Katie (1907–2008) and Fred (1909–2001) lived with John Knewstub and his wife, Helen, after their mother died in 1915,
their father having died the previous year. Two of John Knewstub's daughters were
named Helen (later Lady Helen Brook, founder of the Brook Advisory Centres, whose
husband, Sir Robin Brook, Roberts painted much later) and Deirdre, and it seems probable
that these also sat for Roberts. And correspondence between Roberts's son, John,
and York City Art Gallery suggests that the Portrait of a Young Woman in York shows a farmer's daughter called Elsie, who helped look after the young Deirdre
Knewstub at John Knewstub's house at Pett Level in Sussex.
Another mysterious picture was Portrait of Daphne (painted 1942–3), until Pauline Paucker, our chairman, identified the sitter as Daphne Dennison,
whom Pauline had met a few times through Roberts's wife, Sarah. Of Jamaican origin,
Daphne was a student at the Slade School of Art during its Second World War evacuation
to Oxford, and was a friend of John Roberts during the family's time in Oxford. She
was the model for Venus in The Birth of Venus 1954. An exhibition of her paintings was held at the Commonwealth Art Gallery, London,
in 1973.
Our thanks to Christopher Pearson of the Orpen Research Project, David Knewstub in
Australia and Nikki Knewstub in London, and Laura Turner in York for help and information.
Kit is in Wolverhampton Art Gallery and it seems that Elsie is probably in York, but we would be grateful for any information on the current
whereabouts of the other pictures mentioned. Contact us at
A 'new' portrait by WR
We were delighted to be contacted in early 2009 by Dr Kumari Jayawardena, who owns
portraits by WR of both her father, Dr A. P. de Zoysa, and of herself, painted when
she was fifteen years old. The latter picture was previously unknown to us.
Dr Paul de Zoysa, c.1931
A. P. de Zoysa (1890–1968) was born in Randombe, near Ambalangoda, in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). In 1921 he
went to Britain to further his education, and at the Buddhist mission in London he
met Eleanor Hutton, whom he married in 1929; the witnesses at Hampstead Register
Office were William and Sarah Roberts. Eleanor's sister Doris – associate editor of Drama, a small magazine devoted to the theatre – was the fiancée of WR's brother Michael, through whom de Zoysa had met Roberts, whose
A Talk about Buddha presumably records a social occasion with him. Eleanor de Zoysa later claimed that
Roberts liked painting people with darker skin, and – as in the portraits of both her husband and her daughter – tended to depict them as darker than they really were. Roberts paid her husband 2s. 6d. to sit for a portrait. Having obtained an external London degree, been called to
the Bar at Gray's Inn, and obtained a PhD in anthropology at London University (his
supervisor being Bronislaw Malinowski), in 1934 de Zoysa returned to Ceylon, where
he practised law and was politically active. He also acquired a small printing press, and
published his own English–Sinhala Dictionary and a major translation into Sinhala of the Tripitaka canon of
Buddhist scriptures. In March 2009 a stamp commemorating his life as a social reformer
and Buddhist scholar was issued in Sri Lanka. For more information click here.
Kumari de Zoysa, 1946
In 1946 Kumari de Zoysa and her mother, Eleanor, were in the UK to see Eleanor's mother
and sisters after the war; they stayed with Eleanor's sister Eva in Golders Green,
and went to visit the Robertses in Oxford, where in the course of five sittings totalling 17 hours on 7–26 July WR painted Kumari's portrait. She comments, ' I must have had it dinned into
me that Bobby was a great artist and it was an honour to be painted by him. Otherwise
I can't imagine sitting still so long! Also I hadn't reached the age of rebellion,
so I obeyed orders.' She was in the midst of school exams and 'I would have been studying
while sitting,' she says, 'but I remember being bored. According to my diary, Sarah
used to compensate by taking me on trips and boating in Oxford. The last time I
sat I travelled alone to Oxford.' During the sittings, 'WR didn't say a word if I remember
right. Except "Raise your hand." He was trying various poses with my arm and hand.
I was not prevented from talking, but knew better than to chatter. The Robertses
were friends from my childhood, and I knew Bobby was not into small talk. He made drawings
first and my mother wanted to have one, but I don't think he agreed.'
