Bradford Grammar School...

Memoir • [unknown date]:

One English master, who evidently liked painting, instituted an outdoor sketching club. Unfortunately these Saturday afternoons, so precious during term time, turned out to be a rag. I painted a watercolour of a bridge at Bingley and I still have a photograph I took of the English master seated on his camp stool attempting to draw while his high- spirited pupils emptied his painting water over him and performed other jocularities.

Memoir • [unknown date]:

Mr Pearson set up a still life for Richard to paint.

I must admit I was not particularly thrilled at the sight of a pan and some onions which I was to tackle but Mr. Pearson made a start for me, echoing the words I had heard at my first lesson nearly two years before “Put the paint on and leave it.” He painted one of the onions and then left me to it. When he came back he was astonished to see the remainder of the two onions painted in such a way that no one would have thought two hands had been involved in the execution.

This was my second and last lesson. It gave me the impetus I required and I begged Father to buy me another canvas or two. He had evidently had a conversation with Mr. Pearson, who told him the one thing I had to learn was to clean my brushes properly.

Memoir • 14th Dec 1918:

The General Election

After the war came the great general election. Mother took me to all the meetings for we knew some of the candidates personally. . . They all failed to get in but the meeting held after the results were published was one of the most cheerful and humorous political meetings I have ever attended.

. . . the climax was reached when some of our new friends came for an evening and played charades. During one of the scenes acted, a defeated candidate delivered an electioneering speech in which a plan for vote catching was put forward. This involved a pipeline to all working class homes which distributed water for one hour in the morning, was then cut off and gas followed it for two or three hours so that housewives could get their cooking and washing done; then beer was turned on for the remainder of the day. That was the last gathering at our house that I remember before Mother’s health broke down.

Memoir • [unknown date]:

First commissions:

[When my father] was lecturing  or demonstrating some point about anthrax, he asked me to prepare some watercolour drawings on which he would superimpose the pimples and eruptions.  These were my first commissions and though they could not be considered works of art, I was very proud to have taken a hand in something so useful.

Memoir • [unknown date]:

The glimpse of the sea at Whitby and then from the train running along the cliffs to Sandsend was the climax of the feeling that the chains of the war and school had been thrown off.

20th Jan 1920:

Back to school. Curse! Damn! Blast! Blow! Confound!!

13th Feb 1920:

I went to see Mr Sichel with Father. Said that I had decided talent and ought to go to the art school.

21st Feb 1920:

Began painting Sandsend Ness on a rough day.

22nd Feb 1920:

First time I have painted with a palette knife.

27th Feb 1920:

Mr. Pearson told me there was some very good colour in my painting of Sandsend Ness.

Memoir • 1920:

I entered for a scholarship, being asked to draw a plaster cast of a lion’s head. I was granted the scholarship and so the end of my schooldays was drawing near, much to my satisfaction.

12th Mar 1920:

I was confirmed in St Marks Church by the first Bishop of Bradford.

Memoir • [unknown date]:

Richard became disappointed with the art school.

I had looked forward to mixing with other students having heard stories of their doings from the Pearsons when they talked about their student days. So I was puzzled when I found that there was no other student who wanted to be an artist, i.e. one who paints pictures. They were all studying “commercial art".

Memoir • [unknown date]:

I was most sorry to leave Bradford, I loved it, and when I was told that Big Ben would not be able to come to Ilkley I was furious. One of the very few times, if not the only one, when I nearly lost my reason with fury (and what is more expressed it) was on this occasion. So when the removal took place I took Big Ben in a hamper by train to Ilkley myself.

Memoir • [unknown date]:

The smallness of the house persuaded Father to purchase a second-hand hut to stand in the garden. This he allowed me to use as a studio and bedroom combined. I soon had it fitted up and decided I would almost live in it as far as possible. I may have regretted leaving Bradford but the change had one overwhelming influence on my future.

Richard is referring to the paintings he did of the local moorland landscapes, including a particular tree in their garden, and the bearing they had on his career as an artist.

When it came time in late summer of 1921 for his father to decide if Richard could carry on at the art school, Richard's instructor at first suggested that Richard should really think about becoming a teacher rather than an artist.  

Disappointed, Richard took his instructor to his studio and showed him the pictures he had done throughout the summer.

. . . There was a stunted oak tree in our garden at Ilkley. I bought a canvas and laboured in the open air during that summer on a painting of it. I painted several smaller pictures on the moors and made pastel and pencil drawings of the quarries . . .

On seeing this latest set of pictures, the instructor said to Richard's father:

. . . Well, that knocks teaching on the head." 

Twenty years later, after I had been elected an associate of the Royal Academy of Arts, Father wrote to my old teacher and reminded him of his decision on that fateful afternoon and thanked him for it.

Memoir • [unknown date]:

An art club that Richard attended visited Farnley Hall near Otley which had about 250 Turners.

It was then that I discovered the presence of Farnley Hall which I could see from the moors above our house. I went to see the wonderful collection of Turner watercolours, which had been purchased from the painter, many of them depicting Farnley itself and the surrounding country. Turner became my hero and I bought an old bicycle and explored Wharfedale trying, in many cases, to locate the exact spot where he must have sat to make his drawings.

Memoir • 1921:

I made a visit to Liverpool to see some old relatives at Birkenhead for a day or two. I had never seen docks under winter conditions and when I arrived home I painted a sunset over the docks with a steamer churning up water all emerald green and orange. I must have used many dangerous colours on this work but to-day it still looks as fresh as when it was painted over thirty years ago.

Memoir • 1922:

When the snow came I decided to paint on the moors. I selected a spot high up as I wanted a spacious view. I took a camp stool and painted for a couple of hours, quite engrossed in the effort of recording the bleak landscape under these conditions. When I came to pack up I found I couldn’t move. My legs were quite numb and my hands blue.

I did not often go out like that again without giving some idea of where I was going and it also brought home the impossibility of really constructive work under such conditions, so I made drawings and small oil sketches and embarked on a reconstruction of them in the studio.

The painting that emerged which I called “The Torrent” was exhibited at the local Arts Club exhibition and brought me my first press notice.

Memoir • [unknown date]:

Accepted at the Slade.

It was a great day for me when I was accepted by the Slade School in London and was awarded a special grant by the Drummond Foundation for the further education of Bradford Grammar School boys. I had never stayed in London before or seen any of the galleries and museums. So in the summer before I was due to join the Slade I went with Mother and some of the family to stay in a flat belonging to some friends who exchanged it for a holiday in our cottage in Ilkley. My lodgings had to be arranged and, after that, I was free to ramble round the galleries.

1st Jan 1925:

Began a small painting (16x10) of hills in snow. Memory of the ride in the car with Father last Sunday up to Windermere and Ambleside, through snow and hail storms.

3rd Jan 1925:

Began a small oil painting of sea and downs etc. (16x10) memory of Weymouth Downs. Experimenting with the contrasts of different kinds of grey, to produce movement of light.

6th Jan 1925:

Went to see Mr Butler and Miss Bolton at the Bradford School of Art. Mr Butler thought I should be slow in developing but that I must go ahead, not to be too keen on exhibiting, and he thought I should go a long way.

Some fine drawings up in the Life Room; Gaudier Breszka, W. Lewis, Kennington, P.& J. Nash etc.