Sunday, December 31, 2017

Small Scenes - Nineteen Forties (Preserved in London)

Pierre Roy
Boris Anrep in his Studio, 65 Boulevard Arago
1949
oil on canvas
Tate Gallery

THE GIFT

Of the frail promises that lovers live on,
I shall not make one.  Instead
You shall inherit my bare room
And my hard bed;

And the view from my high uncurtained window,
The sky whereon the moon is set
Like tinfoil, and an ancient tree
Whose boughs have never blossomed yet.

– Bette Richart (1949)

William Roberts
Cantering to the Post
1949
oil on canvas
Tate Gallery

Barbara Hepworth
Project for Waterloo Bridge: The Hills
1947
oil, crayon and watercolor on paper
Tate Gallery

Barbara Hepworth
Project for Waterloo Bridge: The Valleys
1947
oil, crayon and watercolor on paper
Tate Gallery

TO MR. MUSCLES

Desire must touch first the spirit.
Who can be fooled by Paris's dimpled knees?
Who would not sleep in Vulcan's bed
Could he match her the jewel
In the eye of the robin,
Or meet her on the mesa of her mirth?
What is of the flesh only
Is heavy and rests there
Like a diamond on a dowager
Its value obvious but its meaning none.

– Inez Boulton (1947)

Wyndham Lewis
Portrait of Nigel Tangye
1946
oil on canvas
Tate Gallery

Frank Dobson
Nude
1946
drawing
Tate Gallery

Cedric Morris
Iris Seedlings
1943
oil on canvas
Tate Gallery

COWARD

You, weeping wide at war, weep with me now.
Cheating a little at peace, come near
and let us cheat together here.

Look at my guilt, mirror of my shame.
Deserter, I will not turn you in,
I am your trembling twin.

Afraid, our double knees lock in knocking fear.
Running from the guns, we stumble upon each other.
Hide in my lap of terror; I am your mother.

Only two, and yet our howling can
encircle the world's end.
Frightened, you are my only friend.

And frightened, we are everyone.
Someone must make a stand.
Coward, take my coward's hand.

– Eve Merriam (1943)

Duncan Grant
Portrait of Vanessa Bell (at Charleston)
1942
oil on canvas
Tate Gallery

James Pryde
A Fantastic Gateway
before 1941
gouache, watercolor
Tate Gallery

Victor Pasmore
Lamplight (during the Blackout)
1941
oil on canvas
Tate Gallery

MEMORY

Cities are walled.  It is a cruel land
And private as a dream.  Nothing alive
Will grow there, yet great ghostly acres thrive
On a sound, an odor:  one blown pinch of sand
Erects a cape, and soon the seas arrive.
But nothing alters there.  Beyond return,
Joys lost, like meteors, cross the indifferent night
And fall away.  While fixed, nailed to the sight,
Sharp as midsummer stars, that blind and burn,
Most distant moments lend their chilling light.
Retired as the face of one who died,
The landscape lies.  The structures, being old,
Keep griefs too awkward for one life to hold;
The rooms are many-mirrored, not for pride.
Yet there delight blooms in remorseless cold.

– Babette Deutsch (1941)

Stanley Spencer
Daphne
1940
oil on canvas
Tate Gallery

William Nicholson
Mushrooms
1940
oil on canvas
Tate Gallery

Clive Branson
Still Life
1940
oil on canvas
Tate Gallery

Duncan Grant
Girl at the Piano (Angelica at Charleston)
1940
oil on canvas
Tate Gallery

from STANZAS IN MEDITATION

Full well I know that she is there
Much as she will she can be there
But which I know which I know when
Which is my way to be there then
Which she will know as I know here
That it is now that it is there
That rain is there and it is here
That it is here that they are there
They have been here to leave it now . . .

– Gertrude Stein (1940)

Poems from the archives of Poetry (Chicago)