George Frederic Watts by Edward Steichen

 

 George Frederic Watts by Edward Steichen, Photogravure on japan paper, 1900, NPG

 

Background description from National Portrait Gallery, "In 1900, Watts was aged 83 and the doyen of the art world, having outlived most of his contemporaries. He is shown here, in a photogravure from the American publication Camera Work, as a venerable figure whose profile features are illuminated by a single light source, perhaps a window. The pictorial style draws attention to the painterly composition and chiaroscuro derived from old master portraiture. In this respect, Steichen’s image – one of two poses from the same sitting – evokes an elderly version of Watts’s ‘Venetian Senator’ self-portrait of c.1853, although its immediate inspiration seems to be Watts’s profile self-portraits of 1879–80 (see ‘All known portraits’). It has also been argued that Steichen’s admiration for European Symbolist painting is reflected in the composition,  and doubtless such admiration drew Steichen towards Watts, whose late allegorical paintings proved major contributions to the Symbolist impulse. The exact circumstances of this portrait-making remain somewhat unclear, however.

American photographer Edward Steichen travelled to Europe in summer 1900 to study painting in Paris. In September he visited London to submit work to the season’s exhibitions, as he recalled later:

In the early autumn I went to London with the idea of submitting some of my photographs to the exhibitions of the Royal Photographic Society and the Linked Ring. There I met F. Holland Day [who] was in London to arrange for an exhibition of what he called The New School of American Photography and the Royal Photographic Society had turned over their exhibition rooms to him. Now for the first time, I saw photographs by outstanding photographers. It was an exciting experience … After the fuss and excitement of London I was ready to get back to Paris and go to work. But before leaving, I made a photograph of the venerable painter George Frederick [sic] Watts. This was the beginning of the portrait series I had planned to make of distinguished artists in Europe. I hoped to include painters, sculptors, literary men and musicians.

In this account Steichen does not explain why or how he was able to photograph Watts, or who furnished the introduction. No contemporary record of the encounter, which probably took place in Watts’s London home in Melbury Road, has yet been found. It is thought that Steichen was commissioned to make his portraits, but this may be a mistaken inference. However, further details of Steichen’s visit to London offer some context for the event. 

 Steichen did not print or exhibit his portraits of Watts while in Europe, but he did continue the ‘portrait series’ project inspired by Watts. On returning to America in 1902 he described it to a Milwaukee newspaper, saying, ‘My “Great Men” series includes portraits of Rodin, Maeterlinck, George Frederic Watts, the eminent English artist, Zangwill, Lenbach the great German portrait artist … Mucha the painter and many others.’ 

From the date ‘MDCCCCIII’ inscribed on both his Watts images, it would appear that Steichen prepared them for exhibition and/or publication in 1903, using the elaborate printing techniques then being developed. At the end of 1902 he was among the founding members of the Photo-Secession group in New York, under which aegis examples of his work appeared in Alfred Stieglitz’s quarterly publication Camera Work (which Steichen designed) as well as being exhibited throughout the United States. In the first issue of Camera Work, Stieglitz announced its aesthetic policy:

 Photography being in the main a process in monochrome, it is on subtle gradations of tone and value that its artistic beauty so frequently depends. It is therefore highly necessary that reproductions of photographic work must be made with exceptional care, and discretion of the spirit of the original is to be retained, though no reproductions can do justice to the subtleties of some photographs. Such supervision will be given to the illustrations that will appear in each number of Camera Work. Only examples of such works as gives evidence of individuality and artistic worth, regardless of school, or contains some exceptional feature of technical merit, or such as exemplifies some treatment worthy of consideration, will find recognition in these page"

 

 

  Portrait of George Frederick Watts, 1903, by Edward Steichen.

 Gum bichromate print, Alfred Stieglitz Collection. 

Both of these prints of G.F. Watts can be found in the following:  

Edward Steichen (American, 1879-1973) Six Portraits of Important Male Figures, 1903-1913.

Five photogravures and one halftone reproduction, two mounted, two double mounted, and two triple mounted; George Frederick Watts with the sitter's name, photographer's name and date in Roman numerals in negative; in good to very good condition (with the exception of Bartholome, which has a nearly severed upper left corner), not framed.

