Richard Ernst Eurich (1903 - 1992)

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.

Memoir • [unknown date]:

Father came down to London for a meeting and saw the place where I was living for the first time. He didn’t like it no doubt having Mother’s illness in mind, and suggested I should move.

Memoir • [unknown date]:

Richard was still finding it hard to to make art pay.

I got in touch with the Goupil Gallery, as they had sold some of my work. I was rather surprised after the director [Cicely Marchant] had been to see me, to hear that Eric Gill was coming along to give his opinion regarding my work.

The strange figure in beard and knickerbockers arrived and was quite affable. I was very shy. At length he said he didn’t like my paintings and asked some questions about them which surprised me as they were the sort of questions a layman might ask, such as “Why is that man wearing a hat?” and “What is he doing?” So I was disappointed after his visit but a few days later the director wrote saying they would give me a one-man exhibition in 1929 . . . of drawings.

[... more in Memoir]

Memoir • [unknown date]:

Mother suggested it might be a good idea if I came home and shut up my ‘flat’ so that I could be looked after properly.

I succumbed to the invitation to go home. It really was rather nice to be looked after again and the sight of the moors and wild life after London was restful and I had so few distractions that I could get on with my work.

Memoir • [unknown date]:

But now I found that it was almost impossible to talk with either Mother or Father about painting. I spoke a language they did not understand and they thought the paintings I admired were done by lunatics and vagabonds.

. . . I then remembered a remark made to me by Mr. Pearson when he found out that painting was going to be my life: “You will have to paint now and disappoint your friends”.

Memoir • [unknown date]:

Richard had to deliver thirty drawings to the Goupil by October:

I had about six months in which to prepare the work and this was going to be tough going as I had to allow a week for each drawing and no allowance for failures.

I had always been given to understand by students that a commissioned work didn’t stand any chance of being a success because the artist had to please the person or group of persons who had ordered it. But most of the great works of art were commissions and had to conform to restrictions and yet the artist responded to the challenge and gave his finest work.

Ever since that year [1929] I have stuck to this working plan. That is that painting must have ‘office hours’ like any other job. A visitor is not welcomed as an excuse to down tools and any domestic job that requires attention must wait.

Memoir • [unknown date]:

I arrived back in London in the autumn and as a final fling drew two large drawings, one of them must have been about four feet high , a single figure of a woman [Lady with a Bird]. The other was of two figures in which the shapes made by crossed limbs was explored.

11th Oct 1929:

The Lovelocks [Queenie and Prior, friends of the Eurich family] seem gratified at my having sent them the old (little) painting of head of a fat man.

14th Oct 1929:

[Giant Airship R101 flew over London]
It looked amazing with the midgets of aeroplanes circling round it. When it got into the distance it looked like some huge fish in an aquarium. But what a ghastly waste of money. The damn thing is no earthly or heavenly use whatever!

14th Oct 1929:

Mr Stocks and Dr Jane Walker to look at drawings. Jane concerned that the fat man playing the Viol da Gamba in the family group drawing was not gripping the instrument with his knees and that it should have a spike!  But they are both fighting over wanting to buy the drawing! Mr Stocks bought The Screen for £10, and Boy with Indian Head Dress for £8. He wants to buy Betty and Paul (drawing).

29th Oct 1929:

Wall Street Crash

3rd Dec 1929:

Mother had to go to a sanatorium last Saturday; I wish Father would get a rest. 

[unknown date]:

I feel very nervous about my exhibition. Nobody seems to be selling at all. All the Galleries I have visited are the same. So what chance do I stand, I don’t know.

Memoir • [unknown date]:

When Richard visited his mother, she described a ‘bonny' Mrs. Green who was dying of TB. She wanted to meet Richard and ask about painting. He did go to see her and struck up a correspondence.

The room was very different from Mother’s. It was light and airy . . .  But it was rather like a pet canary’s cage and the wounded bird was lying in the bed her thin arms stretched out over the bedspread ending with hands that looked rather large and long. But her face, though emaciated and her hair cut short like a boy’s, was certainly bonny.

