Lionel Lindsay, some more Australian cats

Sir Lionel Lindsay

(1874-1961)

Australian painter, etcher, engraver, illustrator, teacher and journalist.

This posting evolved just haphazardly after Marguerite Mahood's Australian original cat prints in before posting. Searching the internet I found several of Lindsay's cat engravings in the vast pool of his other wonderful and of course quite famous work. 

Younger brother to Norman (1879-1969) who choose a very different type of feline creature for his expressing and becoming also world famous. Not in the least thanks to his second wife, model and Muse: Rose Soady (1885-1978). Can you believe this, the  same generation as my grand mother who was really good looking not to say a beauty. And I thought I had a handsome sister in law.

When you look at this one drawing you know now why all great male artists are allowed having a muse or a mistress. Or both. His creative output was enormous, drawings, paintings, etchings. And I think I just lovum all. Speaking as a man but purely from an aesthetic and professional point of view. Of course. We owe Rose, in the eyes and the hands of her husband the personification of the Goddess and the Amazone, big. 

If you aren't familiar with his art (can one ?) just Google him on a rainy afternoon, be amazed and enjoy an hour well spend. As discussed in the Blog before, also Norman Lindsay made good use of early photography and no secret of it (unlike Anders Zorn who was discussed before) I discovered on a rainy afternoon. I love rainy afternoons.

Anyway, returning to the brother, Sir Lionel (he was awarded a knighthood in 1941) is said to have taught himself (!)  etching and engraving in the 1890's which is quite unbelievable and bewildering if you look closely at his prints. Here displayed  are "just" his cat prints for this one ocassion only. And because his work and life, as of the many other members of this artistic family, are ofcourse extensively and professionally covered because he is recognised not only as an important British artist but, with his brother, one of the if not the foremost and important Australian artist. You don't get knighted for nothing.

All pictures and text are freely borrowed from the Internet for friendly, educational and non commercial use.    

Marguerite Mahood, Australian Cats !

Marguerite Mahood

(1901-1989) 

Australian potter, cartoonist and printmaker, art historian and lecturer.

Returning to woodblock prints after Gwen John's cats paintings in before posting made me remember a print I found some time ago by this unrightfully more or less forgotten Australian artist. And had it filed in the Department of "cats on prints" of my pictures archive. Some internet research produced  even a few more nice prints begging to show and share. 

As one one of the few professional Australian female artists she'd studied drawing under Frederick McCubbin at the National Gallery School and worked as a painter before turning to ceramics. Her first solo exhibitions were held in the 1930s in Melbourne and at the David Jones Gallery in Sydeny. Later she worked as a cartoonist and art historian and lecturer after gaining a PhD in 1970. As you can see she knew her way in woodblock printing too.

Her work is collected in the National Gallery of Australia and throughout the 1930s and 1940s she held succesful solo exhibitions in Melbourne and Sydney. Finding the apes print, titled "the treasure", I only wish more prints by this artist will show up over time.

And here are some examples of her fine and original ceramic work wich is quite sought after in Australia even going through a recent revival after several quality pieces brought onto the normally very quiet market by her son. On the occasion remembering the very little attention his mother received in Australian newspapers in 1989 on her departure from this world. Maybe this little posting will help in some way doing her honour.

  
All pictures and text borrowed freely from the internet for friendly, educational and non commercial use.

Gwen John, the Muse and her cats

(Gwendolyn Marie) 

Gwen John

(1876-1939)

British painter and cat lover. 

Recently, while reading and discovering, I fell into the interwoven and Bohemian youths, loves, ménages and lives of some of the most remarkable artistic British families, artists, writers and poets: the Johns, the McNamara’s, the McNeills, the Lambs, the Summers. Meeting with James McNeill Whistler (1837- 1903) and Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) lacing together London and Paris. With Matisse (1869-1954), Picasso (1881-1973)and Rilke (1875-1926), with tout le monde artistique et intellectuel.

Gwen John, through her handsome brother Augustus, communal man of many loves, was acquainted with his next door mistress, beautiful and ambiguous Yvonne Macnamara-Majolier (left) and equally beautiful and ambiguous painter and photographer Nora Summers, née Munro (1892-1948) (right) who also had a fling for and an affair with Yvonne. All three women are among his portraited. 




