including letters written to his wife Marion and some other correspondence
Letters to Marion
6 December, 1941
Saturday
Dearest Mog,
I got back all right. I hope I will see you again soon. I did enjoy being with you. Please give my love to Sybil and Alice and everyone.
Here is the money – also £1 as well. Will write a proper letter soon. Love to you and Julian – lots.
Bill wants 12 xmas cards.
Clifford
PS I forgot your deposit book. Can you send it sometime.
11 December, 1941
Thursday
Dearest Mog,
Many thanks for your letter which I got this morning. I am so glad you have found someone to look after Julian. I hope she turns out well and that you will have more time to yourself. I am on duty Saturday week and I dare not ask for the day off as I want to try and get a day later on so that I will be able at least to come to you for Christmas. Will let you know about this as soon as possible. I would not get enough time to come to Pearl. Things are getting difficult here. Lots of preparations for more raids. I have a gas exam next week and soon after Christmas I have to start on a course of lectures. Utterly, utterly boring. As for the gas my brain simply will not work. I can’t remember a thing about it.
Things certainly look bad at present and I am far from happy about it. Even my off days are often miserable.
This morning at 5am some bastard fell over me on the way to the lavatory. I did not get to sleep again. I started a painting at 10.30 and I was very tired. I painted badly and I will have to rub out all I have done – it’s only coloured turps and will come out easily. Isn’t it stupid? But I am not a superman. It would be so easy to do nothing these off days – and yet so difficult, for I am driven unmercifully, and I am glad, because sometimes I do have a good day, and although I usually start tired and I get going after a while – sometimes. And the maddening part of it all is this – I know how to do it. When I tell myself that I can’t go on and realize all the time I am just being silly. I will go on because I simply can’t help it. But I could cry that I have so little to show.
As you say, it might have been better to have lived in the last century. It is perhaps one of my greatest faults that I relate everything to myself, selfishly. I feel that in the last century I would have been a very bad artist, and I think that out of the present I will someday make something worth looking at. I see things so differently now. I have got to hold on to that and paint it.
I have been thinking about what Rowley wrote about the sort of effect a picture should have on those who look at it. Like the child’s reaction on seeing a Christmas tree all lit with little candles and the light sparkling. It’s not what I want a bit. I want to make something that will have a haunting quality, a mood that will steal over you slowly but inevitably with a feeling of nostalgia in it, like Chopin. I’ve got a hell of a way to go yet. I want the lovely moment that never happens again, and yet I want it to stretch back into the past, thousand and thousands of years, as long as there have been human beings; and to belong to the future as well. Perhaps I want it to have that quality they claim for God, I believe; the same, “world without end”, for ever and ever, the same. But, really how can I write these things? I can’t. They probably sound stupid. Just now and again I feel I am getting there with a brush. Do you know once or twice lately I was quite sure I had got there, at the time. The belief even persisted for a few days – weeks, and the I realized that I hadn’t. I think I will never know. One can only be certain of facts, and even those! Perhaps Turner was the wisest. You remember his lovely speech when he was made professor at the academy – “Well, gentlemen, painting, painting’s a rum go.” It pretty well covers all you can say about it.
And whilst I write, at the back of my mind something asks, uncomfortably, why do you write like this to her? Is it because you are not sure of yourself, or is it simply because you are not working enough? And how can you bother her with it anyway, when she has got so many worries and disappointments of her own. And so, dear forgive me.
Friday
I have put in for the 24th December. This means I could come to you on the 23rd and stay over Christmas but would have to go back on the 26th, the day after. Could you find out what buses will be running on the 26th in the morning, between East Meon and Petersfield and let me know when you write next.
Lots of love to you and Julian,
Clifford
16 December, 1941
My dearest Mog,
Thank you so much for the little panel and for you sweet letter. I am not at all sure I will be able to come at Christmas. A note came through yesterday stopping all leave. I am, of course, still trying to get it. Also, I may be called up in a few months – perhaps three. I have asked the Commandant if he will ask for my reservation and he says he certainly will; it is, however, far from certain the request will be granted – although I think there is a good chance of it succeeding. If it fails, I will have to do some quick thinking for I have made up my mind not to be in the army. Anything is preferable.
You can imagine I am not feeling particularly cheerful. I had looked forward to seeing you again, although it would have been for a very short time. If the worst happens and I am not allowed to come you must come and see me soon – and try to stay the night.
I started a 24 x 20 this week, don’t know how it will turn out – I always feel so tired, but I think I will get it – but slowly.
I will write again soon.
Lots of love to you and Julian. I hope you are able to get more sleep now.
Clifford
20 December, 1941
Saturday
My dearest Mog,
Here is the rest of the money, also five shillings for five of the cards. Bill hasn’t paid yet but it will be all right.
I do not know if I will succeed in getting to see you or not. It’s very difficult, and I may not know until the very last moment. We will just have to leave it that I will come if I can. I can’t help it. I had your letter. Don’t worry. I have made up my mind and I will not go in the army, whatever happens.
I have got a good watercolour for Sybil and Alice and also a little panel for Lena. I feel she should have something – she has done so much for us. The best I can do, and they are good pictures.
I saw the United Artists show yesterday; most depressing and not a patch on the last. A year of war has left its mark. My ballet picture is shied* although it looks well in its new frame, but Quentin** is very well placed and really knocks everything else on the wall. I hope you will come and see the show with me some time in the new year. It does not close until March so there is plenty of time.
*”shied”, meaning the picture was hung in a position where it might not be noticed or fully appreciated due to poor lighting etc.
** This is an obvious reference to one of Clifford Hall’s three portraits of Quentin Crisp. It is, perhaps, a little disappointing that Clifford wrote nothing in his journal about asking Crisp to pose for him or their first meeting. But this letter makes it clear that Clifford had told Marion about painting some pictures of Crisp. In actual his journal, Clifford made no mention of Quentin Crisp until January 1968. Editor
If I can’t come to see you, I will get Harry or Stanley to take my parcels – if they are not too loaded up.
Lots of love to you and Julian,
Clifford
‘Quentin Crisp’ 1941 by Clifford Hall.
A Chelsea ARP Cabaret Show, 1941, with set design by Clifford Hall.
A sketch of a cabaret set designed by Clifford Hall.
It seems highly unlikely that any of the theatrical scenery painted and designed by Clifford Hall has survived into the present day. However, this sketch has. And it is clearly linked to the backdrop seen in the photograph above. Editor