Wednesday, March 13, 2024

658. Charles Ricketts about Frans Hals

In letters, in his diary and in his book The Prado, Charles Ricketts mentioned the name of the Dutch painter Frans Hals several times. Fifty key works by Hals are now on show at the Rijks Museum in Amsterdam. (Read more about the exhibition here.) Time to take stock of Ricketts's views on Hals.

Frans Hals, 'Portrait of a Man' (c.1634)
[Mauritshuis, The Hague]

Between 1901 and 1930, the name occasionally comes up in Ricketts's work.

On a visit to Paris in 1901, tired by the noise of cars, horses, people, horns and bells, both Ricketts and Shannon needed some time to let the paintings in the Louvre speak to them. Six hours a day they wandered around there, looking for their favourite works, but Titian and Leonarda da Vinci were hiding from their eyes, and:

for some days painters whose qualities are utterly exterior charmed, or rather interested us most, i.e. Veronese and Hals, both unusually excellent in the Louvre.
(Diary, 6 June 1901; see also Self-Portrait, 1939, p. 58).

The following three comments are from his 1903 book The Prado. In a review of Velasquez's 'The Spinners', Ricketts says that this work was created in fits and starts over a long period of time, eventually making it look completely different from what the painter initially envisaged:

This is possible, for Velasquez was not in temper or in art a spontaneous painter, and let it be said that those other men of facile execution and vision (like Frans Hals, for instance) are really 'improvisers' contenting themselves with what comes to hand. Their facility is of the wrist, not of the intellect: theirs is more a memory of the fingers than of the brain.
(The Prado, 1903, p. 85)

In a review of Titian's work, he mentions Hals again - only now he spells his first name as if it were German, with a z:

No artist, however objective, is able to eliminate his personality from his portraits - be he Franz Hals, who swaggers, or Goya, who is nervous, irritable, and unbalanced.
(The Prado, 1903, p. 140)

Another comparison with Veronese's work was made by Ricketts in a paragraph about Titian's 'facility of holding the spectator [...] by a more gradual process of appeal underlying the fine outer aspect of the work':

Some painters we have no occasion to look at more than once, for their work repeats one thing only; this is true of most pictures by Veronese and Franz Hals; their works fail to hold more than one impression. This is not due to their summary and emphatic workmanship alone; their minds were of the same pattern.
(The Prado, 1903, p. 144)

Ricketts missed a degree of depth in Hals's work that he did find in the paintings of the artist he admired most (and about whom he wrote a separate book), Titian.

Frans Hals, 'Portrait of a Man' (c.1650-52)
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

In August 1903, Ricketts made an art trip on his own. In Vienna, he visited the Liechtenstein family's private museum (a 'sunny Rococo' palace 'with a garden entrance') where he admired a portrait by Frans Hals from c.1650-52. It hung in a room full of masterpieces:

In one room hung with 21 pictures there are 11 fine Van Dyck portraits, the magnificent full length Hals, and 2 sketches by Rubens.
(Letter to Charles Shannon, 27 August 1903: BL Add MS 58085, f. 30)

In February 1912, Ricketts and Shannon travelled to the Netherlands and saw some Hals paintings:

We liked what we saw of Holland, that is, The Hague and Amsterdam, the country was invisible owing to fog. At Haarlem we saw nothing save the Frans Hals pictures, the town was invisible, merely white mist

[...]

I was enchanted with Ver Meer and one has to go to Holland to see Frans Hals. I hear with consternation that they intend cleaning his Haarlem pictures; that would be a national disaster as many of the pictures in Holland have been overcleaned. It would be more, – it would be a world-disaster!

(Letter to Richard Roland Holst, mid to late February 1912: Typed transcription, BL Add MS 61715, f. 137-8)


In November 1916, he mentioned the importance of the Haarlem collection to D.S. MacCall.


During the Summer of 1921, Léonce Bénédite, the director of the Luxembourg Museum in Paris, came to stay at Chilham Castle. He was 'full of anecdotes about Degas, Rodin, Puvis, their relatives and scandals', Ricketts said and in a letter he concluded:

Have you noticed that realistic artists seem always a little inferior as men, – Hals, Courbet, and Monet?
(Letter to Richard Roland Holst, Summer 1921: Typed transcription, BL Add MS 61719, ff. 100-2)

In 1924, Ricketts discussed Hals's position with painter/critic Jacques-Émile Blanche:

Your estimate of Frans Hals is true only if you compare him to the greatest masters. I demur over the value you set on his last works. Fromentin has analysed this question (in relation to Manet) in a way that I consider final.
(Letter to Jacques-Émile Blanche, Christmas 1924: Bibliothèque de l'Institut de France: MS 7055, f. 7)


About the later work of Frans Hals, Blanche had written:

Hals, except in the paintings of his old age (Haarlem Museum), enveloped in an atmosphere of poetry and mystery, was a simple master of the brush; his drawing was that of a calligrapher, with a lively, witty style and a fairly restrained realism.
Hals, si ce n'est dans les toiles de sa vieillesse (musée de Haarlem) envelopées d'une atmosphère de poésie et de mystère, fut un simple maître de la brosse; son dessin avait été celui d'un calligraphe, de style alerte, spirituel, d'un reealisme assez court.
(Jacques-Émile Blanche, Manet. Paris: F. Rieder & Cie, éditeurs, 1924, p. 40)

Ricketts, apparently, did not agree with the 'poetry and mystery' qualification.