Upcoming Exhibition: Ellen Terry: The Painter's Actress (10 June to 9 November 2014) Watts Gallery, UK

Watts Gallery a museum in the heart of Surrey in England is the location of this Ellen Terry exhibit. The gallery was built upon the request of the artist himself, G.F. Watts to serve as a work space for fellow artists. G.F. Watts was the husband of a young teenage British nineteenth century theatre actress Ellen Terry who is depicted in Watts' painting above, 'choosing.'  The gallery describes this exhibit, 'Ellen Terry: The Painter’s Actress will be the first exhibition to explore how the influence of Britain’s most famous Victorian actress reached beyond the stage to inspire generations of visual artists. Bringing together paintings, drawings, sculpture, photography and film – including material rarely or never previously exhibited – the show will trace Ellen Terry’s journey from emerging teenage starlet to cultural icon.' I wish they would have decided upon a more apt exhibition title. I mean she was so much more than 'The Painter's Actress' unless of course you are referring only to her years as Mrs. Watts!  Not only will this exhibit be at Watts Gallery it is also happening as part of The Guildford Summer Festival.

For more exhibit information,  Watts Gallery

For more information about,  Guildford Summer Festival

Watts Gallery 

If you would like to read my article I wrote a few years ago,  Ellen Terry

Julia Margaret Cameron and The Signor 1857 Album

"The Signor 1857 album is the earliest of eight recorded photographic albums that Cameron compiled before she took up photography for herself. It contains work by several different photographers (some unattributed), including 15 unique images. It anticipates the photographs Cameron would later make for herself. In addition to portraits of the ‘great men’ of her acquaintance, Henry Taylor (no. 13), Alfred Tennyson (no. 15), George Frederic Watts (no. 1) and John Herschel (nos 12 & 31), it contains photographs of her children and her nephews and nieces; this mixing of the famous and the familial would become a hallmark of her photography. The album begins with a previously unrecorded and unattributed photographic portrait of Watts by Earl Brownlow followed by a sequence of photographic copies after portrait drawings Watts made during the 1850s, some of the originals for which are currently untraced. 

Signor 1857 photographic album is unique because of its ‘back to front’ sequence. When you turn the album upside down, there is a second sequence of photographs. Some of these include a photograph, almost certainly by Julia Margaret Cameron’s brother-in-law, Earl Somers. He was an important figure in the history of photography, until now, no photographs have been firmly attributed. This study photograph of Cameron with all six of her children is (unique to this album and previously unrecorded).

 

 Unattributed photographer, [Group portrait of Julia Margaret Cameron and her six children (Hardinge, Henry, Eugene, Julia, Charles, Ewen), seated on the trunk of a fallen tree], c. 1854, albumen print, 150 x 191mm, previously unrecorded.

 

  Here is the same photograph cropped and enlarged so you can see Julia Cameron with her six children much better...

  Cameron wrote cropping instructions in her own handwriting on the reverse of a couple of the prints in Signor 1857 album. There are also numbers written in pencil on the reverse of the prints which suggest that the photographs were inserted according to a pre-conceived sequence. The numbering is also in Cameron’s distinctive hand which seems to confirm that the album was authored by her."  (Joanne Lukitsh, ‘Before 1864: Julia Margaret Cameron’s Early Work in Photography’ in Julian Cox and Colin Ford, Julia Margaret Cameron: The Complete Photographs, Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2003).

Some more of the photographs taken from Signor 1857 album...

