including letters written to his wife Marion and some other correspondence
Letters to Marion
3 January, 1942
Dearest Mog,
Thank you so much for your letter. Did you get mine?
Let me know when you are coming. Would Saturday the 10th be all right? I am off that day. I think you said a Saturday would be best. If not, it would have to be the 24th. I hope you can stay the night. I will try to get permission to come in late on the Sunday morning. I hope you are all right darling.
I have been sleeping a little better but this job is really getting me; however, there is no alternative that would not be just as bad, if not worse.
I took some pictures to the Leicester Gallery yesterday and I think they really liked them. Brown* has promised to have some in their next mixed show, whenever it is; anyway I will keep him up to it. If only this bloody war was over, I could get moving!
* Brown is Oliver F Brown (1885 -1966), the only son and eldest child of the art dealer Ernest Brown (1851-1915), who co-founded the Leicester Galleries in London circa 1903 with brothers Wilfred and Cecil Phillips. Editor
Everything seems a continual rush and yet practically nothing is accomplished. That’s how my life seems. And when the war is over, I need a place to work and time to work in it and heaven knows how I will get it. Sometimes it really frightens me, for I am not just thinking of myself but of you because you are not having a cheerful time either and you must not have to go on being miserable. Still, it’s a mistake to meet trouble half way. I know it, it’s a big fault of mine; and I continue to commit it.
I wish I could send you more money. Perhaps I will be able to soon. It is very difficult. Everyone says I am painting lots better (when I paint!) and no one buys ’em. I simply haven’t the time to do anything about it. It’s all I can do to produce one oil a month and often I fail to do even that. I am seeing Lillian on Tuesday, maybe I can get her to sell something for me. Also there is a chance of selling some drawings of Chelsea to the Library. We will see, but there is damned little money about.
Forgive me for not being more cheerful. I hope you will come soon. Don’t know when I will get anymore leave. There was a bit of trouble over the Christmas one. I don’t care I am glad I got it.
Lots of love to you and Julian,
Clifford
9 January, 1942
Dearest Mog,
Thanks so much for both your letters. I am sending you the ten shillings from Bill for your cards. He gave it to me last week but I had to embezzle it, I was so hard up. The doctor’s bill seems far too heavy. How many times did he visit? Don’t bother about it yet, we can talk about it when we see each other. I think the 24th will be fine and I will look forward to seeing you then. I will try to get some tickets for the ballet in the evening and you must stay here overnight.
I hope to make some money soon. The library may have some of the drawings of Chelsea. Their committee will see them at their next meeting. I wish I had never taken on this job. I believe I would have got by somehow. I am no financial use to you anyway and I am forced to waste so much in the most boring way imaginable. On Feb 2nd I must go on a week’s course in rescue work. Every bloody day!
Come on the 24th and we will enjoy ourselves.
Lots of love to you and Julian. I had a nice letter from Anne.
Clifford
17 January, 1942
My dearest Mog,
I am expecting you next Saturday, so let me know what time your train arrives and I will be there to meet it.
I have got good seats for the ballet in the evening. They are doing Syphildes, which is always lovely.
I am making every effort to get some money in and there is now £1.10 in your deposit account which you can take out for anything you must have for yourself.
It is some time since we had any serious raids although there has been a little activity this week but it really would have been impossible for you to stay here when things were bad. You cannot realise what it was like – night after night. No one can unless they have actually experienced it. And the whole trouble is it may start again: and one never knows when. It is a horrible situation and it has gone on so long.
There is a scheme now to make us do war work on our off days! That will be goodbye to everything – but it hasn’t happened yet, and from what I have seen of our ability to organize there is a very good chance nothing will ever come of it. However, it is disturbing.
I hope we have a thaw before next weekend. At present there is no water and the lavatory is frozen too. I can get water from the timber yard and the usual quite incompetent plumber and his mate are making an awful mess. They promise water at any minute but they have been promising that all the week.
The parcel came from America and you must take back what you want from it. There is tea, cheese, corned beef, chicken spread and dried apricots. The tea canister burst and some of the tea was lost, otherwise everything was all right. I wrote to Stanley thanking him for it. It was so nice of him.
