the Bloomsbury Group, he did not appreciate avant-garde artists like Matisse and
Picasso or the artistic movements they represented. There were two works by Sickert
in the Armory Show, one of which,
Church in Dieppe
, 1912, was lent by the artist
himself. The second painting,
Noctes Ambrosianae
, 1906, was lent by Walter L. Taylor
and is currently in the Castle Museum, Nottingham, England. The latter work is an
example of Sickert’s many paintings focusing on the London Theater, depicting a
crowd from the lowest cast of society in the “nose bleed” gallery in the Middlesex
Music Hall on Drury Lane, London.
Augustus John (1878-1961), a Welsh Post-Impressionist painter and printmaker, was
compared to Gauguin and Matisse in his treatment of the figure and is best known
today for his portraiture. He studied at the Slade School of Fine Art and was an
exhibiting member of the New English Art Club. He traveled widely and first visited
Paris in 1900. In addition to the French Post Impressionists, he was also influenced
by Rembrandt and El Greco. A prolific draughtsman and printmaker, he produced
numerous prints and drawings that shared a fluidity of line; his etchings in particular
convey the influence of Rembrandt’s prints. By 1900, he was one of the most famous
painters in Britain, recognized for his mastery of painting as well as his celebrity circle
of friends and bohemian lifestyle. He was a hopeless womanizer, and he and his
beloved sister, artist Gwen John (who also studied at Slade), became involved in
complicated relationships throughout their lives. Gwen in her tumultuous affair with
the sculptor, Auguste Rodin (36 years her senior), and Augustus in a string a
marriages and affairs that would bear him nine children. Augustus would occasionally
travel in gypsy caravans with his wife, mistress and all of their children. John Quinn
was an avid collector of John’s work, hence his significant contribution to the Armory
Show, and Quinn even offered financial support to Gwen John when she became a
recluse. While Augustus enjoyed fame in his own lifetime, he has since become a
lesser-known artist in the history British modernism, overshadowed by the more
avant-garde Bloomsbury Group artists.
Jacob Epstein (1880-1959) was an American-born ex-patriot who settled in London,
becoming an acclaimed modernist sculptor known for his public works. In 1896, he
studied at the Art Students League in New York and, in 1902, traveled to Paris to
study at the École des Beaux-Arts and the Académie Julien before moving to London
in 1905. In his sculptural work he developed a technique of direct carving, with
inspiration from non-western and ancient art traditions. Many of his public
commissions, for example the tomb for Oscar Wilde in Paris he designed in 1914,
were at first considered offensive and scandalous, but later became hallmarks of
modern sculpture. Epstein was a founder of the London Group in 1913, which was
the continuation of the Camden Town Group founded by Walter Sickert. In 1914, he
became recognized as a major contributor to the rising Vorticist group, headed by
avant-garde painter Wyndham Lewis, who called for a “new living abstraction.” The
aesthetic of the group was a dynamic, aggressive approach to abstraction,
influenced in part by the Italian Futurists. While he was one of the most avant-garde
of the British artists included in the Armory Show, his single bronze sculpture
Euphemia Lamb
(now in the Tate Britain, London) from 1908, lent by John Quinn,
was notably more traditional by comparison to his other works. Epstein was a major
influence on the next generation of English sculptors, especially Henry Moore and
Barbara Hepworth.