The next time Ricketts mentioned the painter Hals was in a letter to Eric Brown, director of the National Gallery in Ontario, who was then in London to purchase paintings. Ricketts was his  adviser. A Hals was for sale at Agnew's and Ricketts wrote:

I do not care hugely for the Franz Hals it is a powerful pot boiler done late in his earlier manner i.e. it was intended to show he was still valid &, I think, vulgar. 
(Letter to Eric Brown, 17 May 1925: National Gallery of Canada)

The Van Horne mansion in Montreal, c.1890
[Collection of the McCord Stewart Museum]

In 1927, Ricketts travelled to the museum in Ontario and to other places in Canada and the USA. In Montreal, he was shown the private collection of Sir William Van Horne (who had died in 1915). To Shannon he wrote about the Dutch paintings:

He has 4 good Rembrandts, 3 Franz Hals good & unusual.
(Letter to Charles Shannon, 23 October 1927: BL Add MS 58085, f. 89)

Two days later, in a letter to Mary Davis, he wrote that there were four Frans Hals paintings.

Van Horn possessed a 'Portrait of a Dutch Gentleman', a 'Portrait of a Dutch Lady', both dated 1637 (current owner: The Phoebus Foundation, Antwerp), and the 'Portrait of Samuel Ampzing', c.1630 (current owner: the Leiden Collection of T.S. and D.R. Kaplan). He also had a portrait called 'The Jolly Toper' (attributed to Frans Hals). These were all hanging in the Reception Room (cf. Mary Eggermont-Molenaar, The William Van Horne Collection. A Dutch Treat. 2015, p. 402).

During the same trip, in Toronto, Ricketts visited the house of Frank Porter Wood, who owned two Frans Hals paintings:

His two Frans Hals are superb, one latish you dont know – head & shoulders
(Letter to Charles Shannon, 1-2 November 1927: BL Add MS 58085, f. 102)

These paintings were later bequeathed to the 
Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto: 'Portrait of Isaak Abrahamsz. Massa' (1626) and 'Portrait of Vincent Laurensz van der Vinne' (c.1655).

The same month, in New York, Ricketts visited the Metropolitan Museum, where:

The Veronese Mars & Venus hangs between two marvellous F Hals.
(Letter to Charles Shannon, 13 November 1927: BL Add MS 58085, f. 111)

The museum owns eleven Hals paintings. Later, in the Frick Collection, he admired another Frans Hals, 'Portrait of a Man', c.1660:

the Spencer Hals, man with cuffs
(Letter to Charles Shannon, 18 November 1927: BL Add MS 58085, f. 113)

The name of Spencer refers to the former owner, Frederick, 4th Earl Spencer.

Frans Hals, 'Portrait of a Man', c.1660
[The Frick Collection, New York]

In the Museum of Fine Art in Boston, he expressed the qualities of Frans Hals in general (we don't know which painting he saw):

very good Hals – he is always good
(Letter to Charles Shannon, 23 November 1927: BL Add MS 58085, f. 116)

Summarizing his view of the Canadian and American collections, he wrote:

Frans Hals is represented in perfection. – I am now speaking of private collections
(Letter to Richard Roland Holst, 7 December 1927: Typed transcription, BL Add MS 61720, ff. 151-5)

He repeated his remark about the richness of these private collections in a letter to Marie Sturge Moore, comparing the houses he visited with Shannon's and his own Townshend House:

The quality of the private treasure is unimaginable, in houses very inferior in type to Townshend House you will find famous Rembrandts, Titians & Franz Hals, & some of the best Goyas & Grecos are there, the Rembrandts being unimaginable.
(Letter to Marie Sturge Moore, 8 December 1927: BL Add MS 58086, ff. 171-2)

Finally, on a journey to Germany, he mentioned Hals in a letter to Francis Ernest Jackson after visiting the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, were he probably saw the portrait of Willem Croes, 1660-62. This painting (47,1 x 34,4 cm) was acquired in 1906:

An admirable small Franz Hals
(Letter Francis Ernest Jackson, 10 April 1930: Oregon University Library)

Whereas Ricketts was initially hesitant about the art of Frans Hals and detested his later work, over the years, as he became acquainted with the painter's masterpieces, he forgave him those more superficial paintings and even concluded that his work was 'always good'.

(John Aplin provided all transcriptions of letters and diary notes.)