Write soon. Lots of love to you and Julian,
Clifford
Journal Entry
January 20, 1942
Conduit Street. I did not want to do any more to my painting of Emie, also it was very cold so she kept on her dressing gown.
‘I will make a drawing.’
‘May I read?’
‘Yes, of course.’
She sits on the bed and reads. She seems very interested in the book.
When I had finished I asked her its title.
‘Les Rues Secrètes. It is about prostitutes! Très intéressant.’*
I write the title of the book on my drawing. It seemed worth noting.
* The book Emie was reading was probably “Rues Secrètes” by Pierre Mac Orlan. Editor
Evening at the ballet, New Theatre, sketching in the wings. One I am pleased with, just a few lines and some smudges, and if you can’t understand it, it’s a pity, for I can.
Later at Bill’s and I am alone with Celia for a few minutes. About 12.30 I start home. Leo comes with me. He wants to see the painting of Emie, he had liked the other one so much. It is very cold and we get our shoes full of snow.
The studio is perishing. I showed him the picture and he looked at it for a long time, then he said it was like a painted Buddha or idol that had been lying there for hundreds of years and would always be there, knowing that it need not come to you for inevitably you would, sooner or later, come to it. ‘That is what I meant,’ I said, ‘only my painting is all I will give it, all I need to give.’
‘That’s where you’re lucky.’ He asked to see the last one of Celia – the one with the arms raised above the head, which is in profile. ‘You have gone deeper with that than with any of the others.’
‘I know.’
‘I have seen the mood so often. She sometimes looks like that for hours and says nothing, and oh so much is going on inside her head. If I had been able to paint it I would have put a touch here and there of caricature, cruel touches.’
‘And I only want to make it as lovely as I can. I always want to do that when I paint her. My pictures of her paint themselves. I am very happy when I paint them.’
‘There is the difference, Clifford. I am cynical, like my father, you are a saint. If I thought I could have dislodged you I might have tried, once. But you are something she believes in, someone she needs. She has a kind of hate for me, a loving hate. She treats me as a mother might treat a very bad child. We could never quarrel about her. We are black and white, one can’t quarrel about black and white.’
‘I would have gone,’ I said, ‘and I would have been utterly miserable.’
‘She would not have let it happen.’
‘For a very long time there was something I didn’t believe in because it had not happened to me,’ I told him.
‘Yes, you are very rational.’
‘Now I believe it because it has happened. But I have done a very dangerous thing, although I know it is the only thing to do. You see I have put all my eggs in one basket.’
‘You must not worry. They are perfectly safe, and you were right, it shows. Your work has changed so greatly.’
‘Some day you may do what I have done Leo. Then there will be trouble.’
‘I won’t, but if I did there would be no trouble.’
I felt terribly cold. I looked at the clock: it was 2.30am – and I am on guard duty at 8.45.
We said good night. I smoked a cigarette and looked at the pictures again. Her bouquet of pink carnations was still on the table, since last Wednesday when she was with me – almost a week ago. The water it stands in is frozen, solid ice.
Emie reading ‘Rues Secrètes’, 1942, pencil drawing by Clifford Hall
Letter to Marion
22 January, 1942
Dearest Mog,
I have just had your letter. I am terribly sorry about last week, if I did not write. I thought I had. I had a hell of a lot to do, trying to find some way of raising money, getting a picture finished I want you to see and running around fetching coal and water. You may imagine. Everything is still frozen, but don’t let it worry you and I will have enough coal when you do come. You have not told me which train on Saturday, so if I don’t hear come straight to me. There is plenty for me to do to try to tidy up a bit.
Everything goes to pieces with this weather and I have no one to do the work now.
Can I work, you say, or is life too insupportable? What an idea! I am working very well and I won’t let anything stop me.
Standing outside myself and looking in as I sometimes do, I would say that if I did not work I would have no reason for being; that if I did not work, and work with feeling, I should deserve to be wiped out utterly. But I do not work to justify or explain, I work because now I feel things, and somehow they say to me – you must do this, you can’t help yourself, and you may never feel it just this way again and you may never, never, again have this time, so now work. It’s just like Morrison’s GO TO IT!
