All these painters One day I was talking to a popular journa- Another open-mouthed silence. 'Why is it
were expensive by the standards of the list who said: 'You are making a great valuable, Fred ?"Bloody old, I expect!' he
time. Josef (sraels at the end of his life had mistake in not making a publicity feature of replied.
seen his pictures sold for sums between that carving. It could be the sensation of Sickert told me of another occasion, when
four and five thousand pounds and Jacob London-a subject for great headlines and he had stopped before a large picture of his
250