Last week’s “raid” on London enabled me to take in the current exhibition at Tate Britain, entitled All too human. I’m still uncertain as to whether this is intended to refer to the artists represented there or to their subject-matter. The sub-title of the event was “Bacon, Freud and a century of painting life”, and starting with William Sickert we were indeed offered a highly instructive tour of British painting of the human figure, ending with Paula Rego and her younger contemporaries such as Celia Paul and Jenny Saville. I found it a very instructive experience because it complemented several lacunae in my own knowledge of art history (such as F.N. Souza and William Coldstream), and it re-enforced some of my established preferences (such as Spencer and Freud). It also presented me with a couple of puzzles. Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff were in there …. but not as painters of the human figure, which was a bit weird. The visit was certainly an extremely valuable complement to my regular attendance at a life-drawing class, and I will surely become a good deal more self-conscious about just what it is that I am doing on these occasions.
The visit made me think in other respects too. The two portraits by Stanley Spence of Patricia Preece brought home to me to an extent I have never fully appreciated before the desperate cruelty and hopelessness of that relationship. Did Spencer really understand, as he painted these images, just how much they made vividly apparent her complete indifference to him, and indeed her ability to mock his aspirations for their future together?
This testament to human unhappiness came to me as all the more shocking as it coincided with the twentieth anniversary of my wife and I moving into our home. On that occasion I placed white flowers in every room of the house, and this week-end I repeated the gesture. Perhaps I’m too happy a person ever to become an important painter.