About my efforts to get money, I will certainly be able to let you have £3 towards that doctor’s bill next week, or even on Saturday, but it’s quite certain.
I am looking forward to Saturday and I hope I won’t have to go in too early on Sunday morning.
Lots of love to you both,
Clifford
Journal Entries
January 25, 1942
Marion came for weekend. She is very, very good. And I? I follow my instincts blindly – almost.
The essential quality of art is rhythm. It is the true quality of life. It can be fast or slow, infinitely varied, the same but always different, like beauty herself.
Rhythm is finish, completeness. That will o’ the wisp the good ones follow to the end. Three lines, less, can contain it, and you may spend weeks on a work and yet miss it entirely.
A man’s work is himself, no greater, no less; and if he cannot take out more than he puts in at least he knows he will receive in exact proportion to what he has been able to give. I find a real satisfaction in this knowledge although I could not tell you why.
All this I feel in terms of painting, but I feel it must be true of life as well; so maybe I have some nasty jolts coming.
None of us accomplish anything by ourselves. Sometimes others help us knowingly, sometimes unknowingly. And the dead can help us too, when their work lives.
Without this help, inspiration, if you like, we would exist in a kind of mental and spiritual vacuum – in nothingness, begetting nothing.
January 30, 1942
After Sylphides. ‘I was marvellous tonight, wasn’t I?’
Yes, you made me very happy, and lots of other people too, I think.’
‘When I jumped, I felt the wind rushing past me. My heart seemed to stop, and I thought I would never touch the ground again.’
A photo of Celia Franca in full flight. But as Mythra, Queen of the Wilis, in Giselle. Not in Les Sylphides.
Letters to Marion
30 January, 1942
Dearest Mog,
Thanks so much for your letter. I do hope you will be able to come here next week and I think I will be able to send the fare about Tuesday or Wednesday, which will be in time, won’t it?
I am afraid I will not have much work to show you this time. On Monday I start to waste the week, learning to tie knots, build bridges and so on. I always refused to join the Boy Scouts when I was a kid. Things have a way of catching up with one!
I did one or two nice drawings this week. I am starting scene painting the week after next. You must come and see the show. I think all three are good, and Bill’s would never get by the censor. They are also doing a play by Pirandello. That gets me out of all sorts of stupid work for weeks to come, of course, I will hang the job out – anyway there’s lots to do.
Lots of love to you and Julian.
3 February, 1942
Dearest Mog,
I hope the beastly weather won’t be stopping you on Friday. Will you go to Bill’s about 4/5 and I will be there about that time. It’s no good going to the studio, it will be wretchedly cold as this week I am out all day on this lousy course. I’ll be glad when it’s over.
I tried to get all the money for the fare and I hope to make up the rest when I see you.
I have kept you some of the cake. It is very good. The best I have tasted for a very long time.
Lots of love to you and Julian and hoping to see you on Friday,
Clifford
5 February, 1942
Just had your letter. Hope to see you at Bill’s about 5 on Friday.
Love,
Clifford
Journal Entry
February 9, 1942
‘ Good morning Mr. Hall.’
‘Good morning Mr. Leger.’
‘Yes, I wish we could sell something for you. We sold fifty Dunlops last year. Now have you something for my next exhibition. An oil painting. Something that will make them sit up. Something startling.’
‘I will bring a few paintings for you to look at, but I’m afraid I don’t paint startling pictures.’
On the 9th February, Bill wrote the following letter to Marion:
Monday
My dearest Marion,
I feel somehow that I let you down yesterday morning – that on one of the very few occasions that I might have been help to you, I just wasn’t. I’m so terribly glad that you came round to say goodbye but annoyed that there was so little time and that while I was listening to you I was also saying to myself: “shall I catch the train?”
I just did. It was 11.15 when I arrived in the King’s Road, fortunately a taxi came along and I was just able to scramble into the train at Charring Cross with not a moment to spare. What a journey? I hope you, when you travelled, weren’t so cold and freezing as I was! But Dumps was waiting at the other end and we had quite a happy afternoon at the Long Copses and I came back here laden with treacle, butter, matches and jam!
