Bradford School for Arts and Crafts...

[unknown date]:

Mr. Wilkie gave me some good advice. I must try to draw larger whatever the old professors say. Must also get a stronger style.

13th Jan 1925:

Work all day in the life class. Must try to make my drawing more convincing and searching.

14th Jan 1925:

Morning in the life class:

Tonks quite encouraging. Overheard him saying that the modern French painters did not give volume to their work! This sounds very extraordinary from a man who is supposed to be up in such things.

Afternoon in Bick’s studio and had another tussle with my head of Bach in stone. Wonderful drawings by Archipenko.

15th Jan 1925:

Life class all day. Seems to be a slight improvement. In the evening began a 24x20 of a young man, slightly laid in in monochrome.

18th Jan 1925:

Wrote letter home including a humorous one to Hugh in the manner of Pepys.

19th Jan 1925:

In the evening went on with painting of medieval man. Hope to experiment with colour scheme. Perhaps try red hair!”

[unknown date]:

. . . 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.
 
I didn’t study his later work which of course now is considered to be his great work, because I thought that really his early work of the ‘Shipwreck’ and ‘Calais Pier’ and things like that were really the clue to how he started and how one should start and go right through a person’s career.

21st Jan 1925:

Life class:

Got some grey paper as the white hurts my eyes. Then Bick’s studio and worked a bit at the stone head (of Bach) which is the Dickens of a mess. Then worked till 10.30 on the ‘young man’ canvas. Laid in all the grounds in flat colour, so as to get a start straight off on smooth tone and surface.

23rd Jan 1925:

Last night began my picture of the Deluge for the Sketch Club on a 30x24 canvas.

24th Jan 1925:

Went on with the painting of the Deluge and after supper I began an organ, orchestra and choir picture. It may be a failure but anyhow it is an adventure.

25th Jan 1925:

Set to work on the Deluge. The trouble is that the figures are so small.

26th Jan 1925:

Sent two of my landscapes in for the criticism of the Sketch Club.

28th Jan 1925:

At 1.30 Tonks criticized what he called one of the worst shows ever given. He said my two landscapes were Gallery pictures, that the larger had a sky one only saw in Galleries and not in nature. (This sky was painted from Nature). He thought they were simply a collection of stuff on the canvas. I am afraid he does not see very far. He also lapsed into sentiment about the sacred walls where pictures by great artists had hung etc.!

29th Jan 1925:

Began some pen and pencil studies for The Deluge. Composition to be in on March 16^th.

1st Feb 1925:

Got to work at laying foundations for The Deluge which is causing me a lot of trouble. In fact I don’t know what to do with it yet. I wish it to be something monumental, not a sensational painting with a lot of exaggerations.

2nd Feb 1925:

Life class:

 . . am doing very tight dull studies as I have no knowledge whatever of form and structure. Anatomy lecture in the evening.

5th Feb 1925:

Got on with my painting of The Deluge. It is not going at all well yet. Ideas are not very plentiful.

8th Feb 1925:

Got to work in real earnest for the first time on the Deluge composition.

8th Feb 1925:

[After listening to Beethoven’s 5th on records]
I wish painting could come up to music. Wish I could paint a 5th Symphony.

10th Feb 1925:

Poor old Tonks is very dissatisfied with the standard of drawing at the Slade, in fact he is raving.

11th Feb 1925:

Tried to make some progress on my sketch for the Deluge. Have got in a fearful mess. I wish I had longer for it. This being only my second ambitious attempt at a figure composition.

12th Feb 1925:

Made a sketch for the Raising of Lazarus in Indian ink and brush.

15th Feb 1925:

Up to 4.30 worked on the Deluge. Did not get on very well. The paint has sunk very much.

19th Feb 1925:

Deluge:

Still in a devil of a mess. Oiled it out the other day and it had all run down and made a beastly mess. In the evening  began a small Nocturne also for the Sketch Club.

22nd Feb 1925:

Deluge:

A faint idea just beginning to come but think I won’t have time to finish it.

25th Feb 1925:

Father wishing me to go home for the weekend to see Mr. Appleyard about my nose. Wrote to say I really could not as I want to get on with my painting and there is 'The Matthew Passion' on Saturday night.

26th Feb 1925:

Tried to get on with the Deluge. I feel very disgusted with it.

27th Feb 1925:

Heard that there were three Archipenko sculptures at the Leicester Galleries. Went straight to Bick [friend and sculptor John Bickerdike] and then the Gallery.
We stood amazed! About the most wonderful things I have ever seen. Without exaggeration he is as great as Michelangelo. The subtleties are infinite, and the purity wonderful. he is without an equal in modern times, in fact makes everything else, including Epstein’s ‘Betty May’ look ridiculous. A most amazing experience, and he is only 36. It is almost unbelievable.

1st Mar 1925:

Deluge is a vile mess.

2nd Mar 1925:

Titivated the Deluge. Worked a bit on a panel of 2 heads.