She noted in her diary that 'a Ceylonese artist named J. D. A. Perea visiting London
came to see us in London to see the Roberts portrait.' She now recalls, 'We seem
to have seen Sarah in London very frequently that year. I think Roberts only spoke
to my father, and not very much except in monosyllables to my mother. This is only a vague
memory. John was more talkative.'
She later graduated in political science from the London School of Economics, and
then qualified as a barrister from Lincoln's Inn. After further studies in Paris
and London, she taught at the University of Colombo in Sri Lanka and at the Institute
of Social Studies in the Hague, and was an affiliated fellow of the Bunting Institute at
Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Mass. Under her married name of Kumari Jayawardena, she is the author of several books, including the widely used text Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World (1986).
WR works to go to the Tate
The society is delighted to be able to announce that the Department for Culture, Media
and Sport has informed us that the 'pre-eminent' works by William Roberts owned by
WR's son John when he died intestate are to be allocated to the Tate to settle the
inheritance-tax liability on the estate of WR's wife, Sarah (who left all her estate
to John), and that the remainder of the works, at present administered by the Treasury
Solicitor, will remain the property of the Crown (as John Roberts left no heirs)
but will be kept together with the rest.
The DCMS website announced it thus:
William Roberts Archive: Roberts (1895–1980) was a major figure in modern British Art, and a key member of the Vorticist
group. As an official war artist he recorded the front-line battles of the First
World War, and he portrayed the working lives and leisure pursuits of ordinary, modern
British families over nearly half a century. His archive comprises 117 works on paper, including
pen and ink, chalk, charcoal, pencil and watercolour. Acceptance of the archive settled
£223,221 of tax. It has been allocated to Tate, where it will complement the gallery's
existing holding of Roberts' work, and will provide an important resource for the
study of British 20th century art. This is the first time these works are available
for public view.
A letter from the DCMs to the society confirmed that
All the other artistic material in the estate has been placed by Treasury Solicitor
on long term loan to Tate so that the material remains united. The intention is
that, should no heirs come forward in the 25 year period following the death of John
Roberts, the material on loan would eventually be given to Tate.
This result has been a long time coming – Margaret Hodge, the minister, described the features of the case as 'probably unique
and extremely complex' – but in that it leaves the Robertses' collection intact it is exactly what the society
has been arguing for since its inception. It is to be hoped that the Treasury Solicitor
and the Tate will be able to reach an early agreement on how this important body
of work will be made available to the general public and particularly to students.
The Tate's selection is now listed on its website.
Richard Cork on William Roberts
David Cleall writes :
Following the brief formalities of the society's AGM, on 27 October Richard Cork delivered
the 2007 William Roberts annual lecture, entitled 'William Roberts: Slade, Vortex
and Trauma in the Great War'. By way of introduction, Cork recounted his unsuccessful attempts to interview William Roberts in the early 1970s, when researching his
book Vorticism and Abstract Art in the First Machine Age and the accompanying Hayward Gallery exhibition. It had been frustrating to be unable
to interview the sole survivor of the Vorticist group, and he drew a connection between
the powerfully determined stare of the young Roberts in the Self-portrait of 1910 and Roberts's stubbornness in later life.
Richard Cork was sure that during William Roberts's time at the Slade, and in the
period immediately following it, he had been influenced by the Post-Impressionism
and Futurist exhibitions in London in 1910 and 1912. Using a slide of a beautifully
coloured watercolour of this period, Ring of Roses, Cork demonstrated the influence of Matisse in its subject matter, composition and
fluidity of style. And he spoke with enthusiasm and passion about the bold experimental
and abstract work that was to follow. It was a 'tragic loss' that a number of the
large canvases that Roberts exhibited at this time have not survived. In some cases we
have no record of the pictures at all and in other cases we only have records of
preparatory sketches. The watercolour Two-step
, with its bold abstract approach to its Jazz Age subject, gives us some idea of his
concerns, as do The Return of Ulysses and the extraordinary depiction of a party at Stewart Gray's artists' commune in
Ormonde Terrace known as The Toe Dancer. Cork encouraged the audience to request a viewing of the latter work in the Victoria
& Albert Museum, as it is very impressive in both scale and concept.