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

657. Vale Press Collectors: Beda and Waldemar Zachrisson

Last week I wrote that no Vale Press books could be found in Scandinavian libraries, but that was not quite true. While there are no complete collections, a single collecting couple has donated eight books published by the firm of Hacon & Ricketts to the University Library of Gothenburg (Göteborg). These eight books bear the bookplate of Waldemar and Beda Zachrisson.

Bookplate of Wald & Beda Zachrisson

Wald or Peter Anders Waldemar Zachrisson (1861-1924) chose the printing trade and during several years was apprenticed to or worked for printers in Vienna, Berlin, Leipzig, Hamburg and St Petersburg. Influenced by the ideas of William Morris, Zachrisson set out to reform Swedish typography, (co)founding the Swedish Typographic Association in 1893, founding a printing museum and a printing school and publishing a typography yearbook, Boktryckeri-Kalender (1892-1921).

Boktryckeri-Kalender 1902-1903

The yearbook showed pictures of the modern equipment available in his own print shop, some of which could apparently be operated by the youngest clerk. In 1908, he employed 200 people, including lithographers and bookbinders.

Advertisement in Boktryckeri-Kalender 1902-1903

His wife, Beda Zachrisson (born Carlberg in 1867), outlived him by more than 20 years, and died in 1944. Not all their books ended up in Gothenburg University Library. For example, Sotheby's once sold an incunabulum, Historia romana (Venice: Erhard Ratdolt, Bernhard Maler and Peter Löslein, 1477), part 2 of which had the couple's bookplate.

The collection in Gothenburg is a carefully chosen selection of books that illustrated the example of the Printing Revival from the time of William Morris. The collection of 99 volumes includes editions from the Kelmscott Press, Doves Press, Ashendene Press, Eragny Press, Vale Press and other presses from 1890 to 1920. [Read more about Waldemar Zachrisson prints collection and about the contents of the collection.]

There are twenty books printed at the Kelmscott Press (including A Note by William Morris on his Aims in Founding the Kelmscott Press) [Gothenburg also owns a copy of the Chaucer edition], five books from the Doves Press (including The Ideal book or Book Beautiful) and eight from the Vale Press. 

Zachrisson owned copies of the following Vale Press books:

Milton's Early Poems (1896), 
Pissaro's and Ricketts's De la typographie et de l'harmonie de la page imprimée; William Morris et son influence sur les arts et métiers (1898), 
Rossetti's The Blessed Damozel (1898), 
William Blake's Poetical Sketches (1899), 
Ricketts's A Defence of the Revival of Printing (1899), 
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (1901), 
Ecclesiastes; or, The preacher, and the Song of Solomon (1902)
and 
Marlowe's Doctor Faustus (1903). 

It is impossible to say what drove Zachrisson to select these eight titles, other than that he wanted to collect some examples of the Vale Press. It seems he tried to buy at least the theoretical texts about printing from most of the private presses (in this case, only the bibliography with Ricketts's important introduction is missing). He was clearly not concerned with English literary texts or Ricketts's illustrations.

In an article in his own yearbook, Zachrisson wrote a paragraph about the Vale Press (see for a digital copy Internet Archive):

Next to the Kelmscott books, I would like to put in time sequence, if not in rank, the works from 'The Vale press', a printing house of half private character, founded in 1887 by the artists Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon. One of the Vale books was featured in the Boktryckerikalendern 1898-99, namely 'The Revival of Printing'. However, as the Vale books are particularly distinguished for their wood-engravings and are otherwise interesting, we reproduce here two of them, one of them is Poetical Sketches by William Blake, printed in Vale type with woodcuts by Charles Ricketts by the Ballantyne Press and the other is Les Ballades de Maistre Francois Villon. The latter book, published in 226 copies, is provided with woodcuts, initials and borders drawn and cut by Lucien and Ester Pissaro and printed in Vale type by the Eragny Press, an affiliate of the Vale press. (Wald. Zachrisson, ‘Tankar om bokutstyrsel, III’, in: Boktryckeri-Kalender 1902-1903. Göteborg: Zachrisson, 1903, p. 105-[129].)

Images of a Vale Press and an Eragny Press book
in Boktryckeri-Kalender 1902-1903

Earlier, in the 1898-99 edition of his yearbook, Zachrisson had published images of the Vale Press edition of A Defence of the Revival of Printing (probably his own copy) and of the pre-Vale edition of Hero and Leander (1894), but it is not clear whether he owned a copy of this book. This edition of the Boktryckeri-Kalender opened with an illustrated article about William Morris and the Kelmscott Press.

[Thanks are due to Marja Smolenaars, who sent me a link to Libris, the Swedish catalogue, and to Stefan Benjaminsson, Humanistiska biblioteket, Göteborgs universitetsbibliotek, for answering a query.]

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

656. Where Are All These Copies Now?

The edition of the Vale Press publications varied between 150 and 320 copies. So at most 150 complete collections may exist, but many public collections contain only a few volumes, although some are more complete or even exhaustive.

