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Anthony Powell — The Artist as a Young Man
Powell is known as a novelist and book critic, but he probably began drawing before he knew how to write. In his autobiography, he relates that by the time he was six, his drawings, including a Mephistopheles, were shown to a visitor to his family. The term Post Impressionism (then recently introduced by Roger Fry) was bantered as the pictures were critiqued. He began at Eton in 1919 and took Extra Drawing from the drawing master Sidney Evans, who first told him of Picasso and Matisse. At Eton he drew for an art magazine, The Eton Candle (1922) , and at Oxford, which he attended from 1923 to 1026, his drawings appeared in another magazine, The Cherwell. His drawing Colonel Caesar Cannonbrains of the Black Hussars (1922) is reproduced in To Keep the Ball Rolling (p56).
Monthly Archives: August 2013
Lavery’s portrait of Lady Walpole-Wilson
At the home of the Walpole-Wilsons, Nick is accosted by Sir Gavin, who, “no doubt because he prided himself on putting young men at their ease, drew my attention to another guest . . . . This person was standing … Continue reading
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Victorian Monuments
On a warm Sunday in June, a walk in Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens kindles Jenkins infatuation with Barbara Goring. “That was the last day for many months that I woke up in the morning without immediately thinking of her[BM … Continue reading
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The Boyhood of Cyrus
The first time that Jenkins actually sees a Deacon canvas is when he visits the Walpole-Wilson house in Eaton Square about 1928. “The canvas, comparatively small for a ‘Deacon,’ evidently not much considered by its owners, had been placed beyond … Continue reading
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Tagged Art Institute of Chicago, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Wallace Collection
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Montmarte in Whistler’s Time
Nicholas, still remembering Mr. Deacon at the Louvre in about 1919, says that Mr. Deacon bemoaned the “‘Americanisation’ of the Latin Quarter,” and said, “I sometimes think of moving up to Montmartre, like an artist of Whistler’s time.” [BM 17/ … Continue reading
Perugino’s St. Sebastian
At the Louvre in about 1919, Nick and his parents run into Mr. Deacon, who has stooped over, magnifying glass in hand , to examine closely a painting of St. Sebastian by Pietro Perugino ( c. 1446-1524). [BM 14/10] Sebastian was … Continue reading
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Puvis de Chavannes and Simeon Solomon
Nick says of Mr. Deacon: “Puvis de Chavannes and Simeon Solomon, the last of whom I think he regarded as his master, were the only painters I ever heard him speak of with unqualified approval.” [BM 9/5] Pierre Puvis de … Continue reading
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Impressionists, Post Impressionists, Cubists, Surrealists
Mr. Deacon “disliked the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists almost equally; and was naturally even more opposed to later trends like Cubism, and to the works of the Surrealists.” [BM 9/~5] Mr. Deacon had strong historical precedent for his views. In April and … Continue reading
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sketch of Antinous
A typical patron of Mr. Deacon was “a big iron man” from the Midlands who after visiting Deacon in London would return to Lancashire with “an oil sketch of Antinous, or a sheaf of charcoal studies of Spartan youth at … Continue reading
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Mr. Deacon at Auction
Mr. Deacon reappears throughout A Buyer’s Market. The factual threads from which Powell wove Mr. Deacon are diverse. For example, as a teen Powell became friendly with Christopher Sclater Millard, the gay owner of a bookshop, a model for Mr. … Continue reading
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Mr. Deacon’s Pre-Raphaelite Influences
A Buyer’s Market (BM) opens with our introduction to the inimitable Mr. Deacon––painter, antique dealer, and enthusiast of radical leftist causes. Long after Mr. Deacon’s death, Nick comes upon some of his canvases at an auction of items of dubious … Continue reading
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