January 5 1946
It has not been easy to get my mind settled for work; I have, however, started, almost finished, the first painting of Hanna in the mirror; also a drawing of her which somehow insisted on going its own way and has turned out weird; not like her at all, but an interesting drawing all the same.
Paul Klee exhibition at the National Gallery. Packed with people. I could not get much out of it, and I do not feel like going again. Picasso is a very different proposition.
Like the ostrich, Klee has stuck his head in the sand. Only he has seen something there and done much with what he saw. But is it enough?
January 6 1946
Finished the monochrome preparation (Hanna) then I made a drawing of my sofa.
I have been here, at the studio for a week. I have been very happy, for I love the place and I love living just how I feel. Marion comes back this evening but I will be here again I know, and again and again.
Only one thing has disturbed me, the noise of the wireless set belonging to Lee-Hankey* next door. What an old idiot he is to be able to listen, for hours on end, to much the BBC calls entertainment. Last night after two hours of it I banged first the kitchen door and then the studio door as hard as I could. The wireless stopped. I must try this again.
* Probably William Lee-Hanke 1869-1952. Editor
January 8 1946
Worked at the ‘ River from Battersea Bridge’. I feel it looks a great deal better; not exciting but a picture you can sit and look at quietly and discover interesting things as you look.
The light goes very quickly these days, but I started early.
Varnished a panel of a ‘Dancer’ with wax and the ‘Dancers Resting’ with mastic. I will try these at the Leicester Gallery. Also the one of Hanna in mauve, lying on the sofa. Interesting to see if Brown takes any of them. He is a typical play safe dealer and would have me paint little panels of streets and the river simply because he has sold half a dozen or so. Thank God Lillian is not like that. My exhibition at her gallery will be in another five or six weeks. I am nervous about it. I do want it to be a success. I wonder, will the fortune teller be right about the Women by the River. She said it would make my name!
January 13 1946
No work since last Tuesday. Marion has been very ill and all my time has gone in looking after her and Julian. She is a little better today, but far from well and she has had a rotten time.
Snatched yesterday afternoon to see the show of Modern Dutch painting done whilst the Germans were there. A painter called Chabot struck me as having something fine to say, and saying it. Much of the work has, if nothing else, great vitality and makes most of our English painting seem stupid and lacking in any feeling of conviction.
January 20 1946
Was able to get some work done at last. A little oil of the clown on the stairs, a new version with the head and shoulders of two other clowns in the foreground.
Today I have done two drawings – one of a table with a bottle, bread, fruit etc., from a study I made last year; and another of Burnham also form an old sketch. I think I get something far more exciting when I draw or paint a subject some time after I have seen it. My memory gets a chance, I become less literal. And that is what I want.
Yes, I can feel myself beginning to get away at last from the desire to, how can I express it ? To copy nature. That is not exactly what I mean, but it is the nearest I can get to it in words. Exasperating words. But why should I worry about words? I have a more natural way of saying what I mean.
January 22 1946
Worked at a drawing for the other version of the ‘Clown on the Stairs’. Will go on with this tomorrow. Have decided to leave out a vertical. It is quite feasible; it could work and be supported without it. Why didn’t I think of it before? The gain in leaning of the principal figure is enormous.
January 24 1946
Drew the clown on a canvas 40″ x 30″. Started to do it yesterday. The picture should have something of the startling effect produced by the sudden catching sight of a poster, advertising a circus.
January 25 1946
Put back the vertical. He still leans over well enough.
Must phone Betty next week and see about her sitting for a painting.
January 26 1946
All day with the clowns. After making almost a mess of it I got it much better, and I know just what I have to do tomorrow.
I must admit I have felt very tired today.
January 27 1946
Finished drawing of the clown.
January 30 1946
Yesterday and today I worked at the Clowns, also began a drawing which I will go on with tomorrow. My exhibition opens in two weeks time and I am very nervous about it.
January 31 1946
What dark days we have lately, rain and a bad light. Painted the drawing I started yesterday. It is of my humming birds, released from their glass case. How easy body colour* is compared with oils; but of course the former can never count for as much, simply because it is so simple to use. What would look incomplete in oil painting appears delightfully mysterious in the lighter medium. I must not indulge in it too often.
* Body colour – i.e. Gouache. Editor
February 1 1946
Another drawing of the humming birds before lunch.
Afternoon: worked on a painting of clowns that I started sometime last years. Improved it.
February 2 1946
At the gallery to arrange the exhibition, or rather to help arrange it. Not enough room for all of them. On the whole I think I am pleased with the general effect but I must do a great deal better in the future.
