Friday, March 2, 2018

Artists in the Studio – Twentieth Century

Albert Besnard
Elderly Artist unable to paint, addressed by Death
1900
etching
British Museum

Clock

     In the warm air of the ceiling the footlights of dreams are illuminated.
          The white walls have curved. The burdened chest breathes confused words. In the mirror, the wind from the south spins, carrying leaves and feathers. The window is blocked. The heart is almost extinguished among the already cold ashes of the moon – the hands are without shelter – as all the trees lying down. In the wind from the desert the needles bend and my hour is past.

– Pierre Reverdy (1889-1960), translated by Lydia Davis (2013)

Muirhead Bone
In Camera (man watching another working in photographer's studio)
1901
drypoint
British Museum

Pieter Dupont
Portrait of Théophile Alexandre Steinlen in his Studio
1901
engraving
British Museum

Charles Conder
Schaunard's Studio
1904
lithograph
British Museum

Anders Zorn
Prince Paul Troubetzkoy in his Studio
1908
etching, drypoint
British Museum

Anders Zorn
Prince Paul Troubetzkoy working on a Bust
1909
etching, aquatint, drypoint
British Museum

The Fox and the Bust

The great man's an actor who parades in a mask
And glamor is all that hero-worshippers ask.
The donkey judges by superficialities;
Whereas a fox sees all that there is to be seen,
And from all sides. Since his sensibilities
          Discern more than surface sheen,
He dares say what he once said of a hero's bust –
          A quip that certainly was just.
Though larger than life, it was a hollow affair.
The fox in commending the sculptor's gift as rare,
          Remarked, "Fine head, but it lacks a mind."

How many grandees have fine heads of that kind!

– Jean de la Fontaine (1621-1695), translated by Marianne Moore (1953)

Jean-Louis Forain
Le repos du modèle (seconde planche)
1909
etching
British Museum

Gertrude Hermes
Work (The Studio)
1925
wood-engraving
British Museum

Blair Hughes-Stanton
The Model
1926
wood-engraving
British Museum

Axel Fridell
Studio Interior - Artist sketching a Couple
1932
etching
British Museum

Edgar Holloway
Self Portrait No. 7
1936
etching
British Museum

from Evenings of Certain Lives

Never painted anything
in frost-white or ice-skater blue
or that Irish green
in which the purple shimmers through –
always my own monotone,
my compulsion to shadows –
not pleasant
to pursue that path so clearly.

– Gottfried Behn (1886-1956), translated by Michael Hofmann (2012)

Joseph Syddall
Artist sketching
before 1942
drawing
British Museum

Philip Wilson Steer
The Studio
before 1942
watercolor
British Museum

Ceri Richards
The Artist's Studio - Blue Nudes
ca. 1952-54
lithograph on blue paper
British Museum

Poems from the archives of Poetry (Chicago)