Moving from the Blast war issue in 1916, and the Great War itself, to the commissions that followed the
war, Cork described the work that was largely produced in 1918–19 as being subversive rather than straightforwardly propagandist. He explained that
a lot of the war artists' commissions were conceived on a huge scale and were planned
to make a spectacular permanent exhibition in a specially designed remembrance hall,
with John Singer Sargent's Gassed as the centrepiece. Richard Cork regretted that the project was not realised and
that there were few opportunities now to see these important artworks. The Imperial
War Museum has very limited space for its art exhibitions, and the impact of Gassed is limited by the confined space in the gallery that currently houses the picture.
William Roberts' First German Gas Attack at Ypres is an extremely powerful example of an important and ambitious war commission that
has been exhibited in this country only once since it was painted in 1919. A smaller
and sombre black crayon drawing, Burying the Dead After a Battle (1919) was singled out by Cork as 'one of the most powerful depictions of grief throughout
all war art'.
Burying the Dead After a Battle, 1919
© The Estate of John David Roberts
In considering the post-war period, Richard Cork felt that the trauma experienced
by Roberts could be seen in his non-war subjects. Using the examples of The Dancers (1919) and The Cinema (1920) he felt that the dancers could almost be fighting, and in both works the facial
expressions of the people have a schematic and grotesque appearance that conveys
trauma.
Throughout the lecture Richard Cork's passion for his subject was evident, and the
confident and easy-going way in which he facilitated discussion on William Roberts
in the question-and-answer session was appreciated by all.
The afternoon was rounded off by the witty and brilliant film Blast!, which was directed by Murray Grigor with the close involvement of Richard Cork in
1975.
Marion Hutton adds:
Yes, it was a most successful occasion with a good audience. We appreciated the support
of friends from the Wyndham Lewis Society and from Pallant House Gallery. I was amused
when my sister reported a conversation which she overheard at the end of the afternoon. A non-member praised the occasion. Her male friend, a member, concurred:
'Yes, these old girls do an excellent job.' Our apologies to David, Michael, Arno
and Bob!
Pollies and primates at Birmingham
Reviewing the exhibition 'The Parrot in Art' (at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts,
University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, from 26 January to 29 April 2007) for The Independent on 8 February 2007, Rhoda Koenig relished the 'arch confrontation of polly and primate' in WR's The Cockatoos – 'Peering down at a gawking barrel-shaped mother and the two ape-like children hanging
on her, the three fastidious macaws chained to their perches are clearly indignant
that the wrong species has ended up in charge.'
The Cockatoos, 1958
© The Estate of John David Roberts
'William Roberts: England at Play' – Pallant House Gallery, Chichester
This important exhibition, from 20 January to 18 March 2007, focused on William Roberts's
depiction of the leisure activities of the English working class. It explored the
way in which Roberts used the language of modern art to reinvigorate a tradition
of recording everyday life and to portray the eccentricities, peculiarities and pastimes
of those around him with a dignified humour and a constant affection. The exhibition,
conceived by Andrew Gibbon Williams and curated by Simon Martin, featured major paintings from to 1920s to the 1970s, which not only charted Roberts's artistic development
from his Vorticist origins to the monumental figures of his mature work, but also
revealed the way in which life in England changed dramatically during the twentieth
century.Work featured includes The Cinema (1920, Tate Britain), Playground (The Gutter) (1934/5, Tate Britain), Cantering to the Post (1949, Tate Britain), TV (1960, Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums) and The Seaside (c.
1965–6, Arts Council Collection).
'The British Picasso'?
'Imagine that Picasso had been British and hung around amateur football matches or
that the great modernist Fernand Léger had been addicted to dog tracks and travelling
on London Routemaster buses, and you've got something of the flavour of the art of
William Roberts.' So began an article by Mark Hudson in the Daily Telegraph on 13 January 2007, under the heading 'Lost treasures of the British Picasso'.
