Slade School, London

Richard was not lonely on arrival in London. An older friend, John Bickerdike, a sculptor who had settled in London was likewise from Bradford, and he and his wife seemed to be happy enough to let him visit and work in their studio almost daily! Bickerdike introduced Richard to a wide range of art beyond Europe, notably Indian sculpture and also the work of Archipenko, which was very different from the classical sculptures being studied at the Slade.

Richard started in January 1925. Within a couple of weeks: . . . 'when I got to the Slade school and mentioned Turner they all looked down their noses. Turner, I discovered, was a dirty word. It was rather strange.’

He felt his life drawing needed to improve. It was not something he had had much experience of : 'Poor old Tonks is very dissatisfied with the standard of drawing at the Slade, in fact he is raving.’

Meanwhile in his lodgings he was working on a painting of ‘The Deluge’ about which an almost daily account of his trials and tribulations fills his diary. In the end he managed to finish it in time to submit it to the Sketch Club where it found favour with John Wheatley a teacher at the Slade.

He also recounts experimenting with small sculptures: a head of Bach in stone, a little wooden torso etc.

However at the school the main work was life drawing at which he was making progress: 'Worked in life class all day. My drawing seems to have been most successful there. In fact I am told Tonks deigned to look at it.’

In May he and Bickerdike went to see Epstein’s Rima, which was receiving a lot of hostile comment. Bickerdike wrote a positive letter to the press about it and later they both went to visit Epstein and were shown his studio…. ' it was then, by the light of a candle, that we had a preview of the masterpiece known as “The Visitation” which he was working on.’

Through June Richard won prizes constantly, both for his life drawing and also at the Sketch Club. ‘I sent in a landscape or two and one of these called forth the only memorable saying by Professor Tonks “This student is being influenced by painters who have not been dead long enough to be respectable”. I had found Cézanne. Tonks could not understand Cézanne.’

In his second year he says he ‘played truant’ quite a lot, but the time was filled with going to the British Museum, to organ recitals and concerts, to exhibitions and also cheap seats at the Old Vic to see Shakespeare plays. He went back home to Ilkley during the summer where he "produced quite a number of paintings", and in the autumn went camping with a friend in Scotland.

His health was variable during these years in some cases possibly owing to the poor diet during the boarding school years. He returned to Bradford once or twice for check-ups but was always anxious not to miss the delights of London.