This blog is a continuation of last week's contribution, and, again written by John Aplin.
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| Charles Ricketts, binding for Gordon Bottomley's Poems of Thirty Years (1925) |
A Further Present
Quite aside from generating the unexpected and much treasured birthday gift, 1924 also brought together the materials for an important retrospective collection of Bottomley’s poetry, a medium which by this time he had largely abandoned in favour of plays. It also saw a culminating moment in his relationship with both Ricketts and Shannon, for Poems of Thirty Years was the last of his books for which Ricketts designed a cover, whilst also including as a frontispiece a drawing by Shannon of the author specially undertaken in August 1924. |
| Charles Shannon, portrait of Gordon Bottomley (drawing), frontispiece in Gordon Bottomley, Poems of Thirty Years (1925) |
It is characteristic of Bottomley's close friendship with the two artists that both refused payment for their work (as Ricketts had similarly made a gift of the covers for each of the three previous volumes he had designed for him). Nonetheless, Shannon had at first been reluctant to undertake the job, simply because he had lost confidence in his portrait skills. But having finally agreed to make an attempt before he and Ricketts set out for a trip to Italy, resulting in Bottomley hurrying down for an overnight stay in London to sit for him, Shannon concluded that the experiment had paid off.
Sep. 11 1924.
My dear Bottomley,
Thanks for your kind letter. I wont hear of your paying anything for the drawing. I enjoyed doing it and it was excellent practice for me. It means that I shall take up portrait drawings again now that I have broken the Ice. The net result it that I have had an excellent model with nothing to pay. […] Excuse this hasty note written late at night & feeling very sleepy. Remember me very kindly to your wife. I hope she will like the drawing. Even if she doesn't I will forgive her.
Yrs always | Charles Shannon
And yet, perhaps his own initial reservations were not entirely misplaced, because a number of Bottomley's friends had some reservations about Shannon's representation, and wondered whether he had quite captured the personality of the man whom they knew. One of Bottomley's more recent acquaintances, Walford Graham Robertson, admired the drawing 'as a Shannon but it isn't my you. […] That is, in a way, rather nice, because perhaps my you is my private property. Shannon's you gives me a general impression of nose. In my you the eyes have it – and the brow, & the way that the nose joins on between the eyes.' (12 January 1925, British Library Add MS 88957/1/77.)
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| William Rothenstein, portrait of Gordon Bottomley, published in William Rothenstein, Twenty-Four Portraits. Second Series (1923) |
It would not be the first time, nor the last, that Bottomley's overwhelming admiration for both Ricketts and Shannon occasionally distorted the objectivity and clear judgment which he usually brought to bear on new work, whether by artists or his fellow writers. But in the case of his two idols he would become hyper-sensitive to criticisms about their work – perhaps more so than he ever was to judgments about his own – a sign, no doubt, of an admiration close to hero-worship.
The last word can be left to Shannon himself, who wrote in thanks for a copy of the published book, in his own way as happy as Bottomley himself that the three friends could be united in a single work.
March 26 1925
My dear Bottomley,
I think I should have behaved better if I had not been so busy trying to finish a picture of Bacchus but now that I have put it on one side as impossible to complete in time I feel quite happy. I like your book of poems very much indeed & enjoyed reading over again old favourites. Ricketts will have written to you fully on the subject and he speaks with authority on these matters as he does on all others relating to the Arts. It makes a splendid book & I am very pleased to be associated with it indirectly. Any poet might be proud of it for a life's work but I also know that you have a lot more besides of the same quality ready to follow on. Ricketts' binding I think one of the best he has done and I believe he thinks so too. […]
Acknowledgements
Extracts from correspondence are used with thanks to Scirard Lancelyn Green, literary executor for Gordon Bottomley, and to Leone Sturge-Moore and Charmian O’Neil, joint literary executors for Charles Shannon.