The article, heralding the 'delightful new exhibition at Pallant House Gallery in
Chichester' (see above), featured quotes from an interview with Pauline Paucker,
the society's chairman, and described the ongoing uncertainty about the fates of
the works by WR in the estate of John Roberts. It concluded that 'While it would be a scandal
if this small but precious part of our national heritage were to be broken up and
sold off, it would somehow be all of a piece with the tragi-comic tale of an artist
who was, even in the estimation of his staunch defender Pauline Paucker, "very much his own
worst enemy".'
To read the full article, click here.
But, unlike Picasso . . .
On 22 January the Pallant House show was reviewed in The Independent by Tom Lubbock, who declared, 'I'm embarrassed to admit just how much I've always
liked [Roberts's'] pictures . . . because I can easily imagine all the rude things that could be said about them.'
Nevertheless:
You'll find in Roberts a wide vocabulary of modern body-language, gestures never seen
until the twentieth century. People putting on suntan lotion, people talking on the
phone – you don't find this kind of behaviour in a Picasso. In a Roberts you do. In TV (1960) he's on to another new development in posture history: people sitting on the
floor watching television, their eyes fixated on the screen . . . [This] is an art that holds various tensions: between particular things and generalised
forms; between gesture and geometry; between motion and patterned gridlock; between
figure and mass . . . in short, between life and idealisation. Even though sometimes the upshot is absurdity,
its power lies in these tensions.
The Seaside (aka Sun-bathing ), c.
1965–6
© The Estate of John David Roberts
And Picasso's verdict . .
Simon Martin, who curated the Pallant House exhibition, was once talking with the
artist John Craxton, who knew WR in the 1940s. Clive Bell had told Craxton that he
had shown Picasso some works by Roberts, on which Picasso had commented, 'Bien! Il
est très honnête.'
Publication of John Roberts's Poems for Sarah
(from the February 2003 newsletter)
Pauline Paucker and Marion Hutton write:
After WR's death in 1980 his wife and son, Sarah and John, became increasingly close,
enjoying the daily routine of life in their much loved house and neighbourhood, busy
with promoting Bobby's work and playing their Spanish guitars, all with much humour
– in company they seemed to be performing an amusing double act.
When Sarah died, in 1992, John was desolate. He began to write a series of moving
quatrains for his mother, voicing his sadness and his memories of their years together.
Marion has a letter in which he says that he hopes to publish some of these. Pauline
transcribed the fifty or so Sarah poems in John's last manuscript poetry book, and
has chosen a selection from those he himself had marked as 'publishable'. Now one
of our members, John Rety – a poet, publisher and friend of John's – has printed these as a handsome volume in his excellent poetry series 'Hearing Eye',
based on the Torriano Meeting Room, where John read his poetry.
The society's having arranged to administer the copyright for all written work by
the Roberts family not only makes this publication possible, but also allows us to
quote here from two contrasting pieces.
A happy early memory of childhood:
Across the Town to see a Giant Flea,
a Dinosaur, a working model toy.
The train approaches; on the platform, see –
a Russian Jewess and her little boy.
But John also reflects on his mother's age and frailty, and on his own failing health.
An unfinished verse, on a scrap of paper, was found on the floor near John after
he died of a heart attack:
My hand supporting, and two steps more before the turn,
my thoughts go back to forty years before –
she went so lightly up those self-same stairs!
Poems for Sarah, which includes three pictures of the family, is on sale at £6. We are happy that the society has made a small contribution to publishing costs.
For details of availability, contact hearing_eye@torriano.org.
[Click here for a bibliography of John's writings and links to extracts from his works.]
The sale of William Roberts's house and its contents
(from the May 2002 newsletter)
The former home of William Roberts and his family at 14 St Mark's Crescent, London NW1, has now been sold through Parkway estate agents, which
had been inviting offers in the region of £1.4 million.
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| Moving Day (oil on canvas), 1968
© The Estate of John David Roberts
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Since John Roberts's death in 1995 Pauline Paucker and Diana Gurney, who both held
keys to the house, acted as its unpaid caretakers. This proved no small responsibility,
and one of the last, saddest and most onerous tasks was supervising the removal of
all the Robertses' effects. The easels and better furniture were sent to auction at
Bonham's in Chelsea. We were given only a few days' notice of the sale (sufficient
time for Pauline to advise the auctioneers that the easels belonged to the twentieth-century artist William Roberts, not the nineteenth-century artist David Roberts, as advertised,
but insufficient to communicate with all members). However, some members did learn
of the sale and made bids – which we believe were unsuccessful.
