Sickert, W
NAME: Sickert, Walter
ACHIEVEMENTS: A leader in introducing modern ideas in art, through his own art and through his writing.
NICKNAME/ALIAS: None.
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: 31 May 1860, Munich, Germany.
DATE/PLACE OF DEATH/AGE AT DEATH: 22 January 1942, Bath, England. Aged 81.
DISCIPLINE: Painting.
FIELD: Art.
LANGUAGE: English.
PARENTS: Father: Oswald Adalbert Sickert, Danish by birth who became German as a result of the Prussian conquest of Schleswig in1864; later British by naturalization. Mother: Eleanor Louisa Moravia Henry, Anglo-Irish.
SIBLINGS: Two younger sisters; three younger brothers.
SPOUSE: First wife, Ellen Cobden, daughter of British Member of Parliament Richard Cobden. Second, Christine Drummond. Third, Therese Lessore, daughter of Jules Lessore, watercolour draughtsman.
CHILDREN: None
EDUCATION: Private school in Bayswater, London.
King's College, London.
MAJOR WORK: “Boredom (Ennui)”
LIFE AND TIMES: Against his father’s advice, Sickert pursued an insecure profession on the stage, passionately interested in theatre and with an intense admiration for <worked with> Henry Irving*, the actor-manager at the Lyceum Theatre in London. For a short period, he worked in Irving's company at the Lyceum, and at Sadler's Wells Theatre, but he never progressed beyond the smallest of parts.
Through his sister, Helena, Sickert met Ellen Cobden (daughter of MP <father-in-law was> Cobden*), whom he would marry. She was twelve years his senior and was a wealthy woman.
In 1881, aged 21, he enrolled at the Slade School of Fine Art, studying under Alphonse Legros, whose work, however, he did not admire. <a pal of> Whistler* persuaded him to leave the Slade and he went to work in Whistler's studio in Chelsea. It was through Whistler that Sickert met <a pal of> Degas* in Paris in 1883.
There, he stayed at the Hotel de Quai Voltaire as the guest of <stayed with> Wilde*. Whistler had given Sickert letters of introduction to Degas and <knew work of> Manet*, although Manet was too ill to see him. Degas invited him to visit his studio, where Sickert was impressed by Degas’ modern subjects, which were so different from those of Whistler.
In 1885 he met Degas again, in Dieppe. Degas took a liking to Sickert and they became friends. At Dieppe, Sickert also met <met> Gauguin* who, at the time, left little impression upon him as an artist.
Back in London, Sickert was moving away from Whistler's influence and during the 1880's he developed his own style that better suited his nature.
The Sickerts continued to spend summer holidays in Dieppe where he not only painted a series of pictures of Dieppe but also met <met> Monet*, <met> Pissarro* and <met> Renoir*. He was becoming established as a leader of the modern movement in England and was also becoming well known in the French art world.
By now Sickert was using a studio in Chelsea which was fast becoming the place for the young and artistic. In 1890, the Chelsea Art Club was opened in the Kings Road and here Sickert emerged as a leading figure, influencing many of younger contemporaries. He opened the Chelsea Life School, under the patronage of Whistler. Persuaded by his wife, Sickert also moved in left-wing political circles, meeting <met> William Morris*, <met> Shaw* and Oscar Wilde.
In 1894, Sickert became great friends with the group, including <met> Beardsley*, who started the Yellow Book, to which he contributed portraits and drawings. 1895 saw an exhibition of Sickert's work in London. The twenty-nine paintings shown included music hall pictures, views of Dieppe, Boulogne and Paris, and various portraits. The reviews, however, were not glowing.
After separation from Ellen, Sickert moved to Dieppe, his main base for the next seven years. His mistress at this time was a fishwife with a stall on the quayside, where he often helped to sell fish. He moved in with her and her children, of which at least one was his.
This liaison did not affect his social position and he was friends with Lady Blanche Hozier, a formidable grande dame who became the mother-in-law of Winston Churchill.
At this time, Camille Pissarro advised him about his palette. Both painters did pictures of St Jacques, though Pissarro was using a pointillist technique. He suggested that Sickert use less black because his interior scenes were often very gloomy.
Finances were not good and for a time he took a teaching job in Paris and in 1901-2, he also travelled back and forth to Venice. Here he was as popular as ever and a part of a select group that lived on the Grand Canal. He started to paint nudes, using Venetian prostitutes as models.
As a stimulus, Sickert returned to London in 1905, where the art world was alive with artists like <met> John* showing at the New English Art Club, and critics such as Clive Bell and Roger Fry, who were writing knowledgeably about modern art.
In 1908 he took up a teaching post at Westminster Technical Institute where his first class of five students rapidly rose to attendance of over fifty. In 1910 he reviewed at the exhibition of Manet and the Post-Impressionists, organised by Roger Fry, at the Grafton Gallery. He criticised the works of <criticized work of> Matisse* and <criticized work of> van Gogh* and refused to accept <criticized work of> Cezanne* as a great master, but praised Gauguin’s work as grandeur on the scale of Michaelangelo.
In 1911 he married one of his pupils, Christine Drummond and in the same year, a group of painters had become dissatisfied with the New English Art Club, preferring to exhibit at Sickert’s studio under the title of the Camden Group.
Sickert continued to review art and between 1910-14 he contributed to English Review and the fortnightly review, Art News, and also wrote for New Age, a review which was financed by <collaborated with> Shaw* and for which <co-writers were> HG Wells*, <co-writers were> Chesterton* and <co-writers were> Belloc* wrote articles.
In 1920 his wife Christine died and he suffered a three-year period of melancholy. Eventually, unhappy being alone, he married his third wife Therese in 1926. The next decade saw the full emergence of his talent as a writer and between 1927 and 1935, over one hundred of his reviews and articles were published. During this time, he became friendly with Virginia <a pal of> Woolf*
Seven years later Sickert died.
ASSESSMENT: A witty and amusing man, full of energy with wide ranging contacts, he is best known for Impressionism with a darker slant and a desire to portray scenes from the seedier, less acceptable side of contemporary life. A great influence in his time.
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: Painted reformer <painted> Bradlaugh*
He met Lady Ottiline <met> Morrell*
ONELINER: Walter Sickert, influential Impressionist painter
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Sutton, Denys, Walter Sickert, A Biography, Michael Joseph, London, 1976