In one of my latest letters to her I told her I was painting a small portrait of her from memory [Mrs Green (1930)]. I wasn’t at all sure what her reactions would be but she seemed to feel nothing but pleasure at the idea . . . She perfectly understood my feelings about it as she must have known that we would not meet again. Not long after this I had a letter from Mother, who had gone home again, telling me she had heard from another patient that Mrs, Green had been removed from the sanatorium as she was an ‘obstreperous patient’ to a nursing home where she died shortly afterwards.

[unknown date]:

Preview Day

My drawings were to be hung in the first room through which everyone had to go to get to the other galleries.

I strolled in in the afternoon at 2.30 to find the place empty . . .

I was just going out to get the paper [with a review in it] when Bill Wilkinson and wife came in. He was much impressed with the show and said he expected I should get rid of half of it! ... if only I could . . .

People began coming in thick and fast after 3 o’ clock. Mostly for the other two shows in the Gallery . . .

Lady Lavery wished to be introduced to me. She was wearing a black velvet shapely jacket with a most astonishing flower pinned to it, a luxury that must have cost something. She had come to see the other shows but found mine much more interesting! A number of people said the same thing . . .

One lady who I was told to be affable to . . . said she thought (her false teeth clicking) that people wanted coloured pictures at this time of the year!

A Miss Julia Bower was the first to purchase. I wish her the best of thanks. She selected ‘The Girl with Large Eyes’.

The show happened just a couple of months after the Wall Street Crash, but Richard’s turned out to be one of the best-selling in London at that time.

He met Christopher Wood there for the first and only time. This meeting left a great impression on him.

Memoir • [unknown date]:

I turned to the young man with great interest as I had much admired recently some water colours and drawings by Kit Wood which showed a vision of almost child-like clarity combined with draughtsmanship of undoubted mastery. So I asked if he was Christopher Wood and he replied that he was. We talked for some time about each other’s work and then he too left the gallery which became less populated as the afternoon was nearly over. In less than a year he was dead.

12th Dec 1929:

Last night I had a note from the Goupil asking me to call round as they had an offer for a drawing or two. The little cockney doorkeeper greeted me with a grin saying that his favourite: ‘The Charlady Bows’ was not sold yet! But otherwise they had been selling like hot cakes yesterday!

18th Dec 1929:

Concert by the Oriana Madrigal Society… Bax’s ‘Mater Ora Filium

Bax himself was there with that creature Harriet Cohen who was made up like a clown. Freda Swain the composer, wife of Alexander (pianist), a magnificent specimen of humanity, huge and delightfully fresh-looking and quite unaffected. Sir William Rothenstein also there. The English Folk Dance Society’s team gave a splendid performance of the Northumberland Sword Dance.

1930:

After the Goupil solo show at the end of 1929 Richard was suffering from eye strain. The occulist said it was due to the type of drawing he was doing and told him that he should stop doing it. So he turned to painting.

[unknown date]:

Eddie Marsh referred Richard to Rex Nan Kivell, director of the Redfern Gallery.

. . . and he came to see my work and he sort of threw things about the floor you know, and he said “Well, I don’t know. Show me some in a year’s time.” 

[unknown date]:

After a year Richard invited Nan Kivell back to look at the new work. Nan Kivell said

Oh, we must have a show of these!

Richard's first solo show of paintings was arranged for April 1933 at the Redfern gallery.

Memoir • [unknown date]:

The only thing the clavichord has in common with the organ is that it has a keyboard.  The clavichord is the softest voiced instrument like the humming of bees.  The organ is the loudest and most spectacular whereas the former is the most intimate and its tone is too gentle to accompany any other instrument.  The organ has no ‘touch’ but the clavichord is ‘touch’, the varying pressure of the fingers affecting the quality of the sound produced, even to playing out of tune.