The disposal of the contents of the house raised the awkward question of the value
of the books written and printed by John. The Treasury Solicitor agreed to give these
to the Society and we are most grateful to Justin Howes who has taken a generous
selection of them to his Northamptonshire print workshop, where they are stored in a converted
type cabinet, listed and awaiting rediscovery.
William Roberts as portraitist
(from the May 2002 newsletter)
David Cleall writes:
The quality of the William Roberts Annual Lecture was admirably maintained by Elizabeth
Cayzer's consideration of William Roberts as a portrait painter at the fourth William Roberts Society AGM and lecture, held in the Ondaatje wing lecture
theatre at the National Portrait Gallery, London, on 2 February 2002. She sized up
to the commission with a thoroughly researched paper which focused on four portraits of Roberts's patrons and supporters: the restaurant proprietor E. Stulik, the art critic Paul Konody , T. E. Lawrence, and Maynard and Lydia Keynes. In each case Ms Cayzer gave a biographical
account of the sitter with some assessment of their personality.
She argued that Roberts was more effective in the earlier two portraits, where his
self-esteem was 'massaged' by the sitters. In the case of the T. E. Lawrence commission, however, the meeting of two difficult men led to a less insightful
outcome, in her opinion. In the double
portrait of the Keyneses, she was troubled by the stylised treatment of the hands at the centre of the portrait.
From her comparing Roberts to Graham Sutherland and Maggie Hambling, it became apparent
that Elizabeth Cayzer particularly values the artist that expresses psychological insights arising from a positive interaction of the painter and the sitter. In
this respect Roberts was seen to be lacking. I feel that Elizabeth Cayzer's questioning
of whether Roberts had a curiosity about his sitters is valid, and there is certainly
an air of detachment in some of his portraits. When, however, Ms Cayzer criticised
the Lawrence portrait as making Lawrence look more like a train driver, she clarified
for me why I prefer Roberts's Lawrence to Augustus John's idealised and romantic Lawrence of Arabia.
Repression of emotion is neither a fashionable nor a comfortable position to adopt;
however, it is an important part of the social significance of Roberts that his work
embodies this English awkwardness when confronting a sitter. It would seem that Roberts's commissioned portraits were always difficult experiences, but I do not necessary
find them unrewarding because of this. The double portrait of Maynard and Lydia Keynes
presents an intriguing tension between the desire to depict this awesome couple as
people but also, through the eyes of this particularly English cubist, to render them
as designs on canvas.
Major donation for a publishing fund
(from the May 2002 newsletter)
We are excited to announce a £2,300 donation from a very generous member of the Society, to be used to establish
a publications fund and a slide library. The donor has suggested that the printing
of short monographs on aspects of Roberts's work and the publication of John's poems
about Sarah and WR are good projects to start with.
Charitable-trust status
(from the May 2002 newsletter)
This was finally confirmed in February. Our registered charity no. is 1090538. We
are most grateful to Michael Mitzman for liaising with the Charity Commissioners
to achieve this important step forward for the Society. We are also grateful and
indebted to a member who has generously funded the exercise.
The Happy Family at Bournemouth
(from the August 2001 newsletter)
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| The Happy Family (oil on canvas), 1924–5
© The Estate of John David Roberts
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David Cleall writes:
This year has seen the reopening of Bournemouth's Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum
after a £2 million refurbishment. William Roberts's The Happy Family is situated in a gallery especially suitable for families and children called 'Stories,
Voices and Journeys'. The picture dates from 1924–5 – after his first one-man show and about the time he was working on illustrations for
The Seven Pillars of Wisdom.
Although the picture is like the earlier Bank Holiday in the Park in its subject matter, The Happy Family uses social observation rather than social criticism and has less of a satirical
edge.
