May 22 1943
One or two drawings lately. Have spent a good deal of time on the Guys article Lillian asked me to write. Too much time away from painting although I have enjoyed finding odd bits about him. The trouble is that the pursuit of one man inevitably leads to others and I am now beginning to take a lively interest in Guys’ friend, Gavarni.
Stone bought the head I did of Hanna, the one I liked the best, and the Leicester sold another of the seaside pictures last week. I have only one desire – to be free from teaching which to me is simply a waste of time, and to somehow live by my painting. It won’t be easy unless I go in for flattering portraits, which I loathe, or paint always the same sort of subject the same way – the subject that happens to sell; and that would only mean exchanging one kind of slavery for another.
A week or so after making the note on Guys (entry for April 24th last) Lillian asked me to write an article on him for a book on his drawings Faber are to publish this year.
June 2 1943
Commenced a painting of Hanna (24″ x 18″) last Saturday. Second sitting last Tuesday. This evening I painted a sketch of Elizabeth (16″ x 12″) not so bad. It would be worth making a larger one of the same subject.
Still polishing up the article on Guys.
June 3 1943
Teaching all day. 5 o’clock saw Mr Wheeler, art dealer, Ryder Street. He gave me some interesting information about Guys.
Later in the evening in the evening worked on the background of the sketch I did yesterday.
‘I sat for Mr Chapman the other day. He has two little dippers on his palette. You have only one. What does he have in the other?’
‘Inspiration, probably.’
June 6 1943
Today and yesterday worked at the painting of Hanna. She is called up and leaves London next week so I won’t be able to finish it. Did all I could to get as much into it as possible. I shall miss her greatly – she has been very good to me.
June 9 1943
Painted a little head of Hanna yesterday afternoon and evening. She has got her call up deferred. Thank God.
June 14 1943
Julian has been here (in London) for three days. I enjoyed seeing him. Said goodbye this evening. Felt sad. Went for a walk by the river. Later called on Julie who told my fortune with cards. A fair woman, I don’t like blondes, small lots of money then success and plenty of money. Marion, she said, was not with me but behind me. All wrong, I think. Cryptic, anyway.
June 15 1943
Took three paintings to the Leicester Gallery. 1) Rue Moïse , 2) Thames Above Walton and 3) Elizabeth. They kept all three.
Saw paintings by Camille Pissarro, serene and thoughtful. Also paintings by his sone, Lucien, A sweet echo of his father. A roomful of oil paintings by
Lord Methuen. A sound eye for values. He got that from Sickert, otherwise very surface and commonplace. Thoroughly competent in their way.
Did practically no work during the last three days. Drew in a painting. Cut the Guys article about. Added a little, but took out more than I added.
Commenced a painting of Hanna looking at herself in the mirror. Full of problems and very interesting.
June 19 1943
A 20″x 16″ oil of a street in Marseilles, from a watercolour. Worked all day at it. Seven hours. I like it pretty well. Sorry I sold all the other watercolours I did of the place. I feel I could have used them for larger works. The Marseilles I knew has gone.
Evening at Wimbledon to hear Will’s sonata. Enjoyed it immensely. A good day.
Palette for this – Alizarin Crimson, Cadmium Red, Indian Red, Flake White, Golden Ochre, Chrome Yellow, Cobalt Blue, Cerulean Blue, French Ultramarine, Viridian, Ivory Black. Medium: equal parts turpentine and linseed oil. The picture washed in the previous day with coloured turpentine.
June 24 1943
Model this evening. A young, lovely figure, pure in line. Realized with surprise that the type did not interest me – it used to. I wanted something more opulent, less perfect. Made a couple of passable sketches and tore up two others.
June 25 1943
Spent the evening with Marion. You cannot have your cake and eat it. What a pity. If only one could!
Today was Celia’s birthday. I thought about sending her a telegram. Didn’t send it. Beales saw her in ‘The Quest’ last Tuesday. Said she was magnificent. I felt strange when I heard it. And now Bill has used a version of something he saw in my diary, about her, worked it into a novel. Curious.
