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Artist or Maker: Augustus John, O.M., R.A. (1878-1961)
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Provenance: Edgar Hesslein, New York.
with Agnew's, London, 1962, where purchased by Mrs John Dewar.
Sir Richard Jenks and by descent in the family to 2006.
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Exhibited: Brooklyn Museum, 1922, lent by Edgar Hesslein.
London, Upper Grosvernor Galleries, Loan Exhibition, April 1965, no. 59, lent by Mrs John Dewar.
London, Haberdashers' Hall, on loan until 2006.
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Notes: Augustus John, O.M., R.A. (1878-1961)
lots 107-113
Following the death of his mother, Augustus John and his sister Gwen moved with the rest of their family to Tenby, Wales, where they led a free and unruly childhood with very little formal education. Both he and his sister attended the Slade School in London, where Augustus became recognised as the most talented draughtsman of his generation. During his time there students were asked to copy drawings by Watteau and other 18th Century masters as part of a competition that Augustus won. His drawings of this period are characterised by long, rythmic outlines. Augustus was elected to the Royal Academy in 1921. His sister Gwen also became a talented artist in her own right (see lots 183 and 185).
In 1901 John married his first wife, Ida Nettleship, a fellow student from the Slade with whom he had five sons, David, Caspar, Robin, Edward and Henry. It is at this time that he became interested in the rich culture of Roma people, studying the Romany language and drawing them (see lot 110). In John's own words he says: 'If asked what it is that has fascinated some people about Gypsies (a fascination which is incurable), I might allude to their physical comeliness; their pleasant manners;... their ready wit and gaiety combined with pride; their essential honesty even when combined with prevarication; their love of children; and their exotic language and strange taboos- all these I might mention and still leave unexplained a mysterious something of which I do not know the name, but which I recognise with a thrill from a mile off' (see A. John, Autobiography, London, 1975, p. 358). John would be inspired by the Romany people for the rest of his life and went as far as buying a gypsy caravan and travelling round in it with his family for a time.
Augustus John met Dorothy 'Dorelia' McNeill in early 1903 (lot 107) and later that year she moved in with the artist, his wife and his family, becoming John's muse, fulfilling his fantasies of womanhood. Michael Holroyd comments in Augustus John a Biography, The Years of Innocence, London, 1974, I, pp. 148-9: 'She was, of course, hypnotically beautiful - almost embarrassingly so, Will Rothenstein found: 'one could not take one's eyes off her'... In his portraiture, Augustus was like a stage director, assigning his subjects all sorts of dramatic roles. Dorelia, it seems, acquiesced in them, fitted each of them to perfection - mother, mistress, little girl, phantasm, goddess, seductress, wife. She became all things to him; she was everywoman'. In a rare display of bitterness Ida writes to Dorelia in 1905: 'You are the one outside who calls a man to apparent freedom and wild rocks and wind and air'.
John's domestic life was an extraordinary tangle of passions and Dorelia continued to live in a ménage à trois with Augustus and Ida. She gave birth to two sons, Pyramus and Romilly, before Ida's death in 1907 (for a sketch of John's children, Edwin and Romilly see lot 108). It was around this time that John's drawing style changed slightly. He began to use elegant outlines on his figures in his pencil sketches, showing the influence of the works of Ingres and Puvis de Chavannes as well as Picasso, whose studio he visited in August of that year.
The height of John's passion and obsession for Dorelia as the embodiment of his complex ideal of womanhood is sensitively revealed in a rare and important portrait sketch of her circa 1904, lot 107. This powerful drawing portrays Dorelia as a mysterious gypsy woman, almost from another world, her face dramatically lit as if by camp fire, her hair falling wildly about her exotic features. An enigmatic, 'Mona Lisa' smile is on her lips and her hypnotic, unwavering, gaze draws the viewer in. John portrays her as he saw her, a woman of uncompromising beauty and serenity. The frenzied combination of bold and flickering lines in dark red chalk is typical of John's portrait sketches of this period where he is consumed with capturing the moment and injecting vitality. Dorelia demonstrates John's virtuosity as a draftsman, developing a method of linear drawing in colour whose success depended on his ability to make the drawing exciting, full of movement, energy and, in the case of Dorelia, passion.
Another chalk drawing of Dorelia's sister, Edie McNeill was sold in these Rooms 27 March 1997, lot 112.
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