4th Mar 1925:

With Bick and 3 of my paintings to St George’s Gallery to see Howell.  He was very interested in my work and hoped to have some of mine at the gallery before long.

9th Mar 1925:

My rapid drawings are improving but my slow ones are as bad as ever. The Deluge is a failure.

11th Mar 1925:

Summer Holiday Composition to be “A Play in the Open Air.”

16th Mar 1925:

Took Deluge and Nocturne to Sketch Club.

19th Mar 1925:

Madame Tussauds was burned down in the night.

20th Mar 1925:

J. Wheatley criticized Deluge and others. He said mine was very good and showed very considerable knowledge of design.

29th Mar 1925:

Painted a bit at a sketch for a Deposition.

1st Apr 1925:

Back home [for Easter]. Had a head x-ray… something affecting my nose.

[Went to the Cartwright]
Turner’s ‘Deluge’ is there, but shockingly hung. Duncan Grant’s ‘Still Life’ is very fine. Some fine Constables and a glorious coast scene by old Crome. The Reynolds and Rayburns were not representative. A fine little Hogarth. G.F. Watts well represented.

2nd Apr 1925:

To see Dr Kilp about my eyes, new lenses.

10th Apr 1925:

Began carving a small wooden torso of a youth from a piece of oak that was with the firewood.

12th Apr 1925:

Worked all day at the little torso.

15th Apr 1925:

Back in London. Afternoon in Bick’s studio and worked till 6 o’ clock on the wood torso which Bick seems to think promises well.

18th Apr 1925:

In the afternoon to Bicks and worked at the little wooden statuette. Have got into a rare mess over the neck and shoulders owing to a saw cut far into the wood.

19th Apr 1925:

Began in the morning a painting 24x20 of two men.

20th Apr 1925:

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.

23rd Apr 1925:

Making messes most of the day in the life class.

25th Apr 1925:

Life class in the morning. Wood carving in the afternoon The head of my work is shaping better.

27th Apr 1925:

Carving:

In difficulties but hope to have done with it soon. A large ‘shake’ has come in the neck and head and a peg does not fix it quite.

29th Apr 1925:

Just about finished Torso. Started work on a new piece of oak working till 9.30pm.

30th Apr 1925:

Got to work in earnest at the painting I have in hand. There are possibilities in it.

1st May 1925:

Worked hard all day in life class. Perhaps my drawing is improving a little. Walter Russell was rather helpful.

4th May 1925:

Life class all day. Made a shocking mess. Back to hostel and painted till 7.30.

5th May 1925:

NEAC Show . .

Paul Nash had some wonderful paintings and drawings . . . Sargent’s portraits very uninteresting, a wreath was hung over one of them. One of C.J. Holmes’ landscapes rather fine - and an early portrait of Cunningham Grahame by Bill Rothenstein is miles ahead of what he is doing now. A fine portrait of a dentist by William Roberts.

5th May 1925:

A hell of a mess drawing in life class. Painted in the evening.

7th May 1925:

Howling mess at drawing in life class as usual. I don’t think I shall ever be able to draw. I seem to get worse and worse.

10th May 1925:

Felt very depressed and wretched – decided to go and hunt the Wilkinsons up, found I had arrived for Ted’s 21^stbirthday. Had a topping time though there was rather a crush. Revived me somewhat.

11th May 1925:

Life class in the morning. Tonks said my drawing was quite good up to a point of development, which is rather great words from Tonks.

17th May 1925:

Chaps at the hostel threw 2 rolls of toilet paper over Richardson’s (subwarden) wireless aerial then set fire to them. Just about got the place on fire. Richardson gave us a discourse on lavatories and all details concerning them.

19th May 1925:

Life class in the morning. Tonks told me to paint but I think I shall be too nervous to do so. He spoke as though I should have been painting long ago. Gravell [fellow student and life long friend] has been told to paint too.

In the evening finished painting a head of a woman from memory.

May 1925:

In the afternoon went to see the recently unveiled memorial to Hudson by Epstein. It is a very fine thing indeed. A tremendous amount of controversy…. A little hostile chap has been there doing a non stop talk of abuse for hours.

. . . Some absolutely ridiculous abuse about the Epstein monument in the Daily Mail. They seem to be trying to get it removed. Bickerdike wrote an excellent letter to the editor which we took along to the offices in the evening.

. . . Bick’s letter appeared in the Daily Mail along with 3 bad ones.

. . . Bick had a nasty anonymous letter concerning the Hudson Memorial. We long to hear the end of it.

Memoir • [unknown date]:

. . . our old friend, Fred Jowett of Bradford, was the Minister for Works who had passed the design. John Bickerdike and I went to see Epstein and 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.

27th May 1925:

Life class in the morning. As usual made a howling mess. Later went on with my carving.

29th May 1925:

[Went to the Zoo] Gaudier Breszka must have studied there a lot.