 

 James Mudd or Joseph Cundall (?), [Julia Margaret Cameron, seated, with Charles and Henry Cameron], 1857-8, albumen print, 190 x 154mm,[other copies: JHN, NPG, London, Wilson Centre for Photography, London,Hans P Kraus Jr Fine Photographs, New York, and others]

 James Mudd or Joseph Cundall (?), [Portrait of Mary Louisa Fisher and Julia Prinsep Stephen, both née Jackson], 1857-8, albumen print, 187 x 140mm, [other copies: Lansdowne ]

This photograph above shows an 11 year old Julia (Jackson) Prinsep Stephen with her sister Mary Louis Fisher. Julia Prinsep Stephen became the mother of author, Virginia Woolf, and an author in her own right. It is only my belief but this photograph from Signor 1857 might just be the earliest photograph taken of Julia. It is hard to see the handwriting (Camerons) at the bottom of the photograph, but she writes, 'Adeline and Julia.'  Adeline was the first name of Julia's daughter, Virginia Woolf and is the name Julia Margaret Cameron writes for Mary Louisa Fisher.  

To view the lot notes, the photographs, and a much more detailed description, visit this link, Sotheby's

Come into the Garden, Maud or is it Mary? Mary Seton Fraser Tytler Watts (1849–1938)

Come into the Garden, Maud

Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron (1809–92)

COME into the garden, Maud,
For the black bat, night, has flown,
Come into the garden, Maud,
I am here at the gate alone;
And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,
And the musk of the rose is blown.
For a breeze of morning moves,
And the planet of Love is on high,
Beginning to faint in the light that she loves
On a bed of daffodil sky,
To faint in the light of the sun she loves,
To faint in his light, and to die.
All night have the roses heard
The flute, violin, bassoon;
All night has the casement jessamine stirr’d
To the dancers dancing in tune;
Till silence fell with the waking bird,
And a hush with the setting moon.
I said to the lily, “There is but one
With whom she has heart to be gay.
When will the dancers leave her alone?
She is weary of dance and play.”
Now half to the setting moon are gone,
And half to the rising day;
Low on the sand and loud on the stone
The last wheel echoes away.
I said to the rose, “The brief night goes
In babble and revel and wine.
O young lord-lover, what sighs are those,
For one that will never be thine?
But mine, but mine,” I sware to the rose,
“For ever and ever, mine.”
And the soul of the rose went into my blood,
As the music clash’d in the hall:
And long by the garden lake I stood,
For I heard your rivulet fall
From the lake to the meadow and on to the wood,
Our wood, that is dearer than all;
From the meadow your walks have left so sweet
That whenever a March-wind sighs
He sets the jewel-print of your feet
In violets blue as your eyes,
To the woody hollows in which we meet
And the valleys of Paradise.
The slender acacia would not shake
One long milk-bloom on the tree;
The white lake-blossom fell into the lake
As the pimpernel doz’d on the lea;
But the rose was awake all night for your sake,
Knowing your promise to me;
The lilies and roses were all awake,
They sigh’d for the dawn and thee.
Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls,
Come hither, the dances are done,
In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls,
Queen lily and rose in one;
Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls,
To the flowers, and be their sun.
There has fallen a splendid tear
From the passion-flower at the gate.
She is coming, my dove, my dear;
She is coming, my life, my fate;
The red rose cries, “She is near, she is near;”
And the white rose weeps, “She is late;”
The larkspur listens, “I hear, I hear;”
And the lily whispers, “I wait.”
She is coming, my own, my sweet;
Were it ever so airy a tread,
My heart would hear her and beat,
Were it earth in an earthy bed;
My dust would hear her and beat,
Had I lain for a century dead;
Would start and tremble under her feet,
And blossom in purple and red.

 

The Rose bud garden of girls by Julia Margaret Cameron, June 1868,

 Featuring: Eleanor Fraser-Tytler, Christina Fraser-Tytler, Mary Fraser-Tytler, Ethel Fraser-Tytler. Albumen print

This photo features the four Fraser-Tytler sisters, Nelly, Christina, Mary and Ethel during their visit to Tennyson’s home, Farringford, on the Isle of Wight. It was June 1868 when this photo was taken which relates to Tenyson’s epic poem, ‘Maud’ (1855). ‘Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls.’ It is a poem that he considered to be one of his best achievements. 

Even though this photograph is not considered an accurate illustration of the poem, it is one of my favorites. I’ve seen it hundreds of times never knowing one of the girls was Mary Seton Watts! I love making those connections between painting and subject matter, photograph and sitter.  Here Cameron’s maidens are set against a lush floral background which is more an attempt to capture the feelings represented within Pre-Raphaelite paintings and their subject matter; most notably, Rossetti and Burne-Jones. 

