Fuel for the Aga
Arthur Marshall
Graham Sutherland Roger Berthoud (Faber £12.50) The sense of shock and outrage occasion- ed by the wilful destruction of the superb Sutherland portrait of the aged Churchill is with us yet and connoisseurs of vandalism, as many of us have so sadly become in recent years, will be interested to learn from Mr Berthoud's painstaking and successful researches that Lady Churchill had earlier limbered up for her act of dishonour by 'putting her foot through' a Previous likeness of her husband by none other than Sickert (can it have been that Mid-1930s one that made the then wilderness figure look like a tousled and slap-happy baby from a family woefully tarnished by insanity?). Our informant about the Sickert incident is Churchill himself, who completes the double by himself coming very badly out of the Sutherland fiasco. During the sittings he interfered repeatedly and displayed almost incredible vanity. Could he not be in his Garter robes (no)? Despite being posed as a Parliamentarian and wearing the recognised sober rig, he must look, he said, 'noble' (one wonders what his ghost makes of the dishevelled and crumpled old sculpted war- rior who now slouches so winningly and Characteristically across Parliament Square). Though the painter was known to dislike allowing previews, Churchill made unscrupulous use of his charm and position in demanding a peep (`Come on, be a sport'), Furious at being given a double chin, he requested alterations CI haven't got a neckline like that — you must take an inch, nay, an inch and a half off). Although he managed in the end a grudging "yule, there can never have been an 80th birthday party and present that went with less of a swing. None of this will come as any sort of sur- Prise to those of us who, even in his greatest Years, saw our saviour as an ill-mannered, bullying and spoilt small boy of ten, wear- ing shorts and a grumpy expression, who should have had his ears constantly boxed and been sent, supperless and early, to bed. It is distressing to think that his wife, other- wise such an impeccable and lovable character, should now be chiefly remembered for this disgraceful deed. How Was it done? Mystery surrounds the whole affair. Was it popped on a bonfire? Was it chopped to bits and fed into the Aga? One's hopes that it had been quietly spirited away and kept in hiding until Lady Churchill was dead and gone, seem to be without whatever radiant being can the ancient Churchill have seen when he °leanly looked at himself in the glass? 'Mir- ror mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?' Did it really answer, 'You,
dear'? .
Graham Sutherland's behaviour was, throughout, admirably dignified and, such was his magnanimity, he was even rather sympathetic over the tantrums: I think it is true that only those totally without physical vanity, educated in painting or with exceptionally good manners can disguise their feelings of shock or even revulsion when they are confronted for the first time with a reasonably truthful painted image of themselves . . .
Many people have the fixed idea that my portraits are cruel . . . I do not aim to make them so . . . but I do look at the person whose characteristics I try to record. I don't always succeed . . . and, from my own point of view, hardly ever do so. I want neither to flatter nor to denigrate. Least of all do I want to soil and mortify.
Other sitters to this undoubted genius sat to better purpose and with much greater mutual satisfaction. After some trepidation and typically modest doubt about his abilities in what was for him such a new and, in some ways, alien field, he had kick- ed off in 1949 with the famous Maugham portrait. When all was completed, and after prudently fortifying themselves with cham- pagne, painter and painted viewed together the splendid result — the wizened old sage perched up on that chair in a faintly Orien- tal setting. 'I was really stunned. Could this face really be mine?' gasped the pleased writer later, though not too delighted to forget to beat down the asking price of £500 to £300 (but in ready cash, as was briskly pointed out). Gerald Kelly, who had painted Maugham, though at whose in- stigation we do not know, an extraordinary 18 times between 1907 and 1963, reacted sharply to the baggy-eyed and sardonic representation of his old friend: `To think that I have known Willie since 1902 and have only just recognised that, disguised as an old madame, he kept a brothel in Shanghai.'
Of the many fine portraits that were to come — Beaverbrook, Helena Rubinstein, Adenauer, Lords Clark and Goodman, Ar- thur Jeffress — that of 'the anxious features of the frail heir of Knole', Eddy Sackville-West, will be remembered with pleasure by many. 'Masterly' was the adjec- tive allotted to it by Raymond Mortimer, bright as a button and first in the field as a recogniser and encourager of Sutherland's, and others', talents.
There can seldom have been a less pro- pitious start to such a dazzling career although those who regard, and with some justification (well, just look at Dickens and Balzac), unsatisfactory childhoods as being fine forcing grounds of literary and artistic ability can have no fault to find with the Sutherland background. He was afflicted with quarreling parents, his father retiring at the age of 60 from both the Department of Education and married life, settling in Jersey with a lady not his wife. Meanwhile Mrs Sutherland occasionally attempted suicide, though a fall from the roof a mere six feet high reveals no very dedicated at- titude to self-destruction. How piquant to read of a black sheep uncle who, requested to leave Tonbridge School, found tem- porary employment in the male chorus of The Bing Boys: no lifetime that included nightly vocal support of the bewitching Miss Violet Loraine could ever be written off as having been entirely wasted. Then a thinnish educational period at Epsom Col- lege, whose Common Room had shortly before housed Hugh Walpole and whose in- mates had inspired the imperishable Mr Perrin and Mr Traill, was followed by, of all things, an engineering apprenticeship at the Midland Railworks at Derby. But then there came five happy years at the Goldsmiths' School of Art (no vacancies at the Slade) where he met and married the charming Kathleen Barry who was to be the mainstay of his life.
For his absorbing and splendidly detailed book about one who is undoubtedly the most interesting, and arguably the best, British painter of the century, Mr Berthoud has had access to a great variety of sources, not least many interviews with the obliging subject himself, and as a result some fascinating facts emerge. There will be a few readers who can happily recall the In- ternational Surrealist Exhibition in London in 1936, to which Sutherland contributed two paintings (the book's reproductions, many of them in colour, are first rate).
Proceedings were enlivened by a girl wearing a fencing mask covered with red roses at the private view. She later fed the pigeons in Trafalgar Square. One corner of the gallery smelt strongly of fish: a kipper had been attached to a painting of a kipper. Among objects on view was the famous tea-set lined with fur.
Your reviewer remembers a painting of a complacent duck which had, attached to its lower half, a small wooden box containing porcelain eggs. The painting's title 'Duck With Eggs' told all. And although one somewhat resents the dismissive adjectives of 'scruffy little' being applied by the author to Stanley Spencer, it is nothing but merry to hear of the latter shocking Clydeside residents by announcing in a crowded railway compartment that 'Of course, all my painting is masturbation.'
Although 'it is easier to be patron than patronised', due credit is given throughout to the tact, kindness, generosity and en- couragement supplied in such very full measure by Lord Clark. Others too were ex- tremely helpful to the artist, in particular Dean Walter Hussey and Douglas Cooper until, in the latter case, there was a rumpus. This, the Tate Gallery Affair, ended in fisticuffs and featured, on my left, John Rothenstein, together with, in the blue cor- ner, the rather quaintly named LeRoux Smith LeRoux. The pros and cons of the business are given, and sides may still be taken, apart from those of us who merely wish in retrospect to bang everybody's heads together.
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