June 28 1943
Took Guys article to Lillian at the National Gallery. Saw a superb Goya
three-quarter length of a young woman seated. She was leaning against the passage wall of the basement. Disgraceful. They buy that ridiculous Etty
(sometimes I love Etty. This particular portrait is, however, not a good one) and pass it off as a Géricault. The inference is obvious – in both cases.
June 29 1943
Another sitting from Hanna.
July 4 1943
Finished painting of Hanna yesterday – the one in the looking glass.
I must have a good two months – the holidays, August to September – and do lots of painting. I could never do enough.
I have made up my mind that I must have an exhibition at the Leicester Gallery. It is going to take me a long time to get sufficient work together. But I will do it.
July 7 1943
Started to colour blue monochrome of four clowns.
July 10 1943
Went on with the clowns.
July 13 1943
Commenced another painting of Hanna.
July 17 1943
Worked at painting of clowns. Improved – but it is hard going. Tomorrow I will be painting scenery all day for the school.
Yesterday morning an extraordinary thing happened. A letter came from Celia. Here it is:
Wednesday night.
Opera House,Manchester.
My dear Clifford,
Would you please write and tell me you’re alright ‘cos I had a nasty dream about you. So sorry to be a nuisance.
Hope all is well.Celia
A stamped, addressed envelope and a piece of blank paper were included!
I replied, against my judgement, this morning.
But of course it is all finished with. Celia, you gave me more happiness and more misery than I can say. And the effect of the whole business on others – that’s the horrible part. I had to reply, but I almost wish you hadn’t written. I do not think I could trust you again, or myself. I’ll stick to painting.
July 18 1943
Looking at what I did yesterday. It is not so bad, In fact, better than I thought. There must be a sharp difference between work painted direct from nature and work painted from drawings. The latter inevitably loses a great deal, on the other hand it should gain in significance. The thing has had time to distil. It will be more a product of the intellect than of the emotions and as such will not be so attractive to many people. To sketch always from nature and never to work from drawings is to run the risk of coming to rely on accidental qualities. Nature changes too quickly for us and all painting from nature is necessarily sketching.
These are figures, solid figures contained in a box. They are removed from one another and there is space around them. And the whole affair is set back within the frame.
At the moment I think it has these qualities. When I look at it again I will probably decide it hasn’t and will have to be repainted.
July 24 1943
Sketched on the common* – a little of people going to the Fair. A sweet light.
*The Common in question was probably Putney Common. Editor
July 27 1943
After an interval of a week, no, it must be two weeks, went on with head of Hanna. Behind her a mirror reflecting her hair, on the right a vase with a rose in it. I had a fair amount of difficulty to get this going again, but I think it is now set in the right direction.
July 28 1943
A day at the sea!
Painted Southsea pier from drawings made years ago. Enjoyed myself doing it.
Evening at the Player’s Theatre with Peter – and I enjoyed myself again.
Tomorrow Reg Reynolds comes for me to go on with his portrait – the one I commenced weeks and weeks ago. It will be a tussle.
July 29 1943
Not so bad, but a great deal to do yet.
August 2 1943
Have been working hard to put as much as possible into my painting of Hanna; for she is really going this time. Repainted entirely. Also a little sketch of her in a pink dress. I do wish she wasn’t going away.
August 3 1943
Morning with Lillian at the National Gallery. Final corrections to article on Guys. We went to the Wilson Steer exhibition. It did not disappoint me for I have never been able to think a great deal of him. He seems to have done nothing out of the way since the 1890s; of which period the ‘Boulogne Sands‘ is a minor masterpiece*. I conclude that Steer always knew the right people. Even then it is almost incredible that he could have been, and still is apparently, taken so seriously as a painter. ‘Steer was beyond doubt the greatest of our landscape painters since Turner or Constable -‘ says D.S. MacColl in the foreword to the catalogue. Balls. Just balls. Steer was a poor imitator, limping far behind those masters. And what sense is there in being only an imitator? The landscapes of
J.D.Innes and the last landscapes of Rowley Smart are a thousand times finer than anything of Steer’s. As a figure painter he is weak. His watercolours, in their way, are perfect, yet one watercolour by Whistler, from whose work in that medium Steer’s technique is derived, is worth the lot.