But it has helped me to realize better those aspects on which I should spend most of my time, and those aspects I should ignore.
I do feel it is my best exhibition so far although I am sorry I could not have included a number of drawings. They are so much more important than paintings; naturally they are more difficult to sell.
Evening: Bryan Robertson was here to talk about the article he is writing on me for the ‘Studio’. And Meg Woolf who showed me a lot of sketches she had done at Burnham. She certainly got some things I missed.
February 3 1946
Made a drawing of Celia.
February 5 1946
A drawing of Pelham Street. I think this subject would make a good painting. Windy and cold. I must do some more drawings of this street.
February 6 1946
Started another drawing of Pelham Street, more careful, to paint from; I will try to finish it tomorrow if the weather is good enough. And then a colour sketch as soon as possible; Sunday, maybe.
February 7 1946
A most exciting morning. Did four drawings in ink retouched with body colour. Variations on a theme. Two were not quite right so I tore them up, but the remaining two really pleased me. After lunch I went to Pelham Street and finished my drawing. I must get the sketch for the colour done soon. Perhaps I can paint it on Sunday, Celia is coming tomorrow and I hope to start a painting. Saturday I am helping to hang my pictures for the exhibition.
February 10 1946
Started a canvas of Celia on Friday. Spent most of Saturday at the gallery. A very good start, the exhibition does not open until Thursday, for the Contemporary Art Society have bought one already*. It is the little panel I painted that frightful evening when I was so much in love with Celia and she went away. But there is no need to go over all that again. It seems strange.
*Clifford Hall’s first exhibition at Roland, Browse and Delbanco commenced with the Private View on Thursday, 14th February, 1946. Editor
February 11 1946
Spent the morning at some drawings of two nuns – from my sketchbook. Went to Pelham Street after lunch and just as I had got my palette set, out came the sun; so back I went because I will not have the sun in this picture.
I was annoyed thinking all the colours would be wasted, then I thought of the two nuns so I painted a little panel of them having first gone to the corner of Manresa Road to make a sketch of the shop window in which they were looking when I first saw them.
February 12 1946
Another picture sold, and it’s not open yet. Birmingham City Art Gallery have bought ‘Cheyne Row, Winter’ for fifty guineas. There is quite a bit of satisfaction in reminding myself that this is one of the pictures the Academy rejected last March.
February 17 1946
Sunday. Last Wednesday I painted a sketch of Hanna standing by the window of her room. Thursday was my private view. Four pictures sold and everyone very pleased.
I was happy but glad when it was over and the morning after I felt very depressed and not because of any wild celebration the night before. But the light was as I wanted it so I went to Pelham Street and painted the colour sketch for my picture. I started to draw it on a 24″ x 20″ yesterday. About 3.30 I went to see my mother arriving at 4 o’clock. The river looked perfect and I made a note in my sketch book writing down the colours; and this morning I painted a little panel from the sketch. I will go there again. This afternoon I went on drawing Pelham Street.
On Saturday two more pictures sold, one to Sir Kenneth Clark.* You know I think the exhibition will be a real success, but I must paint far better. Lillian has done wonders and worked so hard for me. It would never have happened without her.
*The (second) picture bought by Sir Kenneth Clark was ‘The Storm’ (shown on the previous page), who gifted it to the Contemporary Art Society. It was subsequently presented to Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, Bradford. Editor
February 19 1946
A little more work to the canvas of Pelham Street.
February 20 & 21 1946
Two days spent working from imagination. Result; about a dozen drawings, of which four are worth keeping. Must go back to nature tomorrow.
February 22 1946
Two drawings of birds.
February 23 1946
Two more versions of women in white bathing wraps, a shower falling from the sky. I have done at least eight of these; at last one good one has emerged.
February 24 1946
Worked at the painting of Celia.
February 26 1946
Sketched Pelham Street, coloured turpentine.
Last week went again to the Constable exhibition , this time with Lillian and Jack to the Jack Yeats show which is magnificent. He has said things with paint that have never been said before. Amazing moments, fleeting and lovely. And I enjoyed the Constables even more and appreciated the finished paintings; only they must be looked at from a distance. The greater the finish of detail the further off one should go in order to see all their perfect qualities.
Tomorrow I think I will try a small oil painting of the women in white bathing wraps.
February 28 1946
All yesterday at a painting which in the end I had to take out. Today I painted a little canvas of two nuns, how these creatures are beginning to fascinate me, from some sketches I made walking along the Kings Road a few days ago.