[unknown date]:

The sea is making too much noise for me to play the clavichord.

1st Jan 1933:

Decided not to go on with a painting of the barge ’Venta’ until the paint had dried. (24x20) Began a small canvas of the same barge as she appeared when first coming into harbour. The subject is simple, but am having difficulty with it; hope for the best tomorrow. Some lovely greens in the water. (17x13) It is in rather a high key and I want the feeling of the afternoon light in it.

Finished it next day. 

I think this is the 24th painting I have started since I came here on 1st November 1932.

2nd Jan 1933:

My resolutions: that I will not give my Mavis up, she is so dear to me. My painting must improve beyond recognition and mature into something vigorous, strong and manly, in this the 30^th and 31^st year of age.”

4th Jan 1933:

Started 20x30 canvas of Golden cap and West Bay; done with painting knife.

5th Jan 1933:

Started painting of a tramp steamer (19x13) which showed itself here last Saturday for some reason unknown. As I have painted it the sea is like it was after the gale, very muddy-looking and blue sky beyond. I hope the painting is finished, (almost too good to be true!). It needs to be kept simple, but it may be too bald and empty for human consumption. Anyway I have learned something from it. The colour, which is the chief thing has something in it I have not attained before.

6th Jan 1933:

Started painting of the car park at Lyme with a steam wagon with a load of bricks (13x19) ‘the colour rather promising’. Finished on 17^th.

7th Jan 1933:

Finished the painting started yesterday. “It is about the brightest thing I have done here, this no doubt due to Mavis’ letter yesterday.”

10th Jan 1933:

Painting Golden Cap from notes made previously on the old Charmister Road. (19x13 upright)

11th Jan 1933:

Began painting of landslip up on the old Charminster Road but unsatisfactory owing to insufficient daylight. “Feel very depressed about my work”.

12th Jan 1933:

At 7.15 in the morning I was woken up by the throbbing of a motor, quite soft, but the unusual sound no doubt was responsible. I thought to myself “That must be a boat, lad” and then I heard the harbour master’s voice uplifted, so I knew my surmise was correct. So I sat up in bed and put on my glasses and I could see the masthead light and the dim shadow of a ship. I called Hugh up and we had a peep at her with the field glasses.

She looked very ghastly.

Another ship with cement. But this time of iron and not nearly so well looked after or seamanlike as the barge ‘Venta’ which was here a month ago. Her saving grace being, from my point of view, a light red band round her middle.

The ‘Mary Eliza’ from Hull.

Made slight drawings of her. Wind very cold from the east, but a glorious cloudless day, but not clear.

In the afternoon started a painting of her (16x20)

13th Jan 1933:

Went out to have a final look at the ship, as preparations seem to have been made to do a bunk.

13th Jan 1933:

(Friday!) Spotted a fine subject from the upper Cobb with sheds in the centre and looking along the side of the sheds to the church, the other side the bows of the ship just coming into view.

14th Jan 1933:

A depressing damp foggy morning. Not enough light to paint by. ‘Mary Eliza’ must have departed in the night.

[Second larger version was done on 23rd February 1936]

14th Jan 1933:

Walked to Uplyme. Saw fine subject of the church, graveyard and a farm behind it with fine trees and a byre.

15th Jan 1933:

Painting rough sea coming over the Cobb begun some time last year. (13x19)

18th Jan 1933:

Started painting on ‘Academy Board’ of Bridport Harbour (West Bay?) 16x20

19th Jan 1933:

Started to draw in with a brush subject of two tramp steamers in West Bay harbour. (20x30) Very cold. Finished on the 23^rd.