As she was acquainted with Yvonnes daughters Nicolette, Brigit and wild Caitlin McNamara (it was whispered once she might have been Augustus' child.....) and poet Dylan Thomas (see before posting). Student, protégé, Muse of Whistler in London, model and mistress for 10 years of much older Rodin in Paris, deeply but tragically in love with Russian Véra Oumancoff, finally embracing Catholicism. 

Painted by her brother, modelled and casted in bronze by Rodin in 1908,  a commission in honor of Whistler by his successor as president of the International Society of Painters, Sculptors and Gravers. The ultimate Muse.  

And embracing her cats. Also in 1908 she wrote: Poem to Edgar Quintet (the run away cat named after the Boulevard were they lived).

Oh mon petit chat

Sauvage dans le bois

A tu donc oublié

Ta vie d’autrefois

Peut-être tu es

Fâché avec moi

Mais j’ai taché de comprendre
Tout ton petit coeur

Je me sentais jamais

Ton supérieure

Petit âme mystèrieuse

Dans le corps du chat

J’ai eu tant de chagrin

De ne pas te voir

Que j’ai pensée de m’en aller

Dans le pays de morts.

And also known for her repeating and repetition. This sequence of paintings (below), sketches, I freely scratched together from the Internet. I believe she had the look of a true printmaker. Maybe that’s why they, besides her interesting biography, drew my attention. The contrast to her portrait painting, subjects all seen from behind, looking-on, contemplating, is also remarkable.

Repating, arranging and combining, the nuns, the hats and caps, the chairs and the patterns. 

Although I donot perticularly love cats, let alone facilitate one, this posting is clumsily combining one or two points of my own imagination and interest. It is however a surprise, I hope, to my brother who does. Love and facilitate cats.

The most recent (2002) professional biography on Gwen John written by author Sue Roe, you'll find here* (link) is on my next birthday's  wishlist.

All pictures and text borrowed freely from the internet for friendly, educational and non commercial use.

Rupert Shephard and the Slade School of Art

 Rupert Shephard

(1909-1992)

British painter and printmaker

Today an unexpected posting. In an attempt cleaning up my pictures archive anticipating the arrival of a new computer I found a stray picture of a London Bobby created around 1975. And following my stream of consciousness on a very rainy day I tried finding some more about the maker.

Born in Islington he studied at London’s Slade School of Art 1926-29 under Henry Tonks and British impressionist Phillip Wilson Steer (1860-1942). Fellow students (class mates?) were William Townsend (1909-1973), Nicolette Macnamara (1911-1987) and Anthony Devas (1911-1958).

 South Bank by painter William Townsend.

Shephard, after the war, spent 15 years in South Africa as Professor of Fine Art at the University of Capetown. He returned to London in 1963. 

This explaining the wonderful colorful woodblock prints with African scenes I found.

 Nicolette Macnamara (1911-1987) married class mate Anthony Devas in 1931, to become both successful painters, in the same year exhibiting in London with Sheppard. She was also a writer, writing the autobiography "Two flamboyant fathers" about her colorfull childhood. 

Nicolette by husband Anthony Devas and her sister Caitlin by lover Augustus John.

Nicolette was the younger sister of Bohemian and wild Caitlin (1913-1994), who was both the lover of the (second) son, Casper John (1903-1984), and mistress of the father, painter Augustus John (1878-1961). Casper John the later Admiral of the Fleet. The families were neighbours on the edge of the New Forest in Hampshire.  John and his sister Gwen, 30 years before also had been students of Slade. In 1931 Caitlin married poet Dylan Thomas (1914-1953) after being introduced by Augustus John. In her youth Caitlin studied dance with Isodora Duncan (1877-1927). Gwen John, living in Paris, was for 10 years the muze and mistress of French sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917). What a times !

Staghunt in the New Forest by Nicolette Macnamara.

9 years after Anthony Devas' death Nicolette married Rupert Sheppard in 1967. The group obviously had held a close relationships because I found Ruperts portrait of Dylan Thomas  dated 1940.

And dated 1960 is the portrait of Julian Huxley (1887-1975) elder brother of Aldous (1894-1963) 

There is also a book illustrated with his woodcut prints.

All pictures borrowed freely from the internet for friendly, educational non commercial use.