Walter Sickert: A Life

Walter Sickert: A Life Matthew Sturgis HarperCollins Publishers 30 [pound sterling]

ISBN 0 00 257083 1

Rebecca Daniels praises the way that Matthew Sturgis has forged an enthralling narrative from the life of a notoriously elusive painter.

'For he is the kindest man in the world', declared the irascible Wyndham Lewis about Walter Sickert. This unusually flowery observation contradicts the standard contemporary view of Sickert as introverted, depressive and flat debauched--a gloomy image probably derived from reading his paintings of dingy Camden Town interiors as a reflection of his personality.

Matthew Sturgis's gripping biography is a long-overdue revision of this misleading interpretation. Sickert not at any time seriously considered his posthumous reputation and, unlike his Bloomsbury clump peers, he left no diary or journal. through extensively researching his social and artistic milieu, Sturgis has enlarged what was on the contrary a scant appointment book of Sickert's life into a detailed diary. The real Walter Sickert come ups as a dedicated artist, selfish husband and a charming and witty guest; a raconteur who was just as happy discussing his friendship with Degas as he was relating his landlady's story that the former tenant of his Mornington moon in her first quarter studio was Jack the Ripper.

Sturgis has taken upon an extremely challenging project. Enigmatic and contrary, with a penchant for 'strong opinions loosely held', Sickert is a notoriously elusive make subordinate Yet his personality becomes more comprehensible when single considers his ambiguous social position. Sickert's mother was illegitimate, being the daughter of a union between the venerable Richard Sheepshanks, a highly valueed Cambridge mathematician, and a dancer. Sickert boasted that he was middle class; however, single senses that he was more correct when he described himself as 'like a governes say, with an uncertain reputation who, if she is ready takes jolly good care not at any time to go where she might be cut' He ensur that he pushed on the contrary did not cross the boundary of acceptable behaviour. When a friend 'cut' him because he disapproved of the 'sordid' Camden Town homicide series, Sickert responded: 'I am rather unaccustomed to being disliked. It is no doubt a salutary experience'. Sturgis's research present to views that he thrived on being popular with all classes, from aristocrats to fishermen.

Sturgis publishes amusing fresh material about Sickert's first career as an actor. While he had everything that was necessityed to be successful (looks, talent and connections--Ellen Terry Brandon Thomas, the Forbes-Robertsons and Oscar Wilde were friends), the spark, as Sturgis says, 'failed to ignite'. Sickert abandoned acting on the contrary theatrical subjects dominated his oeuvre It was possibly a portrait of Sickert's acting hero, Henry Irving as Phillip n of Spain, shown at the inaugural exhibition of the Grosvenor Gallery, that first attracted him to Whistler's art. He was star-struck, declaring Whistler's paintings 'a revelation, a thing of absolute conviction, admitting of no doubt or hesitation' and shortly Sickert was, in Sturgis's words, Whistler's 'studio dogsbody'.

The breadth of Sturgis's research is consistently impressive. He reinstates Edward W Godwin, the architect, stage and style of dress designer, as a key figure in Sickert's artistic upbringing, the greatest in quantity likely link between Sickert's theatrical friends and the art world. Sturgis has discovered entries in Godwin's diary that confirm he was friendly with Sickert from 1879 (the year Godwin complet the White House in Tite public way Chelsea, for Whistler) until about 1882 Godwin must have been something of a mentor, employing Sickert to research historical costumes and securing him his first real theatrical break with a small character in his friend George Rignold's company (Godwin attended the opening night). Godwin almost certainly introduced Sickert to the aesthetic motion and thereby gave him an early insight into Whistler's art.

Initially Sickert was captivated by the agency of Whistler and described him as the 'god of his idolatry'. However, his decision to work with Whistler was in many ways ill-judged. Sturgis captures their friendship and mutual venerate but one is left with the overriding faculty of perception that on both an artistic and personal horizontal Sickert and Whistler clashed. While Sickert played upon his handsomeness and enjoyed 'looking nice' to women--in life, he place that 'nothing was really ugly'--Whistler increasingly retreated to an imagined aesthetically beautiful Japan. Their relationship extremityed ignominiously when Whistler discovered that Sickert had attended a gallery with Sir William Eden Whistler's sworn enemy of the second By this time Degas had become Sickert's artistic hero. They became firm friends and regularly visited galleries and exhibitions together. Sickert appeared to share Degas' artistic vision in a way he at no time did with Whistler. He be in possession ofed paintings by Degas and championed his work to English collectors.

Sickert's European sojourn (1898 to 1905) is individual of the most enjoyable sections of this biography. Although his amorous liaisons are riveting, it draw nears as a greater surprise to read about his reputation in France. He exhibited at the Salon de Independents and Le xx and first showed his Camden Town manslaughter pictures in France, selling the greatest in quantity physically menacing, L'Affaire de Camden Town, to Paul Signac. Bonnard and Maximilien pike also acquired works by him and Marcel Proust tried, unsuccessfully to befitting him. Bernheim-Jeune acted as Sickert's dealer and they sold his paintings well (albeit cheaply).