It has
long been my impression that the thing C.R.W. Nevinson wanted most of all in
life was to be famous. Born in 1889, he was the son of Henry Nevinson, probably
Britain’s most renowned war journalist, and Margaret Wynne Nevinson, a writer
and leading figure in the Suffragette movement. Nevinson grew up in Hampstead
in a talented, ambitious and iconoclastic household. As he would write in Paint and Prejudice, his notoriously self-aggrandizing
autobiography:
At home I heard little but a
lucidly expressed contempt for the grossness of Edwardian days and its worship
of all things which were established, be it prostitution or painting. Our house
seemed to be a meeting-place for French, Germans, Finns, Russians, Indians,
‘Colonials’, Professional Irishmen, and Suffragettes, and none of them had any
respect for the things that were. It was, indeed, clear to them that England
had nothing to be proud of; a belief which was in sharp contrast to the
apparent self-righteousness of all other classes. Puritanism, with all its
lusts and cruelties, had created a suspicion of beauty and a reverence for
commercial success. It did not matter what a man did for the world. What would he leave? A poem? A picture? Nonsense.
Look at his will. [How much] had he made.
This extraordinary domestic atmosphere, combined with a public school
education that he hated (‘I might just as well have sent him for three years to
hell,’ Nevinson’s father later confessed) resulted in a young man who was both
shy and aggressive: ‘The only things that I ever learned as a youth are those I
have spent years trying to forget.’
Success and fame, it
seemed, might offer some relief from the sense of inadequacy and failure that
threatened to swallow him up. He chose as his career the life of an artist. It
was a struggle. At the Slade School of Art in London his caustic drawing
master, Henry Tonks, advised him to abandon any ambitions of ever becoming an
artist. Briefly, he turned his eyes to following his father’s profession as a
journalist. But he decided to persevere. He drew, he painted, he experimented,
he exhibited, he explored. In London he met Augustus John, Percy Wyndham Lewis
and Roger Fry; in Paris he tracked down Picasso and Modigiliani. His great
moment came in 1912 when he met the Futurists and befriended Filppo Marinetti
and Gino Severini. He became the only Englishman to join their radical avant garde movement. From them he
learnt the art of self-promotion – a skill that he would exploit through the
rest of his life.
Marinetti – a poet and a writer,
not a painter – knew the importance of words and publicity in getting yourself
noticed. The Futurists published manifestoes, they put on extraordinary
performances of noise as well as painting, and they made outrageous remarks and
did outlandish things they knew would be reported in the press. Percy Wyndham Lewis
learnt much from the Futurists, and used similar techniques when he established
his own rival group of modernists, the Vorticists, in 1914: the title for the
movement’s manifesto/journal, BLAST, was Nevinson’s invention.
C.R.W. Nevinson, Reclaimed Country (1917), drypoint etching
Absorbing the Futurists’ lessons,
Nevinson he never ignored an opportunity to talk to the press, or to maximize
the chances of having his work seen. Perhaps, with Wyndham Lewis (who, like
Marinetti, was also a writer) he was the first modern British artist to fully
recognize the fact that it was not simply enough to be a painter. It was perhaps this fact that led Nevinson
into becoming a printmaker. Etchings, lithographs, mezzotints, woodcuts,
drypoint – he practiced in all forms – could be produced on a mass scale, and could
be reproduced in the press much better than paintings; they would also travel
further and more cheaply than canvases. The potential for increasing one’s
audience was huge. And he was able to transfer his natural skill as a designer
into powerful black and white images that were also used with some success,
coloured, as posters. His earliest etchings date from the Great War, and were
first shown as a part of his exhibition of war works at the Leicester Galleries
in September 1916 – an exhibition that succeeded in making him probably the
most famous young artist in Britain.
C.R.W. Nevinson, Temples of New York (1919)
It had been my impression that
this fame – along with his talent – dwindled rapidly in the years immediately
following the end of the Great War. But reading Jonathan Black’s recently published and beautifully illustrated
monograph, C.R.W. Nevinson: The Complete Prints (Lund Humphries), revealed that his prints continued to enjoy considerable popularity
until the early 1930s, when poor health sadly brought the production of new
works to an end. Even before the Armistice, Nevinson's subjects included much more than
war: in particular he was interested in cityscapes, especially London, Paris
and New York: there are the streets and buildings, but also the people, the
traffic and the rivers. He was also keen on landscapes and seascapes. The Blue Wave (1917), which I included
in my ‘Crisis of Brilliance’ exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery last year,
is one of the most beautiful artistic evocations of the sea I have ever seen.
It would be easy to pick out a dozen favourites: the skyscrapers of Manhattan,
his politically agitated Strikers on
Tower Hill, or the wonderful mezzotints, From an Office Window and Wind.
The best of them do still date from the peak of his powers between 1916 and
about 1922, but there is much to enjoy throughout his oeuvre. And Jonathan
Black’s accompanying text is wonderfully informative. With the accompanying
exhibition of prints soon opening at Osborne Samuel, and an exhibition of his
war art opening soon at the Barber Institute in Birmingham, Nevinson’s star
will surely continue, deservedly, to rise.
No comments:
Post a Comment