The Pall Mall Gazette in January 1868 said of it, ‘some of the groups or tableaux vivants lose, from the very reason of their artificialness, that noble and natural harmony of expression which is the charm of Mrs. Cameron’s productions.’ 

The woman seated second from the right was Mary Fraser-Tytler, who studied art with G.F. Watts for several years before becoming his second wife in 1886. She said of him, ‘He is the painter of painters for me.’

 

Mr. and Mrs. G.F. Watts. Mary reading to her husband in their home Limnerlease, Compton.

G.F. Watts at Little Holland House: The Bohemian Years (1850-1904) Part II

Little Holland House

It seems that Sara Prinsep was looking for a larger house to entertain her friends during her literary salons. When she mentioned this in passing to Watts, he remembered that just a few days prior, Lord Holland had invited him to stay at his ‘Little House’for a few days. Watts wanted to but knew he could never afford it. So, he introduced Sara and her husband Thoby Prinsep to Lord Holland who showed the couple around. Little Holland Housewas a rambling gabled house in an idyllic rural setting, with lawns and stately arching trees, located just off Kensington High Street. Two miles from Hyde Park Corner, the house suited Sara perfectly. The Prinsep’s signed a twenty-one year lease for two hundred pounds per annum on Christmas Day 1850. What was supposed to be a three day stay for Watts, in the New Year, turned out to be a close to thirty year stay… thus beginning ‘the Bohemian years!’

 

 Watts was right on all fronts. It seems that Little Holland House benefitted everybody. Once moved in, the literary salons began, parties were thrown, and word spread like wild fire about the Prinsep and Pattle families and this man named Watts. Sara’s reputation was now solidified and her name reflected glory! Her place in society was surely sealed.  As for our Young Watts, well, he yearned to broaden the spectrum of his art, still his reputation for portraiture at this time attracted commissions but he preferred to avoid them.  Watts was about to meet one of the two most important women known for their beauty. Henry Bruce, Lord Aberdare recalled, ‘Oh, how in love with her we all were!’ Virginia Pattle lived with her married sister Sara Prinsep in Chesterfield Street, near Watts’ studio. The artist was tempted, but had no time to make new acquaintances. Later he would confess that his first concentrated love, ‘began and encouraged and developed before I knew the living object.’

 

One morning Watts saw two robed women with heavy lidded eyes and hair parted in the middle as if floating down Regent Street, leading a small boy. Watts was mesmerized; he knew at once they were Virginia with her sister and nephew. Immediately he went home and wrote a note to Fleming, ‘You cannot be more anxious to introduce than I am to know Miss Pattle, she is beautiful.’ He was to meet the sisters during the winter of 1849 at Eastnor Castle. The sisters were equally intrigued by his charisma, humility and genius. They quickly became regular visitors to his studio. 

 Virginia Pattle drawn by G.F. Watts, 1849 (private collection)

Watts was deeply in love with Virginia and began drawing tender silverpoint studies of her in the soft grey cloak she wore that first day. He pared down its graceful lines for a full-length almost monotone portrait which he exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 1850. The Art-Journal commended his portrait of Virginia Pattle for its rare, elevated sentiment. Virginia stands like a pilgrim on the stone terrace, ‘her hair simply braided, and a long grey coat of nun like simplicity falling round her. She has no curls, no frills or furbelows, no jewels; she is as God made her; a perfectly beautiful woman.’ as her great niece Laura Troubridge observed. 

 Another drawing full-face of Virginia Pattle by G.F. Watts, undated

Even though Virginia encouraged Watts and drove him to distraction, he never declared his love to her believing himself to be unworthy of her and that he had nothing to offer her.  Whether or not this was one of his biggest and deepest regrets is not known but his decision was to benefit Charles, Viscount Eastnor, the future Earl Somers, enchanted by her portrait on Watts’ studio dresser, proposed marriage and she accepted. Watts was devastated explaining, ‘It became wrong for me to love.  I nearly died but I conquered it. My existence became a blank.’  He made a large chalk drawing, the strongest image yet of her oval face, heavy lidded eyes and firmly modeled throat.  He painted The Vanished Spirit, returning for a last look upon the world, with Eastnor Castle and a book inscribed ‘Finis.’