Where did copies of an arbitrary Vale Press book end up, for example, Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson - alternative title on the spine and in the colophon: Lyric Poems. The book was published in 1900. This is certainly not one of the most desirable volumes of Ricketts's publications - the volume is not illustrated with wood-engravings and - even in 1900 - there were so many other editions of Tennyson's work for sale. The same goes for its companion volume In Memoriam.

Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson, decoration by Charles Ricketts
(Vale Press, 1900) 

Distribution of the edition has been largely limited to the English-speaking world. Many copies of Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson remained in the country of production, which is little wonder: there are thirteen copies on paper and (at least) one on vellum in British libraries and museums.

However, most copies of this edition are in the United States where, based on online catalogues, as many as twenty-five copies can be counted. In addition, three copies are in Australian libraries and only one copy is kept in Irish libraries, which is also true of Canadian libraries.

Perhaps there are also copies in Asian, African or South American libraries, but I have not been able to ascertain that. Nor does the European continent abound in Vale Press editions. I have only found two copies of this edition in Dutch institutional collections, where there is a copy on paper (Leiden University Library) and a copy on vellum (National Library The Hague).

Prospectus for the Vale Press Tennyson edition (1900)

In all, only 46 copies of the edition of 320 copies have now been located.

There are Vale Press books in German, Belgian and French libraries (not this edition), but I have not yet discovered them in northern European libraries (Scandinavia) or southern European countries (Italy, Spain). 

Apparently, they were collected only in countries where the Private Press movement exerted some influence around 1900.

Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson, initial by Charles Ricketts
(Vale Press, 1900) 

It is impossible to get a complete picture of the copies on private bookshelves. However, we can see where copies are for sale.

Four copies are currently offered online by antiquarian bookshops in Seattle (USA), Adelaide (Australia), Zurich (Switzerland) and Glasgow (Great Britain). 

Wednesday, February 21, 2024

655. The Programme for T.S. Moore's Aphrodite Against Artemis (1906)

Ricketts's yellow was the prevailing colour of the first performance of the Literary Stage Society - a group including Thomas Sturge Moore, Laurence Binyon, William Pye, R.C. Trevelyan, Ricketts & Shannon, Gwendolyn Bishop and Florence Farr. The play was by T.S. Moore, Aphrodite Against Artemis, and Ricketts was the designer.

'The scenery and costumes', according to the programme, 'have been carried out after designs by Mr. C.S. Ricketts as closely as circumstances permitted.' Sounds like a warning.

There were weak parts in the play, there was some 'atrocious acting', and the day after, a highly critical review offended the author.

Images of the rare programme, like the Salome programme in last week's blog, were kindly provided by Steven Halliwell.




Programme for T.S. Moore's Aphrodite Against Artemis (1906)

 

Wednesday, February 14, 2024

654. The Programme for Wilde's Salome (1906)

On 10 June 1906, a first performance of Oscar Wilde's play Salome took place at the King's Hall in London. The omens were not positive: some actresses refused to play the role, Wilde's name was still linked to scandal, funders were shy, costumes went missing, and newspapers returned their tickets for the first performance and refused to publish photos. But the audience - including W.B. Yeats, Thomas Hardy, G.B. Shaw, Max Beerbohm, Eleanore Duse - responded enthusiastically, and Ricketts's stage designs 'surpassed belief'.

Charles Ricketts, stage design for Salome (1906)

Few copies of the printed programme have survived, as is often the case with ephemeral publications of this type. It is therefore with pleasure that we can publish the programme here in full. Collector Steven Halliwell provided the images below. Page 2 is blank - only pages 1 and 3-4 contain text.



Programme for Salome and A Florentine Tragedy, London, 10 June 1906

(With thanks to Steven Halliwell.)

Wednesday, February 7, 2024

653. Charles Shannon's Design of Pan Surrounded by Nymphs

One of Ricketts's and Shannon's most comprehensive projects in the early 1890s was an illustrated edition of the classic story of Daphnis and Chloe. Shannon had found an early English translation which they thought was much better than Amyot's French version and they decided to illustrate the story with wood-engravings and publish it themselves. However, halfway through - almost a year was needed just to cut the thirty-seven engravings - they agreed with Elkin Mathews and John Lane that The Bodley Head would distribute the book. 

Vignette for the colophon of Daphnis and Chloe (1893):
trial proof, signed 'C Ricketts'
[British Museum, 1913,0814.31]
[Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license]

The wood-engravings were designed by Ricketts and Shannon, drawn on the wood by Ricketts, and engraved by both. Trial proofs of many of the illustrations exist, printed in black but also in ochre, red and reddish brown, and a large proportion of the separate prints were signed by Shannon or Ricketts (on these their signatures never appear together).

Although they had both become accustomed to signing their work - Ricketts's illustrations in magazines or Shannon's lithographs, for example - the wood-engravings in the book were not signed. However, there is remarkably a single exception.

