A Break from Tradition

Born USA, lived Russia, France England

James Abbott McNeill Whistler arrived in Paris in 1855 determined to establish a reputation as an artist. Inspired by avant-garde French painters, Whistler pioneered an innovative style and philosophy of art that championed the visual and sensual over the practical or moral. This became an art movement known as ‘art for art’s sake’, or ‘aestheticism’.

Whistler divided his career between Paris and London, where he became an important link between the French and British art worlds. By the time he made this rapid sketch of his brother-in-law, Ronald Murray Philip, he had become a controversial but leading proponent of modern art. In this rapidly sketched drawing, Whistler uses a scatter of dots and scratched lines to prioritise the character and psychology of his sitter, rather than create a traditional, realistic portrait.

Born Wales, lived England, France

Formal artistic training only became available to female students in Britain in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Gwen John took full advantage of this overdue opportunity, training at Slade School of Fine Art in London between 1895-1898. At the time, the Slade was the only art school that allowed female students to study the naked body. However, there were restrictions: women could study from the female nude, but the male nude remained partially covered.

In this lightly drawn and sensual pencil study, John has focused on the model’s torso. Her identity remains hidden. Is this a self-portrait? Is this a depiction of one of the female models that John studied at the Slade? Or is it one of the female friends and lovers who modelled for her?

After leaving the Slade, John travelled to Paris, where she enrolled at Whistler’s art school, the Académie Carmen. She chose to make an independent life living and working in Paris, predominately drawing and painting portraits of women.

Born Germany, lived England and France

In early 20^th century Britain, Walter Sickert’s depictions of popular entertainment venues were radical. Music halls – viewed as dens of alcoholism, obscenity and nationalism – were seen as an inappropriate subject for fine art. But for Sickert, they represented the spectacle of modern, urban life, where ‘the middle classes and working classes got drunk like brother and sister.’

Sickert regularly sketched performances at the Middlesex Music Hall on Drury Lane, which was fondly known as ‘Old Mo’, or ‘the commonest theatre in all London.’ Sketched from a high viewpoint, this drawing suggests that Sickert was using a side box close to the left side of the stage.

After the performances, Sickert would return to his studio to use his sketches to make paintings. His distinctive paintings are important records of working-class entertainments, and ensured he became known as one of Britain’s most important modern artists.

Born Germany, lived England and France

Though Walter Sickert studied at the Slade School of Art and then became an assistant to Whistler, he initially trained as an actor. He never lost interest in theatrical subjects and delighted in depicting performers and entertainers in cafés and music halls.

Sickert also held a lifelong fascination with the fashionable French seaside resort of Dieppe, which he visited every summer. He probably made this drawing in the popular café known as Vernet’s, where he would rapidly sketch the cosmopolitan crowds that flocked to listen to music on a summer’s evening.

In this graphite drawing, Sickert captures a female performer mid-song, open-mouthed and arms outstretched. Her words are provided in the red inscription: “Queen Marguerite / with gentle glance / my heart beats / flies towards you”.

Born England, lived England and France

In 1911, Spencer Gore co-founded ‘The Camden Town Group’ of artists with Walter Sickert. The group was named after the shabby and seedy district of north London where many of their innovative, young members lived and worked. Though each member had a different stylistic approach to their art, their shared aim was to respond to the life, colour, movement and sound of modern Britain.

Like Sickert, Spencer Gore was fascinated by popular entertainment venues. This drawing was rapidly sketched from a box in the Alhambra Theatre of Varieties in Leicester Square, which became the largest music hall in London, accommodating 3,500 people. Gore chose to use bright, vivid pastels and chalks because it enabled him to emphasise the quick movement of the dancers, and to go back over his compositions more easily than paint.

Gore would return to the same seat every Monday and Tuesday to finish his sketches. He said: ‘If you are going only one evening at a time, draw as quickly as you can and leave. It is very difficult to get much out of a whole figure in one night.’

Born England, lived England and France

A founding member of ‘The Camden Town Group’, Walter Bayes was fascinated by the ways people inhabited the modern city. He sketched figures within domestic interiors and placed equal importance on their surroundings, highlighting the humble beauty of their often temporary lodgings.

In this sketch, we can see Bayes’ loose approach to drawing with a series of multi-directional lines, scribbles and swirls dominating the page. Slumbering at the centre of the composition is the artist’s wife, Katherine Teller, known as ‘Kitty’. Bayes made this sketch with conté crayons, which were a cost-effective mixture between pastel and crayon. Conté crayons allowed Bayes to layer different colours onto his composition, as we can see in the notes of yellow, blue and green on the back wall, and the red on the toes of Kitty’s shoes.

In his obituary in The Times, it was unfairly stated that ‘Bayes was too intellectual for a painter.’ He joined the University of Reading as Lecturer in Fine Art in 1934-1937, but is best known today as an academic and art critic.