We must confess that religious paintings are not our favourite subject, and we've tended to regard Spanish Catholic art as being, well, just a little too religious to cope with. So we approached the Francisco de Zurbarán exhibition at the National Gallery in London with a certain amount of trepidation. A degree of contrition is due.... Yes, there were monks, altarpieces and lots of saints, but we were blown away by Zurbarán's ability to depict textures and fabrics and to convey an intensity of feeling. It's an absolutely excellent exhibition, full of truly beautiful paintings. Such religious art was intended to bring the faithful closer to God, to bridge the gap between Heaven and Earth, in an age when many could not read. Zurbarán was a master at it. Let's start with a saint: Just take a look at the fabrics, trimmings and gems in this picture. And the garments are even more striking when you are stood in front of this nearly life-size figure. This is Casild...
Terrible times: poverty and unemployment everywhere around; right-wing strongmen and populists in power overseas; and the shadow of war hanging over it all. Times for artists to take a stand.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
As the war progressed and the men were away fighting, women came to the fore, taking on traditional men's roles. Here's another striking image by Rowe, and, like much of his work, it's from the collection of the People's History Museum in Manchester..jpg)
And, in the 1930s, some of them did, forming a group in London called the Artists International Association. Their story is the subject of Comrades in Art: Artists against Fascism at Towner Eastbourne, a show with a lot of very interesting art amid fascinating history -- but rather too much detail to absorb easily. There are many little-known or unknown names to conjure with, and it's a big exhibition; this is a venue where you never feel short-changed.
Let's plunge straight into the action, because it's all kicking off in Trafalgar Square, where the police are going in violently against protesters who've arrived in London after a hunger march against unemployment.
.jpg)
The Struggle between the Unemployed and the Police Forces (also known as Hunger Marchers Entering Trafalgar Square) is by Cliff Rowe, one of the prime movers of the AIA, and as with quite a number of the exhibits in Eastbourne, there's a fascinating story behind it. Rowe spent 18 months working in the Soviet Union, and at a meeting in Moscow he was asked to produce a work depicting the class struggle in Britain. Turning to reports in copies of The Daily Worker, he combined incidents taking place across London into this panoramic view. After he left Russia, he never saw the painting again, but it ended up in the Lviv National Art Gallery in western Ukraine. We only get to see a half-size reproduction; if it wasn't for the man in power in Moscow now, we might have been looking at the original.
But before you get to Trafalgar Square, you're introduced to Rowe and the other leading names in the Artists Against Fascism movement after you enter the door of the exhibition, with a series of black-and-white photographs and some rather murky paintings (well, the 30s were rather murky, weren't they?); it takes you a bit of time to get your bearings.
Rowe was actually a founding member of the AIA, which came into being in late 1933, just a few months after Hitler seized power in Germany. The group organised exhibitions and also aimed to make art more widely accessible, by producing lithograph prints and murals. Within four years it had nearly 900 members, growing from a base of quite left-wing artists.
Another founding member was James Fitton, and this poster of his from 1930 advertises ROP Extra fuel "for quick starting". ROP stood for Russian Oil Products, and the commission led to Fitton being put under surveillance by the Special Branch. Fitton said he'd glanced fleetingly at Fernand Léger and Wassily Kandinsky in the design. And if you think the galloping horse is a bit odd for a petrol advert, it's perhaps more logical than Esso putting a tiger in your in tank.
.jpg)
A number of the prominent AIA members worked in the Soviet Union. Here's another work by Rowe -- The Fried Fish Shop, painted in 1936 -- which we came across in a previous exhibition in Eastbourne a few years ago. Then it simply looked to us the place to go for a fine chippy tea. But there's now a much more nuanced explanation on offer: This apparently allegorical painting expresses Rowe's growing scepticism about the way the Soviet system was developing.
That's no ordinary diner sitting on his own at the centre table: It's Stalin. Serving on the left is a figure looking like Harry Pollitt, general secretary of the British Communist Party ("Harry's for Quality"). A bowler-hatted secret policeman from a well-known photo of the time stands on the left; Clara Zetkin, a prominent German Communist and critic of Stalin, heads upstairs.