Wood-engraving of Pan and nymphs for Daphnis and Chloe (1893)
Trial proof, signed 'Charles Shannon'
[British Museum, 
1913,0814.17]
[Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license]

In the book, on page 45, Shannon illustrated a scene in an orchard or wood, depicting Pan surrounded by nymphs. Each of them holds or has an apple. In the lower left hand corner Shannon engraved his initials 'CHS'.

Wood-engraving of Pan and nymphs for Daphnis and Chloe (1893)
Trial proof, signed 'Charles Shannon': detail
[British Museum, 
1913,0814.17]
[Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license]


But why does this wood-engraving bear Shannon's initials? Why were they not omitted as in the other illustrations? This authorship issue removes the uniformity of their collaboration. 

Why did Shannon want to claim precisely this illustration? We cannot assume that Ricketts disagreed with this representation and that it was therefore left to Shannon. Or is this one of the first blocks to be cut and does their decision to anonymise the illustrations - or rather see them as the work of both artists - date from later?

The initials could somehow have been removed or covered up at a later stage, but this was not done, even though work was done on the block after the trial proof was printed. 

Wood-engraving of Pan and nymphs for Daphnis and Chloe (1893)
Trial proof, signed 'Charles Shannon': detail
[British Museum, 
1913,0814.17]
[Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license]



The reclining nymph on the bottom right is wearing a dress with a fold that extends from her waist to the level of her knee in the trial proof. In the book, this black curve has been removed, creating a white space that is in line with the lightness of the other figures in the lower quarter of the image, in contrast to the darkness of the trees in the upper part.

Charles Shannon, wood-engraving of Pan and nymphs
in
Daphnis and Chloe (1893): detail


Wednesday, January 31, 2024

652. Colour Revolution: Blue

An exhibition on colour is on display at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford until 18 February: Colour Revolution. Victorian Art, Fashion & Design. The catalogue features John Addington Symonds's In the Key of Blue and Other Prose Essays (designed by Charles Ricketts) accompanying an essay by Stefano Evangelista on the possible 'queerness' of the colours green, blue and yellow. 

Charles Ricketts, cover design for In the Key of Blue and Other Prose Essays (1893):
version in cream cloth

The front cover of a copy in blue cloth illustrates this article that states: 'The first edition included a number of copies bound in blue cloth, now extremely rare, [...]' (page 200). A search in ViaLibri immediately produces a number of results: which copies are currently for sale and what does that say about their supposed rarity?

1. A copy in full vellum, one of fifty large paper copies (price c. €4500); 

2. Four copies in cream cloth (prices range from €115 to €285) 

3. Two rebound copies (priced €90 and €100)

Additionally, there are some copies of which the colour of the cover goes unmentioned, and there are several reprints for sale.

Charles Ricketts,
cover design for In the Key of Blue and Other Prose Essays (1893):
version in blue cloth

For now, no copies in blue cloth are for sale. However, if we consider just what has been on offer over the last quarter of a century - at a time when ordinary copies figure considerably less in catalogues than special ones - we see that the range is rather uniform in numbers. I counted (roughly) seven copies in cream cloth, seven in blue cloth and nine large paper copies in vellum.

Since Symonds's bibliography identifies the blue covers as rare, it is not surprising that antiquarian bookdealers like to sell copies in blue cloth rather than those of the cream version. According to bibliographer P.L. Babington, one of the publishers, Elkin Mathews remembered that Ricketts preferred the cream version to the blue one because the colour blue could lead to jokes about Ricketts's Blue (there was a laundry powder called Reckitt's Blue). But in a 1930 letter, Ricketts contradicted this and stated that it was the booksellers who found the cream version too liable to soiling and therefore preferred to sell the blue ones. He was convinced that the cream version was rare. Interestingly, the second printing was issued in blue cloth and, as yet, no copies in cream of this edition have turned up, while the third edition was issued exclusively in cream cloth.

Colour Revolution, Ashmolean Museum, 2024
(case with In the Key of Blue and Other Prose Essays)

The label in the exhibition is confusing. It states that only 150 copies of the edition were bound in blue cloth. As a source for this statement is lacking, I assume this may have been a wild guess by an antiquarian bookseller trying to convince a customer to buy a copy.

Wednesday, January 24, 2024

651. 100 Years Ago: Three Letters by Ricketts from January 1924 (part 2)

[Written by John Aplin]

100 Years Ago: Three Letters by Ricketts from January 1924 (part 2)

Gordon Bottomley was not alone in having to miss the single London performance of his short play Gruach given at the St Martin’s Theatre on 20 January 1924, for a short period of hospitalisation also prevented Thomas Sturge Moore’s attendance. A day after sending Bottomley his reactions to the staging and acting of Gruach, Ricketts wrote again giving the latest news about Moore’s condition, knowing that Bottomley would be anxious to know.