Now that Watts was living amongst The Prinsep’s, he was thought of as a family member. They felt funny calling him Mr. Watts and he hated being called, ‘George’ so a nickname was definitely in order. Sara Prinsep’s youngest sister Sophie, who was married to an East India Company civil servant John Dalyrmple, named him ‘The Signor.’ This was not overly familiar yet respectful, it suited Watts.  In brotherly affection he nicknamed Sophie ‘Sorella.’ Gradually the prefix was dropped and he became simply ‘Signor,’ and was never called ‘George’ again.

 Lady Sophie Dalyrmple by G.F. Watts, oil on canvas 1851-53

Enter the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood - a revolutionary new art movement led by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais and William Holman-Hunt during the summer of 1848. They believed in a purity in British painting and wanted what they called a ‘Truth to Nature’ put back into painting. They looked to Watts for guidance and help in attainment. For in his paintings they saw how he had an ability to bring forth a light that shone on each entire canvas, even illuminating the shadows. At the time, the PRB, as they wrote on their canvases, were horrifying the art establishment with their ‘realistic’ versions of paintings of biblical scenes. However, a Mr. John Ruskin, critic at the time, became enraptured, as he explained in ‘The Stones of Venice’,

‘We have, as far as I know, at present among us, only one  painter, G.F. Watts, who is capable of design in colour on a large scale. He stands alone among our artists of the old school, in his perception of the value of breadth in distant masses, and in the vigour of invention by which such breadth must be sustained; and his power of expression and depth of thought are not less remarkable than his bold conception of colour effect. Very probably some of the Pre-Raphaelites have the gift also; I am nearly certain that Rossetti has it, and I think also Millais; but the experiment has yet to be tried.’ 

It was during the year 1856 after William Holman-Hunt visited Watts at his studio in Little Holland House that another two important visitors arrived in true style. Rossetti lured his ‘apprentice’ who explains further, ‘I am going with Rossetti to be introduced to a lot of swells who’ll frighten me to death, twenty-three year old ‘Ned’ Jones wrote to his father Edward Coley Burne-Jones:

Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Bt

by Cundall, Downes & Co, or by John Watkins
albumen print on card mount, published 1864

‘Gabriel took me out in a cab…we drove and drove until I thought we should arrive at the setting sun – and he said, ‘You must know these people, Ned; they are remarkable: you will see a painter there, he paints a queer sort of pictures about God and Creation.’ So it was he took me to Little Holland House. It was a very strange society, foreign in its ease and brilliancy.’

Portrait of Edward Burne-Jones by G.F. Watts, 1870, (Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery)

Introduced by Rossetti as ‘the greatest genius of our age,’ Ned Jones, spoke little; but when he did, the young man with grey-blue eyes and fair hair straggling over his broad forehead, impressed the company. Mrs. Prinsep, spotting his unease, swept him under her wing. He warmed to Watts, admired his pictures and came from a similarly modest background, with a hint of Welsh blood. His father was a failed tradesman, his mother died shortly after he was born, and he himself was lovable, unassertive and delicate-William Michael Rossetti observed in Some Reminiscences that he also suffered weak health, though, he never said so to Watts.

 The illustrator George du Maurier described Little Holland House as : ‘A nest of proeraphaelites, where tutti quanti receive dinners and incense, and cups of tea handed to them by these women almost kneeling.  Watts, who is a grand fellow, is their painter in ordinary; the best part of the house has been turned into his studio, and he lives there and is worshipped till his manliness hath almost departed, I should fancy.’  Invited to dine, du Maurier was advised not to wear a dress coat. As he wrote to a friend, ‘Instead of dressing for dinner there, you undress.’ Watts wore a velvet coat and slippers, and in the music room afterwards stretched full length on the sofa, while everyone sat in a circle and listened to du Maurier singing Schubert lieder. The worship I got. I wonder if they are sincere.