* Influenced by Toulouse Lautrec and the Impressionists, but fine, for he has put something of himself into it. C H
Some of his landscapes in oil would be acceptable if painted on little panels about 9″ x 6″, but he paints them on 24″ x 20″ or even larger canvases and only succeeds in getting them empty.
What a contrast to the Sickert exhibition in the same gallery some time ago! There was something fine. There is practically nothing in the mature Steer.
Afternoon. Went on with the portrait of Reg.
Evening. Sketched at the Anglo-Polish Ballet. Later strolled up Shaftesbury Avenue. Jennette was leaning in her doorway. Talked for a few minutes. She looked most attractive. She kissed me ‘goodnight’ on the cheek. She smelt lovely. A most attractive perfume and I felt it hanging about all the way down the street until I lost it at Piccadilly Circus.
August 4 1943
Last night a most lovely girl spoke to me near the Regent Palace. She reminded me of Celia – the same type of head and figure – not so beautiful, but still she reminded me. I wanted to ask her to let me paint her but of course I didn’t – wish I had. Still I expect she is there every night. I saw her go into a house opposite the entrance to the stage door of the Piccadilly Theatre.
August 6 1943
Worked at a little oil painting I had commenced yesterday. Said goodbye to Hanna. Not a very happy day.
I hope to finish the portrait of Reg next week. Then I must go to Guildford and paint two portraits. Get them done and with the money I make pay models and start at least two fair sized pictures before school starts again.
August 7 1943
Wiped out everything I had done to yesterday’s painting. Commenced a charcoal drawing, 24″ x 20″ from a painting of Celia.
Hanna came in the afternoon and we said goodbye again.
August 8 1943
Guldford to arrange about painting the portraits of Reynard Cooper’s children. Start there on Monday week.
August 9 1943
Morning. Went on with drawing an added some colour with pastel. Afternoon Reg sat again. I hope to get his picture done this week.
August 10 1943
Morning. Started a painting of a street in Marseilles from a drawing made in 1935. Afternoon. Repainted the coat and various other portions on Reg’s portrait. I think I must leave it now. Satisfied? Yes and no.
Immediately after they are done I always get more pleasure from my sketches than my pictures. But in time a sketch grows thin, its impact slowly loses force, whereas the picture gradually reveals qualities the existence of which I had not at first perceived. Not always, alas! Will this one be one I will like more and more? I cannot say. It is too soon. At the moment I am in a state of complete reaction. He likes it.
When all is said, painting is a damned unsatisfactory business, and yet I love it, and cannot leave it alone. Like love. That’s damned unsatisfactory too, and I must have it. What can you put in its place?
The fact is I feel rather dull these days. No, not dull, inexpressibly sad. I have faith in my work, only I realize now that kind of faith is not sufficient. More, far more is needed and I have not got it. That is why I am so sad. And I have made him look sad too. He takes life seriously, that is why.
At Guildford last Sunday I saw two of my paintings. ‘The Bar, Café du Dôme’, and a 24″ x 20″ of the Place du Tertre. Painted, the first about 1929 and the second in 1935. It seemed to me that I had not improved at all since those days. The café is certainly uninteresting in colour but it has atmosphere, character and good design. The other one surprised me. I found it had qualities that I now try to get, and I had got them then without trying, as a matter of course, as one should. All this is very depressing.
Perhaps it is true. All through life you are only able to say the same thing. As you advance, you say it all more carefully. Your first picture is your last.
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Two weeks of holiday. Completed:
Portrait of Reg Reynolds, 23″ x 19″
Hanna (with mirror and flower), 20″ x 16
“The Pier, 14″ x 10″Hanna (asleep in pink dress) 11” x 15
“Resting (Celia), charcoal and pastel, 24″ x 20”
——————————————————–
And there lies the carnation, at her feet.