 

To Gordon Bottomley, 22 January 1924

BL Add MS 88957/1/76, f 84

The T S Moore operation has turned out excellently. I think he was intimidated by too many visits from friends & perhaps Marie intimidated the Doctors who seem to have been perplexed by the case.(1) The Operator has given Marie a frank and reassuring report that all is now well. (Privately) I rather fancy the operation was unnecessary or else, I should say matters were less grave than they thought. T recovered rapidly and looked singularly serene & dignified in his grey hair & beard, He had obviously been preoccupied & frightened, but is well on in convalescence. I have advised Marie to let him “go slow” for a year.

 

I intended to write this earlier but the stress of everyday occurrences made me put it off.

Yours Ever

CR

 

PS

I have painted a new Don Juan.(2) 


Notes:

(1) Marie Appia was Sturge Moore’s French cousin and wife.
(2) Perhaps 'Don Juan Challenging the Commander' (c.1924-1928), the work accepted by the Royal Academy of Arts as his Diploma piece upon being admitted as a full RA, or 'Don Juan Witnesses his own Funeral'. The subject of Don Juan/Don Giovanni was one of Ricketts’s favourites, and he turned to it on several other occasions as well.

Charles Ricketts, 'Don Juan Challenging the Commander'
Oil on canvas, 116,8 by 88,9 cm (1924-1928)
[Collection: Royal Academy of Arts]

It was then Moore’s turn to receive a letter, together with the offer of reading matter to distract him during his convalescence. Ricketts included a further description of the Gruach performance for Moore’s benefit [omitted here]. 

 

To Thomas Sturge Moore, about 25 January 1924

BL Add MS 58086, f 114


My Dear Moore

We are without another book on German Gothic sculpture. My pet statue is that of a King standing & handless at Rheims, all our books on Gothic art are at Chilham(1) and several books on old masters, we kept Greece & the Orient here […] our books mount up to about 4,000 do what we can to keep them down.(2) I will send you one or more books on beasts by Collette Willie which I think quite exquisite, her other admirable books (better still) are about worthless or improper persons of a very modern type and probably would not interest you.(3)



J.-E. BLanche, Manet (Paris: F. Rieder & Cie., éditeurs, 1924)
One of the books from Ricketts's art library,
with a handwritten dedication from the author to Ricketts
[Private Collection]


I wrote a long letter to Bottomley which he might lend you concerning his play which I thought went very well indeed, despite several shortcomings in the performance, at least, till the exit of Macbeth & Gruach. [….] 

 

I am sorry you have this tiresome complication which, I know needs care.(4) [George] Clausen was troubled by it in Italy when seemingly in perfect health. Tell Marie she must consider this letter in part for her. I hope she is not overworking herself.

 

Tonight I am attending, by request, a seance to meet the Spirit of Oscar Wilde. I had some questions put to him of which the answers were not entirely satisfactory. The published seances have been quite extraordinary quite unlike the usual insipid spiritualistic stuff. Yeats says it is an obvious case of the medium having created a second personality, founded on Wilde, within her subconscious self.(5) Some of the vagueness of the answers to my questions & actual mistakes might be ascribed to the lapse of time, change in character and outlook & even intrusion of the medium’s personality, anyway it will be interesting.

 

Yours Ever

C Ricketts

 

Notes:

(1) Chilham Castle in Kent, owned by Edmund and Mary Davis, where Ricketts and Shannon had the loan of the Keep as a country retreat.

(2) Only a small part of the vast art library assembled by Ricketts and Shannon would be described in several auction catalogues between 1933 and 1939.

(3) He probably sent Colette Willy, Sept dialogues de bêtes. Paris: Mercure de France, 1905, reissued 1923.

(4) Sturge Moore here annotated the letter with his medical condition: ‘phlebitis’.

(5) A series of messages beginning in June 1923 and purporting to come from Wilde were notated during spiritualist sessions by two mediums (Mr V. and Mrs Travers Smith). Notes from the session on 18 June 1923 record that ‘Mr. V. was the automatist, Mrs. T.S. touching his hand’ (Hester Travers Smith, Psychic Messages from Oscar Wilde. London: T. Werner Laurie, 1924, p. 9).


Hester Travers Smith (ed.), Psychic Messages from Oscar Wilde
( London and Edinburgh: Dunedin Press, 1930


It is a happy chance that this short series of letters from exactly 100 years ago should remind us of the significant roles played by both Gordon Bottomley and Thomas Sturge Moore during Ricketts’s later years, for of all his wide circle of friends they were his most fervently loyal admirers from his early years until the end, and indeed beyond. Following his sudden death on 7 October 1931 they were determined to ensure that the originality of his artistic legacy should be celebrated and remembered. Their belief in this originality may seem paradoxical, in that Ricketts’s respect for traditional practice meant that his own work had seemed by many derivative and backward-looking, and Bottomley and Moore knew that changing fashions would find it too easy to marginalise him. And indeed, in many ways that happened. 