The busy composition overlaps three generations. The firm hand of an otherwise serene
mother yanks back a curious toddler from chasing birds. Her partner is asleep on
the grass. Central to the picture is an older woman who appears to be the grandmother
holding a babe at arm's length, cooing to the child. Above and around the grouping three
teenagers boisterously play ball. By compressing the action into a restricted pictorial
space Roberts emphasises the formal design of the figures. Their simplified features and a use of vibrant but flat colour creates a tension typical of Roberts's work
between the abstract and the representational. The treatment of the faces is disturbingly
inconsistent. The central women are caricatured with warmth as recognisable maternal images, the ball players have a less attractive flattening of their facial features,
whilst the reclining male figure demonstrates skilful use of foreshortened perspective
and is the most worked out of all the figures. The painterly games that Roberts enjoys can be shared by young visitors to the gallery, as a reproduction of The Happy Family has been turned into a wooden jigsaw. The bright patterns of colour can be lifted
out, played with and then reconstructed into The Happy Family.
James Malpas lecture at the National Portrait Gallery
(from the August 2001 newsletter)
David Cleall writes:
Whilst the previous locations for the William Roberts lectures – the Conway Hall and University College – have had an appropriate air of William Roberts-style austerity, the plushness of
the National Portrait Gallery Lecture Theatre was greeted with great enthusiasm by
the stalwarts who assembled on Saturday 31 March for James Malpas's lecture. Perhaps
it was a feeling that such comfortable and professional surroundings conferred greater status
on the activities of the WRS, or perhaps it was just a relief to have somewhere comfortable
to sit.
From the start it was clear that James Malpas was not going to be upstaged by the
building and he launched into a stimulating and densely packed lecture concentrating
on early Roberts – from the Slade, Vorticism and the immediate post-World War One period. Emphasising
the importance of London as a vibrant centre of artistic activity in the pre-WW1
period, James Malpas examined Roberts's early Slade drawing, demonstrating the fusion
of influences from the Great Masters to the modernism that was erupting in London. Making
excellent use of the NPG's dual projection system, comparison was made between Roberts
and his Slade contemporary David Bomberg. Whilst it is logical that the older Bomberg would be an influence on the young Roberts, James Malpas used slides of The Return of Ulysses to consider the influence that William Roberts's bold use of colour was to have on
Bomberg's work. Again using slides, James Malpas was very effective in unpicking
Roberts's controversial Vorticist composition St George and the Dragon – a composition that I've always struggled with!
In the context of Wyndham Lewis, the Rebel Art Centre and Blast, James Malpas suggested that Two Step was a 'masterpiece' of the period – once again Roberts's use of a strident orange was celebrated and through the dual
projection of slides Roberts' experimental use of illusory three-dimensional space
was contrasted with the busy flatness of Wyndham Lewis's compositions of the time.
James Malpas dryly commented that 'Unlike Wyndham Lewis, William Roberts knew when to stop!'
In the final section of his lecture, James Malpas considered the problem of what was
a suitable subject for these modernists as they returned from the war and moved on
from interpreting their experiences and feelings through their art. It was suggested
that Roberts's pre-war mixture of the representational and the formal in pictures such
as The Holy Child and The Toe Dancer, for example, prepared the way for his later work in a way that some of the Vorticists
were unable to draw upon. The subject of dance had already been visited by Roberts
in the Vorticist Dancers (1913), as well as Two-step (1915) and James Malpas explained the appeal of the dance as a subject matter as
'a way of freeing painting from the narrative – whilst maintaining human content'. A key Roberts picture to illustrate this point
was the huge The Dancers (1919) at the Glasgow Museum of Modern Art.
I hope that I've been fairly faithful to some of the ideas that James Malpas put across
and would like to conclude on behalf of the committee in thanking James for researching
and presenting such a stimulating talk. Many thanks also to Head of Education, John Cooper, of the NPG for allowing us to use their excellent facilities.
Frederick Gore on the Slade before 1914
(from the March 2001 newsletter)
Pauline Paucker writes:
For this year's annual lecture and annual general meeting on 13 November 2000 we chose
University College as the venue: home of the Slade School, which was the subject
of Frederick Gore's illustrated talk: 'The Slade – pre 1914'.
Frederick Gore, son of William Roberts's contemporary Spencer Gore, was, like his
father, a student at the Slade and is known as an artist and teacher. He had chosen
to talk about the talented group who had been at the Slade around the same time as
Roberts, and of their later careers.