Peter Stone has bought my nude of Celia. I did not want her to go, but she haunted me, smiling from the wall. And if I took her down and put her away I was always getting her out again, to look and remember.
How lovely she was! I was never completely unaware, for long, of her bad characteristics. Her selfishness, her fits of aloofness, cruelty even; only her loveliness held me utterly, and even now I cannot forget it.
Faced with such beauty it seemed to me that I must give it some more permanent form. And I was only able to do so little.
She loved her work and that explains everything.
August 11 1943
Went on with the street in Marseille (15″ x 24″).
Afternoon Reg brought Ethel Mannin (his wife) to see his portrait. I think her reaction was somewhat mixed, but how delightful it is to paint a portrait that is not commissioned. You do it your way.
Letter from Hanna. She is miserable. Who wouldn’t be? So am I. I have lost, for the time being, a real friend, a delightful model. This wretched war makes everyone unhappy.
And always Julian and Marion are in my thoughts. I wish I were with them. I want to be able to divide myself into several parts. That is the trouble. I am incapable, it seems, of giving all of myself in one direction. And one should be able to do that. Should one? Really I must get my life in order. I am beginning to experience loneliness. A new feeling and I don’t like it at all. It’s horrible. I still don’t know what to do. One part of me wishes to go in one direction, another pulls me somewhere else, and another and another.
When I paint I forget everything and I am only conscious of my painting. Well, as long as I have that I should be thankful. It is not always, you know, that I am able to lose myself in my work. Too often my thoughts wander in a dozen different directions, and my work goes slowly, and without inspiration.
August 12 1943
Got up early and painted until 3.30. Then went to the Private View at the Leicester Gallery. Saw Brodsky, whom I like, and Nina* whom I don’t like. Hanna’s watercolours are both sold. Back here about 5.30 and worked again until the light went. I cannot make up my mind whether I like what I have done today or not – the Marseille street (15½ x 24″).
* Brodsky refers to the Australian artist Harace Brodsky and Nina refers to the British artist Nina Hamnett, and in this instance Clifford is probably talking about liking and disliking the particular paintings he saw at the exhibition, rather than how he felt about the artists themselves. Nina Hamnett was an acquaintance of his whom he had known for a number of years. Editor
August 13 1943
Early again, I retouched yesterday’s painting. It was nice and sticky, on a course canvas. Just right for what I wanted. Now I think I may leave it. Putting a little girl in a white dress on the bottom left hand side of the picture seems to have pulled the whole thing together. I feel this is a great improvement on the last but one street scene I did away from nature (La Place du Tertre).
There are three other sketches of Marseille. One I gave away; the other two I sold. If only I had them back I could make paintings from them. You should never part with your sketches.
August 14 1943
Getting ready to go away. Made a few sketches at the Piccadilly Theatre.
August 23 1943
Back in Chelsea yesterday. Portraits successful. The one of the little girl in pink is a beauty.
August 25 1943
Working at a charcoal and coloured chalk drawing, size 17″ x 23″ from a little sketch I made of Celia in January 1941.
August 26 1943
Drew in a 30″ x 20″, a nude.
Evening – went to see Ted Kersley at Maida Vale. He cleaned the tiny Whistler panel for me with castile soap and warm water; also gave me a frame I can have cut down for it.
August 27 1943
Morning – started another large drawing in charcoal, from a sketch of Celia and Jenny. Afternoon, I went on with the nude.
August 28 1943
Another model, but it didn’t go well, and after three and a half hours I wiped out all I had done.
August 29 1943
Worked on the drawing.
August 30 1943
Another sitting for the nude with the mirror in the background. It is not going to be easy. Also did a little more to the drawing I was at yesterday.
August 31 1943
Finished laying in the nude. The main values are now started. The next job is to complete it – a piece at a time. A big a piece each sitting as I can manage comfortably.