It was bad luck that you came the weekend when I was going to Sevenoaks – only because Dumps was going to be there. I thought of all the other Sundays when I have been alone at no 7. But I hope everything went alright for you and that you caught your train and that you didn’t feel too unhappy going back, although there wasn’t anyone to see you off. I do hope you will come up soon again and that I shall see you then.
Much love to you and my godson.
Yours very affectionately,
Bill
Letters to Marion
11 February, 1942
Dearest Mog,
I hope you got back safely, but I wish you could have stayed longer. There is still no water but it does not really matter.
I did a good drawing yesterday although my hand felt very funny at first, so clumsy. I hope I will paint this week. I need to cover dozens and dozens of canvases. There is never enough time. We may be going over to different hours – 36 on and 36 off. That will mean two days off at a time and I may able to get more done then. I hope they decide to do it but it’s all a muddle, as usual.
Did Julian like the horses? I was glad you came.
Write soon. Lots of love,
Clifford
And thank you for the note you left for me, dear.
PS I’ve just had your letter. I will get leave as soon as I can but I am afraid it will be some time yet. The new hours, if they are decided on would give me a chance to come and see you for a day. I hope you will come again soon. Yes, you did leave it is the drawer. Of course it will be all right.
17 February, 1942
Dearest Mog,
Thanks so much for your letter and the cheques, here is the ten shillings you should have had last time. Let me know as soon as you can when you are coming and I will be able to let you know if it is an off day for me. Try to stay overnight.
I wish I could understand life as well as I think I understand my work. That sounds quite wrong but it isn’t really Once I had second doubts about myself. After my first plunge I had, for years, slow growing doubts as to my ability to ever produce the work. I thought, if only I can do the work everything else is simple.
Then quite suddenly it seemed to me, although it must have been sleeping there for a long, long, time, I discovered I could do it. I knew how! I am not conceited, but I sand and almost danced, and ever since I get a thrill when I see what I am actually feeling coming into existence under my hands.
Then I made a further discovery, only the other day. I realized I was as far off what we call success as ever. For now I have something far harder to fight – circumstances. I fought to do good work, that was where I was wrong and what held me back, for it doesn’t happen that way. But circumstances have to be fought and I am really afraid when I think of the appalling difficulties of the present day. There is no question of turning back.
You say happiness is necessary. I believe it is. I work better when I am happy, but then work makes me happy, yet fine things come out of conflict. It’s all very difficult to understand.
When the war is over, perhaps I will be able to straighten things out. How many millions are thinking that, I wonder? And as for the war it is certainly going badly.
Write again soon, my love to you both,
Clifford
21 February, 1942
Saturday
Darling Mog,
Thank you for your letter. I am glad you are coming on Wednesday. I will expect you about 11.15. I would like to meet you but I had better stay and tidy up a but and get the stove going. Coal has been a shocking problem lately but I’ll have some for Wednesday.
I did another painting on Thursday and had a job with it. I thought it was bad and nearly took it out and finally stayed up ’til two in the morning working on it. Had my overcoat on and didn’t notice the cold somehow and now I like the painting.
Kiss Julian for me. I do wish I saw him more often. And my love to you,
Clifford
Julian Hall, aged about three.
Journal Entry
February 25, 1942
Marion came for the day. She asked me about Celia and I told her. Useless to have lied, for I knew she had guessed some time ago. My work alone gave me away completely.
I don’t know what to do. I cannot visualize being without Marion. I want them both, and there is Julian too. I cannot blame Marion for saying she will not come back.
I remember the night I was talking about Celia with Leo. I had suddenly asked myself about Marion and Julian. I said how appalling it was, hurting other people, the realization that one person’s happiness invariably meant someone else’s unhappiness. Perhaps I had Leo in mind too, for that night I knew he was unhappy. ‘One can’t help it,’ he said, ‘it’s impossible to do anything without hurting someone.’
It’s not so easy as that, I feel.
Letter to Marion
28 February, 1942
Dearest Mog,
I hope the journey wasn’t too bad. I am glad you gave me the photograph of Julian. It is very good.
I think we will be starting the new hours for certain sometime next month and then, if you will let me, I will come and see you both,
Write to me,
Love
Clifford