He spoke of the more easy-going atmosphere of those days, of the high standard of
draughtsmanship under Tonks, and of the kind of teaching then current in the painting
school. He showed how this group of students was bowled over by the innovatory work
coming from Paris, and its impact on these talented young artists. It was fascinating
to hear a practising painter commenting on the work of a previous generation to his
own, and one who as a teacher has seen many changing fashion in art and art-teaching.
There were no dogmatic statements, no wrapping-up of assorted artists in packages; here
was an artist speaking pragmatically and understandingly of other artists, setting
William Roberts among his contemporaries. He showed a wide range of slides (and here
we are grateful to Therese Wassily Saba for taking on the supervision of the projector).
After the lecture, despite a slight hitch in the arrangements, we went across the
courtyard to the Haldane Room for drinks and chat, as guests of Ruth Artmonsky (to
whom many thanks). Frederick Gore and his wife stayed with us to the end; he answering
questions and talking to changing circles of admirers.
The William Roberts Society Fitzrovia walk
(from the October 2000 newsletter)
We were most fortunate to be led by an artist and former Fitzrovia resident Roland
Collins, whose knowledge on this subject is surely unsurpassable.
Roland Collins writes:
In May a group of members set out from London's Tottenham Court Road to beat the bounds
of the Roberts family's world at the end of World War One.
With a glance over our shoulders at Charing Cross Road at St Martin's School of Art,
where young Roberts attended evening classes, we passed the stage door of the Oxford
Music Hall, which had just been converted by G. B. Cochran into a home for musical comedy. Turning into Hanway Place, a backwater
once the main through route to Bloomsbury, we entered Rathbone Place taking us directly
into Fitzrovia. Here were Rowney and Windsor & Newton, the eighteenth-century artists' materials suppliers, reflecting the way the area had been colonised by artists. Augustus
John introduced Caitlin MacNamara to Dylan Thomas in the Wheatsheaf, and in the house
where Ferns had been roasting coffee since 1903 Flaxman and William Blake were entertained by the local minister's wife.
Round the corner at No. 1 Percy Street was Rudolph Stulik's Tour Eiffel restaurant,
where in 1914 Wyndham Lewis held a launch party for Blast, the event recorded by Roberts in a painting now in the Tate Britain. On leave after
the Battle of Arras in 1917 Roberts took a room here and had a memorable dinner with
Hope-Johnson, Gerald Brenan and Augustus John. Across the road at No. 32 WR and his
wife, Sarah, moved into the attic flat in 1918, and their son, John, was born there
the next year.* Their neighbours were artists and corset-makers, musicians and diamond-cutters,
and three doors away a common lodging-house had recently closed after sixty years.
In Charlotte Street the Fitzroy Tavern had just had a new landlord, Judah Kleinfeld,
and L'Etoile, Bertorelli's and Schmidt's were already established restaurants. Crossing
Goodge Street, (a street market in Roberts's day on Friday and Saturday), we passed the sites of the Scala Theatre, a cinema where in 1915 Birth of a Nation was screened, and Constable's house, where he died in the attic bedroom.
We trod hallowed ground in Fitzroy Street. Sickert, Augustus John, Paul Nash, Vanessa
Bell and Henry Lamb all had studios here, and Gilman's Camden Town Group had linked
with Roberts's Vorticists in 1913 to become The London Group. That year in Roger
Fry's Omega Workshop in Fitzroy Square Roberts briefly diverted his painting skills to
decorating penknives, lampshades and scarves for half a sovereign a visit, three
mornings a week.
In Whitfield Street we exercised our imaginations on the playground site to recreate
the extravagantly Moorish architecture of the St Pancras Baths and Wash-houses. William
and Sarah walked here from Percy Street with their weekly wash and to have their
weekly bath. We could have ended the excursion as they did in the ABC teashop on the
corner of Tottenham Court Road, had it still been there.
* John used to say that he was born in Percy Street, but his birth certificate records
his place of birth as 54 Leigham Court Road, Streatham.
William Roberts and the USA
(from the October 2000 newsletter)
Report by Pauline Paucker:
Sarah and John had ambivalent feelings about the United States (which they never visited).