You might expect an exhibition covering this period to include Paul Nash, and in 1937 he was part of the selection committee for the Surrealist section of a huge AIA exhibition in Grosvenor Square in London, spanning more than 800 works of art over five floors! Among them, his own challenge to viewers' perceptions, Event on the Downs. A rather large tennis ball, a weird-shaped tree and cloud, white cliffs but no sign of the sea, while what looks like the marks of a plough leading through a grass meadow to a brown field that has just been tilled draws the eye to the middle of the scene. A tennis ball? Well, the Towner is right next to Eastbourne's lush grass courts in Devonshire Park....
Rather more of a grim 1930s scene in our next picture: The kilns, the smoking chimneys, the cloth-capped men trudging up the road between the terraced houses make it clear this is The Potteries, painted in 1938 by Julian Trevelyan.
.jpg)
As the 30s ended, World War II started following Hitler's invasion of Poland. Clive Branson, who had fought for the Republicans against General Franco in Spain and been taken prisoner, now saw the British and German peoples united in being victims of an unjust war. This warplane flying low over the streets of a bomb-damaged south London carries both Royal Air Force roundels and the symbol of the Luftwaffe.
.jpg)
After Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Branson came to support the war effort as part of the resistance to fascism, despite writing: "My whole being revolts against war." He died commanding a tank in Burma in February 1944.
As the war progressed and the men were away fighting, women came to the fore, taking on traditional men's roles. Here's another striking image by Rowe, and, like much of his work, it's from the collection of the People's History Museum in Manchester.
.jpg)
The first of Rowe's three applications to be an official war artist was turned down in early 1941, almost certainly, we're told, as a result of MI5 vetting. However, he was given a permit to sketch and paint at London's St Pancras station, which he did while not on duty as an air-raid warden.
We've seen before that Laura Knight made some memorable pictures depicting women in the war effort, and in 1941 she painted this portrait of Corporal JM Robins from the Women's Auxillary Air Force. The sitter was the recipient of a Military Medal for bravery after the dug-out she was in suffered a direct hit during a bombing raid, in which several were killed. She rendered first aid to the wounded and was commended for her "courage and coolness of a very high order in a position of extreme danger".
There is a great deal more to see in this show, though we must say that our interest flagged a little towards the end, once we'd got past the war years. But there's a lot to enjoy, and a lot to learn about. Eastbourne -- always a top recommendation for a day out.
Practicalities
Comrades in Art: Artists against Fascism is on at Towner Eastbourne until October 18. The gallery is open Tuesday to Sunday from 1000 to 1700, as well as on August Bank Holiday Monday. Standard tickets cost £11, or £12.10 including Gift Aid. And if you book online here using the code ONLINE10 you get 10 percent off.The Towner is about 10 minutes walk from Eastbourne station, which you can reach from London Victoria in less than 90 minutes by a direct train every half an hour. We spent well over two hours in this show, not including the need for a half-time break; if you're assiduous in reading the captions, as we are, there's a lot of information to take in. The Towner's café with terrace overlooking the Devonshire Park tennis courts is perfect for refuelling.
Images
Cliff Rowe (1904-1989), Facsimile of The Struggle between the Unemployed and the Police Forces, (also known as Hunger Marchers Entering Trafalgar Square), 1933, Lviv National Art Gallery, UkraineJames Fitton (1899-1982), Russian Oil Products, c. 1930, Private collection
Cliff Rowe, The Fried Fish Shop, 1936, Reproduced courtesy of Leicester Museums and Galleries. © Cliff Rowe Estate
Paul Nash (1889-1946), Event on the Downs, 1934, UK Government Art Collection
Julian Trevelyan (1910-1988), The Potteries, 1938, Museum & Art SwindonClive Branson (1907-1944), Blitz: Plane Flying, 1940, Tate
Cliff Rowe, Woman Cleaning Locomotive Boiler, c. 1942, Courtesy of the People's History Museum. © Cliff Rowe Estate Laura Knight (1877-1970), Corporal JM Robins, MM, WAAF, 1941. All Rights Reserved/Bridgeman Images; Image Imperial War Museum
Comments
Post a Comment