30th May 1925:

My carved torso will have to be cut off below the knees owing to poor wood. Shall try to make an alabaster base for it. Exciting, what!?'

2nd Jun 1925:

Began carving of a cellist, got in rather a muddle but hope to pull it off.

3rd Jun 1925:

Began carving a little dancing torso from the base I cut off the male walking torso. This has been done with a peg in the bottom so as to fix it into an alabaster conical base.

8th Jun 1925:

Found a vein of pith running through the wood so had to modify the design considerably. Otherwise it is going quite well.

11th Jun 1925:

Life class in morning, made some sheets of paper dirty!

12th Jun 1925:

Slade school said goodbye to John Wheatley today. He goes to South Africa. He was asked to criticize the Sketch Club so as to make the presentation. I was fortunate enough to get a prize for my comp. of the old man and the “coloured gentleman”.

Memoir • [unknown date]:

The Sketch Club prizes

A criticism was given by Professor Tonks or another instructor and about three prizes of a guinea each were awarded, I contributed regularly to these showings and usually attempted to do one of the compositions set, such as “The Flood”, The Last Supper” etc. I was very astonished when I was awarded first prize for a figure composition. 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 Cezanne. Tonks could not understand Cezanne.

17th Jun 1925:

Received £1 for prize in Sketch Club. Bought a fine book on Donatello also one on Indian sculpture, an eye-opener.

18th Jun 1925:

Went with Bick to the Indian section of the V&A specially to look at the red stone Torso a perfectly amazing thing that seems to be unappreciated, standing on no base right down on the floor, no label, and in fact we had to examine it on hands and knees. [Now elevated and labeled “The Sanchi Torso”!]

Memoir • 1925:

During my last term I was awarded a prize every month which was very gratifying,

Memoir • 1926:

I must confess that I played truant a good deal during my second year but I do not regret it as I was employing the time mostly at the British Museum.

I was also going to those wonderful institutions, lunch time organ recitals. The organ works of Bach were being played in their entirety at Christchurch, Westminster, now destroyed.

There was also Shakespeare at the Old Vic where Edith Evans and other now famous actors and actresses were appearing. To see “Anthony and Cleopatra” for a few pence from the gallery was good value indeed.  

. . . There was the young man in the bow tie who in the interval carried about ten cups of tea stacked one above the other to his adoring girlfriends.

The audience was a motley crowd but they had one thing in common and that was that they had come to see Shakespeare.

Memoir • [unknown date]:

He attended concerts and went to exhibitions with his friend Bickerdike, learning a lot about early sculpture and its influence on artists like Mestrovic.

John Bickerdike, the sculptor, and his wife had both come to London before me and, as it was possible to be very lonely in such a large city, their company and greater experience were of untold value to me.

Photo: John and Doris Bickerdike, musicians and puppeteers

1926:

During the Summer I painted at home in Ilkley, and produced what I considered to be my best work to date, but none of the London Exhibitions would take them. They were exhibited in Bradford where they attracted some notice in the press.  

1927:

During these months I had produced quite a number of paintings and it was decided that I should go back to London to try my luck.

I found myself in a kind of storeroom with a skylight. The room was so high that it was pointed out to me that if I could only turn it on one side it would be quite a nice place. It was dark and dirty and infested with mice.

Here I painted two or three quite large canvases and I carried them round to dealers and exhibitions without success.

[unknown date]:

I had now moved to a basement flat in Redcliffe Gardens. It was rather dark but spacious. My few pieces of furniture were quite lost in the great kitchen with its six-foot stone sink. The dark coal cellar and wine cellar and the iron bars outside the windows gave it a dungeon-like atmosphere.

1928:

Richard did not have his paints with him when he went home for Christmas 1927, so he worked on some drawings over the holiday period and into the new year. 

1928:

Richard had a friend in the Treasury who said he should meet a Mr Stocks, also in the Treasury. Apparently he had two Duncan Grant paintings in his office!

Stocks visited Richard’s basement flat to look at his work and suggested that Eddie Marsh should see his drawings and paintings too. Edward Marsh was well known as a patron to the arts in addition to being with the Treasury and Private Secretary to Winston Churchill who was Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time.

Eddie Marsh duly arrived

with kid gloves on and top hat etc, colliding with dustbins and wiping off cobwebs. He seemed a bit disappointed but bought a small painting for £5 ['The Broken Tree' (1926)]

1928:

A few days after visiting Richard, Marsh wrote to him and said he had seen some of his drawings in the St George’s Gallery in Hanover Square which he thought were far ahead of what he’d seen in his studio. He had bought 'The Bedroom' and another connoisseur, A E Anderson, had purchased 'Resting'.

Of 'Bedroom Interior' Marsh wrote to Richard:

It is very delightful and has the added charm of colour. I snatched it away from an old gentleman who asked for it a minute after I had told Howell [the gallery owner] I would have it! I only hope he will have bought another instead.

I should like to tell you how much I enjoyed your drawings - an achievment.