 

The years since 1931 have been a continuing process of rediscovery and reemergence, in large part made possible by two things – the significant labour of preparatory work which made the publication of Self-Portrait possible in 1939, and Moore’s dutiful preservation of the large archive of materials in his care which he ensured passed in due course to the British Library (formerly the British Museum), establishing the collection of Ricketts and Shannon papers. His own personal literary archive of correspondence and other manuscripts is now at Senate House Library, University of London, and provides further essential research material. Bottomley’s equally extensive archive of correspondence, manuscripts and printed matter of all kinds has more recently been deposited at the British Library, containing much unique material directly relating to his own life-long interest in the creative output of Ricketts and Shannon.

 

The complex genesis of Self-Portrait is a story worth telling, and could generate several blog contributions. Moore’s declining health in his later years meant that he had to rely increasingly on the help of others as he became almost overwhelmed by the huge accumulation of materials which he gathered together. At quite a late stage he entrusted the task to Cecil Lewis, despite knowing that he had little knowledge of Ricketts’s artistic output; and in turn, during the very last stages of production, with the onset of war and his own return to a combat role, Lewis found himself relying on Bottomley’s help, causing some unfortunate tensions between Moore and Bottomley. 

 

It is perhaps inevitable that despite its obvious value, with the inclusion of somewhat randomly-chosen extracts from correspondence and journals, Self-Portrait is a flawed work, a serendipity of different kinds of materials without a sufficiently clear narrative or editorial method. The process of research and rediscovery which it set in motion has nonetheless led to a growing number of valuable monographs and PhD studies, first among them the seminal biographical and critical work of Paul Delaney which in 1990 culminated in his Charles Ricketts. A Biography. And now this invaluable weekly blog continues to draw in the growing number of admirers of the work of its two subjects, keeping alive the hopes of those earlier believers in the fragile beauties and vulnerabilities of a legacy whose richness and variety can still surprise and delight us.

                                                                                                                    John Aplin

Wednesday, January 17, 2024

650. 100 Years Ago: Three Letters by Ricketts from January 1924 (part 1)

[This week's anniversary blog (number 650) is written by John Aplin, editor of the correspondence of Gordon Bottomley and Thomas Sturge Moore (online at Intelex, 2020), the letters of Philip Webb (Routledge, 2016), the correspondence of the Thackeray family (Routledge, 2011), and author of A Thackeray Family Biography (Lutterworth, 2010-2011). Together, we are preparing an edition of the collected letters of Charles Ricketts.]

100 Years Ago: Three Letters by Ricketts from January 1924 (part 1)

As an occasional contributor to this blog, I know that I will not be alone in noting the milestone marked by its arrival at number 650 in a remarkable unbroken weekly sequence of articles – informative, authoritative, and always with something new to say. It is testimony to the energies of its founder that it is now established as the unrivalled online vehicle for the recording and sharing of information relating not just to Ricketts and Shannon, but to the creative world in which they operated. To mark the occasion, it seems appropriate to give it something of an anniversary flavour, and therefore I offer three of Ricketts’s letters (to be concluded in blog 651) written 100 years ago this month, in January 1924. They were addressed to two of his closest friends and admirers, Gordon Bottomley and Thomas Sturge Moore, and reveal, I think, something typical of Charles Ricketts – that in the midst of a crowded life he always made the time to be generous to his friends, showing a genuine interest in their own work by giving of his time and artistic advice, or in a time of difficulty by extending sympathy and support.


Gordon Bottomley, 'Gruach'
[Free audio book version by LibriVox on YouTube]

Gordon Bottomley’s one-act poetic drama Gruach was dedicated to Ricketts and Shannon, and Ricketts had designed the cover when it was published in 1921 with Bottomley’s Britain’s Daughter (for which Ricketts refused any payment, as he did for the three other volumes for Bottomley’s works for which he prepared cover designs). It was first performed by the Scottish National Theatre Society in Glasgow in March 1923, but Gruach was now to be given a single London performance on 20 January 1924 at the St Martin’s Theatre, staged by the Reandean company under Basil Dean, with Sybil Thorndike in the title role. 


Like its predecessor King Lear’s Wife, the work by which Bottomley is best remembered, Gruach is a prequel to a Shakespeare play (in this case Macbeth), and portrays the first meeting and immediate attraction between the future Lady Macbeth and her husband. At the last moment, Bottomley was unable to attend the performance, a recurrence of his debilitating lung condition and a threat of a railway strike making it impossible for him to travel to London from Silverdale on Morecambe Bay. Knowing how much Bottomley would have wanted to be there, Ricketts, who attended the performance with Shannon, immediately sent Bottomley his detailed reaction to the production, calling on his wide practical knowledge of theatre, both as a designer and a frequent audience member, to make suggestions about possible rewrites where things did not quite work effectively. It is an honest and constructive critique, and Bottomley valued it as such.