It took one American buyer several visits to St Mark's Crescent, to be vetted at
the tea-table, before she was considered worthy to own a Roberts. She passed the
tests and bought two pieces.
Certainly, amongst collectors in the US there has not been much interest in or knowledge
of British art in the early twentieth century. France was the country. One collector
in the San Francisco area has specialised in buying Vorticist works on paper, including the striking Roberts Behind the Scenes of 1920. When I saw a selection shown at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in
1993, this had been effectively used for the catalogue frontispiece. A great deal
of explanatory text was needed to present the works.
Visiting MoMA, New York, last year, I was shown their three Roberts, all works on
paper, a neat selection of differing styles. For the earlier period The Wedding, c. 1920, and a youthful self-portrait of the same time. The third, Stulik among the Artists, is from 1948. Stulik, owner of the Tour Eiffel restaurant, is shown in a chef's hat
and white overalls, surrounded by the artists he fed so well. (Sarah once told me
that the food at the Tour Eiffel 'was always delicious').
The Yale Center for British Art at New Haven, Connecticut, also has three works on
paper, acquired in the 1990s. One is a much later self-portrait of the 1970s: WR
sports a pink shirt, yellow tie, yellow eyebrows – he's holding a drawing-board. The Troubadours of 1919 is a very fine example of the early period and there is a squared-up watercolour
for The Vorticists at The Tour Eiffel, 1958. This differs in detail from the painting in the Tate, where Stulik holds out
a plate with a slice of gateau St Honoré (one of his specialities). Here he spreads
his hands in an expansive gesture.
We have traced a few Roberts in private hands in the US but would be grateful for
any information on other work there, in galleries or privately owned.
The William Roberts Society archives
(from the September 1999 newsletter)
We are attempting to compile a record of the Roberts's house: photographic, video, sound.
So far we have:
- A set of 28 colour, 10 black and-white photographs, taken by David Kendall for the
Royal Commission for the Historic Monuments of England, showing the interior and
the garden façade.
- A set of photographs taken at various times by Pauline Paucker. These include:
A set of photographs of the kitchen, taken in Sarah's lifetime (at her request).
Some further photographs of paintings on display in the house.
A set showing the paintings on display in the interior of the house, at John's death,
before their removal into safekeeping.
Assorted photographs of the interior of the house, taken after John's death.
- A video of the interior, by Myvanwy Evans and Emily Johns.
- Copies of photographs of Sarah and William Roberts, including Sarah as a young girl,
William and Sarah with Bernard Meninsky and his wife, Sarah in Paris. Also photos
of John and Sarah in the garden of No. 14, in the house, and in Morocco.
- Tape descriptions of the house, room by room, with associated anecdotes, by Pauline
Paucker and Cathy Davey.
Our record of the Roberts family so far contains:
- A video of Sarah and John in Leeds: Yorkshire Television's programme on Jacob Kramer,
in which Sarah was interviewed. (She and John had been invited to Leeds for the naming
of the Jacob Kramer Art College.)
- Short memoirs:
Marion Hutton: An eleven-page memoir of Sarah and John Roberts, whom Marion knew from Camden Town
days, before she moved to Tenby. This includes their later visits to Tenby. A set
of photographs taken in Tenby shows Sarah and John at the unveiling ceremony for
the plaque marking the artist Nina Hamnett's birthplace.
Julia Ramos: An eight-page memoir, including her parents' memories of William and Sarah in pre-war
Fitzrovia, and her later friendship with John. Also, seven pages commenting on WR's
account of his time on the RA council. (Her father, Sir Henry Rushbury, had been
Keeper in 1949–1962).
Maria Scott: Maria Scott was a friend of Sarah's in war-time Oxford. A two-page memoir, which
she wrote on hearing of Sarah's death, describes their meeting and consequent friendship.
A photograph shows her with Sarah outside No. 16 Fitzroy Street, where she was then living (maybe taken in 1947).
Tony Baker: Tony is one of the cousins on the Roberts side. The material he has put together
includes a family tree, information on the family background, from family memories,
and copies of family photographs, including William Roberts's grandmother and her
children, William Roberts's mother, Emma, and one of the Roberts brothers. Also a photograph
of WR at his easel: the painting is a portrait of Sarah in a flamboyant hat.
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