23rd Jan 1933:

Simply bitterly cold. Frost and east wind. A dismal morning. Got up rather late but managed to get on with work. Had to have an overcoat on, hands quite numb with cold, feet too. Started 3^rd picture of West Bay. Steamer ‘Tyneside’ full side view. (20x24)

28th Jan 1933:

Queenie [friend of the family] sent cutting from Manchester Guardian about Yorkshire artists show at Leeds. “My painting called ‘Winter Afternoon, Lyme’ is mentioned, painted in 3 or 4 days in December (24x34)”

3rd Feb 1933:

Made a drawing from the green shelter by the Cobb of The Cobb Arms and Cobb Road. Started painting the subject, palette knife entirely, for the moment. (13x19) Finished on 5^th.

6th Feb 1933:

Started painting group of houses in front of Cobb flats, facing onto the harbour with boats in front, grey sea etc. (13x19) “I think this will have to be the last effort in the way of painting that I shall do here on the spot. It being the 40^th done since 1^st November 1932."

9th Feb 1933:

Started painting long panel of boats up on the beach from my bedroom window (8x24)

13th Feb 1933:

Started packing early. The paintings etc went into eight parcels which I sent off by passenger train. I also packed my trunk so that I knew how things fitted properly. Also put the rugs round the clavichord and had my suitcase all ready.

14th Feb 1933:

Left Lyme

19th Feb 1933:

Back in London. Began a painting of Beer Head (16x24)

26th Feb 1933:

The very silvery grey painting of the buildings, boat houses etc. near Cobb (13x19) finished today.

7th Mar 1933:

Nan Kivell called. Pleased with the paintings “though some were definitely disqualified.”

17th Apr 1933:

Started painting small still life group of model ship in case and clay jug with yellow glazed rim.

21st Apr 1933:

[The Slaters have] come up to scratch by buying ‘Before a Storm’ on the installment system. Queenie and Prior [friends of the family] purchased the tramp steamers at West Bay .

22nd Apr 1933:

End of my show. At the moment, nine sold. 

It sold moderately well, very low prices.

22nd Apr 1933:

Had lunch with Beddington Behrens. Wishes me to paint a little portrait of his wife. He has a fine collection. Picasso, John, Chirico, Gertler, Brook Farrer, Severini, Derain, Epstein, Dobson, Gaudier Breszka, Wyndham Lewis and . . . Eurich!

[unknown date]:

Of course we had no money practically, this was the difficulty. But here my mother came forward and said ‘Well, I’ve saved something out of the housekeeping. If you can build a house for £700 I’ll give it to you. But over that I expect you to pay for it.’ And we built this cottage for £500.’

16th Sep 1933:

Looked at plots up at Dibden Purlieu [in The New Forest, Hampshire] and came to the conclusion that it was the spot for us. Spent the night in Hythe (Drummond Arms). SS Olympic in Southampton Water.

August 1934:

Richard only had one painting in the Redfern show above but it sold at a milestone price.

I did a painting from a barge at Weymouth in the harbour there which was the first large painting I did. When I say large, it was just over four feet by just over three feet. And they came along to see that and they said ‘Oh good heavens we must have that on view and get the Contemporary Art Society interested.’ And they bought it for a hundred pounds which was the first picture I had ever sold for a hundred pounds. ['The Blue Barge, Weymouth' (1934)]

[unknown date]:

The house in Dibden Purlieu is about 4 miles as the crow flies from Southampton.

Before all these trees grew up we could see Southampton quite well, you could see into the docks and everything.

December 1935:

I can remember the Christmas after our son was born we were really down to our last shilling. Of course we had the house which was nice. I was really wondering what to do when a telegram came saying ‘Just sold your picture of The Ship Inn, Weymouth for £100 to Liverpool.’ So of course everyone wondered why we were looking so bright!

12th Jan 1936:

started painting of Village Street (24x8 upright)

15th Jan 1936:

Began painting of Falmouth (20x24) with ship PZ type in foreground.

20th Jan 1936:

Cheque for £100 from Liverpool (painting of Weymouth Harbour (51x34). Drew 4-masted schooner at So’ton docks.

20th Jan 1936:

Death of King George V
(Cutting back gorse, levelling ground in the garden. otherwise just painting.)