George William Harris (1878-1929), 'A King'
(Costume Design for 'Gruach', 1924)
[Collection: Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool]

To Gordon Bottomley, 21 January 1924

[BL Add MS 88957/1/76, f 83]


My Dear Bottomley

Both Shannon & I missed you yesterday, though it was prudent not to risk the weather & the Strike. Your play went excellently well; it was, I think, hurt by the end, played with uncertainty by the minor players who impersonated the servants, all of these were poor, but the reception nevertheless was excellent & had the curtain fallen 10 minutes sooner it would have been very warm indeed Fern was good, the Mother quite good, notably in her later scenes, the bridegroom poor & vulgar.(1) Sybil Thorndyke was generally quite admirable, rising superbly to the occasion, with occasional lapses in intonation & in minor business, due to nervousness & hesitation in Macbeth, who was not entirely at his ease in the part.(2) Gruach’s entrance in ugly bridal clothes was superb, her entranced, passionate & magnetic acting in the first scene beyond praise, her sleep walking scene admirable (this is too long and she showed hesitation) her awakening & struggle was quite admirable. Then Macbeth seemed not quite word perfect, he bungled the business of the cloaks & Sybil grew nervous & over busy – for the stage – there are one or two lines too many, or perhaps too much to do, before the exit. The steward was slow, the old woman servant quite good, the drunkard out of the picture. I do not care for the fay girl episode; it is too long (3) & the two girl servants were poor. Macbeth had a good voice & spoke the longer speeches well, he was modern or vulgar in chance exclamations & I think nervous. Sybil was also nervous & many of her slight faults would probably vanish at a second performance, anyway it was very notable indeed. The grim comedy of the servants requires actors of non English blood, the Irish players could have done it in perfection – at least the men could. Russians & Germans would have caught the atmosphere at once. To London players the task was impossible, they were blameless bewig[g]ed cockneys trying to look barbaric. All spoke with distinctness & both Shannon & I were greatly impressed by the beauty & force of the language & the compact planning of the play.

 

George William Harris (1878-1929), 'Saxon Warrior'
(Costume Design for 'Gruach, 1924)
[Collection: Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool]

The Abercrombie farce is quite good fun, a little long here & there & was acted with go & comprehension. Miss Clare as the Slave R[h]odope was delicious, the Queen was too “musical comedy” & the King poor but for a quite admirable delivery of the speech about blue wine.(4)

 

[George Bernard] Shaw has returned to the charge over St Joan. I have undertaken it conditionally & on the understanding that it should be anonymous. I have given my reason, that if he can only write plays which take 6 days to act & with gigantic casts, I can only stage vast & expensive ventures like Parsifal & Aida on gigantic stages, regardless of expense. I dont know yet what the upshot will be.(5)

 

The setting of “Gruach” was quite passable, the dresses neither simple enough or not elaborate enough. I know that for these performances one cannot expect the impossible but less was required, in this as in diction & stage delivery the English lack essential sincerity or simplicity.(6) 

 

I shall praise Sybil up to the sky when I see her.

Best love to both.

Ever Yours

C Ricketts

 

PS

Shannon was greatly impressed & less cynical than I.

 

This is not quite like it looks rather better. 

[Ricketts added a sketch of the ‘Gruach’ set


Notes 

(1) These roles were played by Hilda Bruce Potter (Fern), Esmé Beringer (Morag) and Felix Aylmer (Conan, Thane of Fortingall).

(2) Played by Malcolm Keen.

(3) The kitchen maid, sometimes called by Bottomley the ‘second sight’ girl (played by Hermione Baddeley), is a young servant who has visions, and foresees the murder of Shakespeare’s Duncan.

(4) Lascelles Abercrombie’s Phoenix completed the double-bill. The slave-girl Rhodope, played by Mary Clare, ‘looks a charming slave, and certainly she is an amusing one’ (The Times, 21 January 1924). Barbara Gott played the Queen, and Leslie Banks the King.

(5) ‘When we saw him Ricketts said he was quite decided not to do St Joan for Shaw & in your letter he speaks doubtfully still. I hope he refuses for he cannot suit Shaw’s invention over such a subject & there is bound to be something awkward’ (Thomas Sturge Moore to Bottomley, 9 February 1924, BL Add MS 88957/1/68, f 126)‘I feel with you that Ricketts’ invention is of too ardent and rich an order to be mated with St. Joan seen through Shaw’s polariscope’ (Bottomley to Sturge Moore, 25 February 1924, Senate House MS 978 17/162). Despite Ricketts’s own justifiable reservations and the doubts of his friends, his decision to undertake the designs for Bernard Shaw’s St Joan resulted in ‘his most celebrated theatrical production’ (J.G.P. Delaney, Charles Ricketts. A Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990, p. 312).

(6) The costumes were designed by George William Harris (1878-1929).


                                                                                                                        John Aplin


[To be continued next week.]