Part 4: Fickle Fame and Fine Art in the City

My brother and I recently engaged in a Facebook exchange over the solo work of former Monkee Mike / Michael Nesmith. Kevin likes “Joanne”. I prefer Nesmith's better-known, self-mocking "(I think I will travel to) Rio”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnpcTsy10dE. 

Apart from recalling Nesmith's appearances in that ‘zany’, eponymous, 1960’s musical-comedy TV series, two of the few other facts I can remember about him are that he was Texan and stood over six-feet tall - a seemingly unfeasible towering height, to my childhood self. 

Michael "Monkee" Nesmith - and those album liner notes.

This odd knowledge I largely ascribe to my absorption and photographic recall of liner notes from The Monkees' debut album, bought by an older sibling in c. 1967. For a figure so prominent in my memory-bank of childhood entertainments, it's a sadly limited sum-total of knowledge. These days we routinely learn FAR more intimate details of celebrities' lives. Whether we want to or not.

Exhibition leaflet, front and back: featuring Self–Portrait, c. 1915. Oil on canvas laid on panel (Yale Center for British Art).

We do sometimes retain the oddest facts, though, don't we? Often our receipt of such 'facts' is controlled by sometimes shady, influential groups. These inform our knowledge of many cultural figures - and others. History, after all, is famously "written by the victor". Not least in the case of one specific influential London artist, whose first ever (highly posthumous) major retrospective I recently visited, at South London's Dulwich Picture Gallery. Which is located less than five miles from Tower Bridge.

Interior with a Table, 1921 - by Vanessa Bell (Tate Gallery).

Vanessa Bell (née Stephen; b. London, 1879) was, amongst many other things, a painter and interior designer. Older sister to mad (big-bad?) Virginia Woolf, Bell was artistically active from c. 1901 until her death, sixty years later. She was one of that infamous “Bloomsbury” intellectual set whom Dorothy Parker mockingly quipped “lived in squares, painted in circles and loved in triangles”. Showing just how deeply that barb has stuck, the BBC's recent dramatisation of her convoluted life and clique was titled "Life in Squares".

Hidden somewhere within Parker's acerbic witticism may be the germ of some truth as to why Bell has been so overlooked for so long; since art critics now appear to be lining up to offer their view that she is a vastly under-rated, highly significant, artistic talent and influence. Bell was entirely untrammelled by the mainstream social mores of her time. She lived in an open marriage, in a very open household; openly (and infamously) took lovers of both genders and all leanings, having children by different male partners.

She also established a safe, promiscuous haven at Charleston, in the Sussex countryside, not least for friends who were conscientious objectors to the Great War - and all at a time when common knowledge of such lifestyle choices might have seen her stoned in the streets by the less ‘refined’. She was distinctly NOT ‘of the establishment’; and, as a result, was easily and actively dismissed and overlooked by those who were.

Vanessa Bell, 1942 - by Duncan Grant, father of one of her children. 

Yet, in 1912, alongside such notable names as Picasso and Matisse, Vanessa Bell had exhibited some of her early work in the influential Second Post-Impressionist Exhibition, at the Grafton Galleries. She also went on to show her work at exhibitions in Paris, Zurich and Venice; but who easily remembers all of that, now - after more than a century of systematic art establishment silence and obfuscation?

Room in the Second Post-Impressionist Exhibition, 1912 - possibly by V. Bell (Musée D’Orsay; NOT in Dulwich's exhibition).

This exhibition follows Bell's “fluid movement between the fine and applied arts, focusing on her most distinctive period of experimentation”. It ranges from some early, rather unremarkable works, through Bell's increasing proficiency, her dabbling with a variety of techniques, to her delightful and remarkable, mature oeuvre, across multiple media; positioning her as "a radical innovator in the use of abstraction, colour and form". It also includes her portraits of many famous "Bloomsbury"-ists. For anyone with an interest in 20^th century history and/or art, this is, surely, a must-see show. If you can; just go. That is all. If you can’t; at least check out the gallery's exhibition website and other sources:

http://www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/2017/february/vanessa-bell-1879-1961/

Tea Things, 1919 -  Vanessa Bell, oil on panel

Incidentally, The Dulwich Picture Gallery makes at least two other unrelated, historical claims to (fickle) fame:

Firstly, to have been the world’s first purpose-built public art gallery (yet another fine art first for London). It now houses a collection of largely fusty, musty, Old Master paintings; although there are a few real gems, for those who like exploring such things: http://www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk/about/

Self-Portrait, Wearing a Feathered Bonnet, 1635 - Rembrandt (on loan from Buckland Abbey, National Trust)

And, secondly, that its early 19th century, “pendentive” mausoleum roof - designed by Sir John Soane - later inspired Sir Giles Gilbert Scott’s iconic, much-loved (but, in reality, normally rather unpleasantly smelly) red, public telephone box concept (see photo comparison, below - and do look carefully!). Scott's/Soane's phone box roof would have been difficult for "the establishment" to have kept secret. Apparently, the colour red was chosen, in order to make them easy to spot. So you won't have to "travel to Rio" to find one (sorry, Mike N!). Although they're largely redundant, a 94 year-old design, and now much reduced in numbers, you'll still find them in (sometimes surprising) locations across the UK and its current/former colonies. 
http://www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk/about/our-architecture/

Let's talk again here soon.

Your Addicted London Buddy,

Max ("F-H-W")

Footnotes:

The Monkees: an American-British pop rock band originally active between 1965 and 1971. They were formed in Los Angeles in 1965 for the US TV series "The Monkees", which aired from 1966 to 1968. The musical acting quartet was composed of Americans Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork; plus British actor & singer Davy Jones:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monkees

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBQUvL0RQY8

Adeline Virginia Woolf (née Stephen; b. London, 1882) was an English writer; one of the foremost modernists of the twentieth century. During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a central figure in the influential Bloomsbury Group of intellectuals. Her best-selling works include Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), Orlando (1928) and A Room of One's Own (1929), with its dictum that "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction". Throughout her life, Woolf suffered from severe bouts of mental illness; and drowned herself in 1941: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Woolf

Virginia Woolf by Vanessa Bell, c. 1912; and Virginia Stephen by George Charles Beresford, July 1902.

Dorothy Parker (née Rothschild; b. New Jersey, 1893) was an American poet, short story writer, critic, and satirist; best known for her wit and her eye for 20th-century urban foibles. Parker rose to acclaim, both for her literary output in publications such as The New Yorker and as a founding member of the Algonquin Round Table. Following the breakup of the circle, Parker traveled to Hollywood to pursue screenwriting. Her success there, including two Academy Award nominations, was curtailed when her involvement in left-wing politics led to her being placed on Hollywood's McCarthy era blacklist. Dismissive of her own talents, she deplored her reputation as a "wisecracker." Nevertheless, her literary output and reputation for sharp wit have endured:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Parker

Sir Giles Gilbert Scott (b. Hampstead 1880) He died in Bloomsbury, in 1960 - just a year before Vanessa Bell. A trustee of Sir John Soane's Museum, his 'phone box design is in the classical style, but topped with a dome inspired by Soane's mausoleum at the Dulwich Picture Gallery. His telephone box was brought into service as Kiosk No.2 (“K2”) from 1926:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_telephone_box