21st Jan 1936:

Received copies of Art Review with colour reproduction of the large ‘Robin Hood’s Town’.

25th Jan 1936:

Finished painting of Falmouth started on the 15^th (20x24). Girl with a basket in the foreground. (purchased by Harold Bligh for 18gns in December 1936)

26th Jan 1936:

Painted 4-masted schooner in Southampton docks (used Roberson’s “amber” colours) 26^th Jan - 11th Feb
(Purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Maynard, last day of show, October 1936 for 10 gns)

1st Feb 1936:

Began painting of cargo steamer coming to jetty. (16x20)

3rd Feb 1936:

Cycled to Lepe with Mavis. Gathered catkins on the way back.

5th Feb 1936:

Painted seaman in billicock hat in deep purples and green and blue (15x18)” (5^th – 6^th Feb)

7th Feb 1936:

Cycled to Beaulieu with Mavis in the morning, back via Ipley and King’s Hat. Saw ‘Stirling Castle’ on maiden voyage. Dug deep trench to drain land at low end by garage.

22nd Feb 1936:

Had lunch with Sybil Andrews and Cyril Power

23rd Feb 1936:

Painted Mary Eliza (Lyme Regis) in “Goya” colours (Reeves). [Finished in on March 4th.]

28th Feb 1936:

Painting all morning. Planting lupins in the afternoon.

5th Mar 1936:

Painting (30x25) . . . of open window with figures, looking across river, barge with sails set [The Balcony]. Finished it on 12^th March. (sold in Oct with 2 small pictures ['Lifeboat House, Coverack' and 'Whitby, Low Tide'] for 35 gns)

16th Mar 1936:

Painting of Stonehaven, Sandsend (16x20) Finished on 19^th.

20th Mar 1936:

3-master unloading timber, red customs house in centre (16x20) Finished on 23^rd. ( sold to Grace Williams [composer and Mavis's college friend]  for 14 gns October)

21st Mar 1936:

Digging lawn at back of house all morning. Painted in afternoon.
Crispin 5 months. Took notice of clavichord and Bach for the 1st time. Also smiled at his toy lamb.

25th Mar 1936:

Went to Kit Wood show at Redfern (had long conversation with Mrs. Wood (mother))

27th Mar 1936:

Queen Mary arrives in Southampton for the first time.

Mavis and I went on the Hotspur ferry down to Calshot and had a magnificent view of her coming up the water and later as she went into dry dock.

2nd Apr 1936:

Q Mary going into dry dock (12x24)

6th Apr 1936:

Q Mary coming up So’ton Water (20x40) Finished on 26^th April

23rd May 1936:

Started painting of 3-masted ship for Children’s Exhibition (20”x24”). Ship ‘dressed’. Finished 28^th May. [The White Barque (1936)]

17th Jun 1936:

Euridice [sic] (started in tempera on temp:ground. Continued with Roberson’s Marble Medium (matt colours)) (20x40) Finished on 29^th June. Sold 35gns October

4th Jul 1936:

Mavis to holiday in Germany with Evelyn [Richard's sister] and Father until 25^th July. (3 weeks)

8th Aug 1936:

Match against East Boldre. Took 3 wickets in 3 overs.

28th Aug 1936:

Nan Kivell of the Redfern Gallery came from the IOW in his car and took about 20 paintings back to London with him. Wants a large one doing.

8th Oct 1936:

Preview and official opening of the new Redfern Gallery

Cocktail party at the gallery to celebrate the opening. 1000 guests. Michael Rothenstein and wife there. I share the exhibition with “Orovida”, daughter of Lucien Pisarro. 18 pictures sold

10th Nov 1936:

Poor Beetle [Mavis's terrier] had to be put down. Buried her in the spinney at the bottom of the garden.

13th Nov 1936:

Bought an Austin 7 for £55

25th Nov 1936:

Portrait  of Mavis in 100-year old dress with lace collar and cuffs. Finished 12^th December. (40x18)