 

Portrait of Julia Margaret Cameron by G.F. Watts, 1850-52,

National Portrait Gallery, London

The Pattles were too highly charged to be reticent: excruciating as it may have been, their praise was genuine. Julia Cameron could be seen reciting Tennyson’s latest poem to the vulnerable Whig statesman, the Marquess of Landsdowne under the shade of a tree. Ruskin’s former wife, Effie, abhorred the Tennyson and Watts worship at Little Holland House and reported that her new husband, Millais, hated the adulation he received. Nevertheless, he remained an habitué, and du Maurier returned on occasion for the intellectual society.

Hearing that Tennyson was in town, Sara Prinsep swept out in her robe and forced the protesting Poet Laureate back to Kensington, where she placed him in Hunt’s charge and sat him down to dinner, a defeated lion. ‘In this company there ought to be Lady Somers, whose beauty I have heard much extolled. I can’t see her anywhere, is she here?’ Tennyson roared and crushed Hunt’s discreet reply. The Laureate was facing savage abuse from the public over Maud, his epic poem against falsehood and tyranny. He arrived, distraught, one evening, with an anonymous letter-‘Abhorred Sir, Once I worshipped you, now I loathe you, I hate you. You beast!...Yours in aversion’ – which he showed to each guest, asking, ‘What would you do if you got a letter like this?’ He refused to be comforted.  

It was during another visit to Little Holland House that Tennyson composed ‘Guinevere’ for ‘Idylls of the King’, his recreation of the Arthurian legend, while pacing the lawns and grumbling out loud, ‘Gone-my lord! Gone thro’ my sin to slay and to be slain’  He explained to Watts how Arthur represented conscience and his knights the sentiments, impulses, feelings, ‘the more animal qualities that man has to contend with’ while sitting for his first of many portraits. 

One year later, in 1859,Tennyson  returned to Little Holland House to sit for his second portrait of which this time Lady Tennyson approved of. She did not like the first one because it did not capture his poetic imagination and asked Watts if he would do another one. Watts obliged. Tennyson asked Watts, ‘what was in the artist’s mind at the start of a new portrait?’ Watts explained, ‘how he didn’t want to highlight every wart and wrinkle but instead hoped to encourage his sitters to reveal their inner nature; he would talk to them, draw out each train of thought, and immerse himself in his subject to reproduce the face as ‘the window of the mind. ‘ 

 Alfred Tennyson, Poet Laureate, by G.F. Watts, 1859

Original painting is in private collection at 

Eastnor Castle Collection. 

Archived at Watts Gallery is this print photogravure by

Sir Emery Walker after GF Watts

 After the painting session wrapped up, the friends gathered for a chat session and this situation occurred:  John Ruskin was in the room overheard by Tennyson saying, ‘Jones, you are gigantic!’ dubbed Ned ‘Gigantic Jones.’ Watts had recommended ‘Ned’ to design stained glass windows for James Powell and sons and described him to everyone he knew as a ‘genius!’ Ruskin who now regarded Watts as ‘a man of great imagination and pathetic power,’  could see Watts lying on the sofa, with the 1857 Moxon edition of Tennyson’s poems open on his knee. Behind him stood the poet laureate, his face quivering with indignation as he explained, over his shoulder why the Pre-Raphaelite illustrations did not suit the poems. Ruskin, sitting at Watts’s side, looked up, deprecating Tennyson’s criticisms on the artist’s behalf, ‘feeling very cowardly in the good cause-yet maintaining it in a low voice:

Painter’s ought to attend to at least what the writer said if they couldn’t, to what they meant while Watts and I both maintained that no good painter could be subservient at all: but must conceive everything in his own way that no poems ought to be illustrated at all but if they were the poet must be content to have his painter in partnership not a slave.’ 

That summer, Idylls of the King, published to critical acclaim, and established Tennyson among England's finest poets, as Watts acknowledged when Emily sent him a copy of the poems: 'I feel happy to have lived at the time of their production, and proud of being acquainted with the Poet.'

One of the last photographs of 'Signor' G.F. Watts, 1903-4