In honor of an odd couple

A double portrait of a cult figure and the woman who became his adventurous patron.


Scottish born, long- time London resident  Craigie Aitchison is a cult figure his fame is inversely proportional to the love and admiration people had for him and his paintings. He died in December, 2009 and so many attended the memorial party for him at the Royal Academy that scores were turned away because the rooms were filled to beyond capacity. His work was bought by Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover, the designer Sir Paul Smith and television personality Anna Ford all of whom counted him as friends. Yet his is not a household name or even terribly well known. Maybe the show of almost fifty works now at the WaddingtonCustot gallery in London will change that not by diminishing he ardour of his fans but by introducing more people to his paintings.The entire show of almost fifty works were bought by Sheelagh Cluney, an Irish born, woman with a rich husband who had just returned from years in Japan when they met in 1978. Her acquisitions made a big and positive difference to both their lives. On her side, she became friendly with an exceptional man she otherwise would not have known
; on his he had the financial and emotional support that helps any artist flourish. Craigie hated doing commissioned portraits yet reluctantly if not surprisingly, he agreed to paint one of Sheelagh. It isn't a physical likeness but it reveals Sheelagh's forceful nature...

 Craigie was shy yet on the interior he was self assured; he never tried to be or paint like anybody else. May this self-portrait of the the artist when young, recently acquired by the National Portrait Gallery in London, is the best introduction to him.

. The drawing is borderline naive but the use of colour is sophisticated and potent: Everything is painted black except for the head and neck of the subject and the bright red collar of the pullover he is wearing.  The portrait is touching but also shocking; it is criss-crossed in slash marks.No stranger vandalised the painting; that was done by the artist himself. It was his response to the comment of a visitor to his studio who said the portrait was flattering. Aitchison was allergic to what might appear to be self-promotion Yet he did not discard the painting and eventually even agreed to have it restored provided that the scratch marks were left in. To judge by the results rather than what he said, the only artist who seems to have influenced him, was Odilon Redon, and then only early on—the years before he met Sheelagh Cluney. Afterwards his focus was sharper and his colours brighter—vivid pinks, emerald greens, luminous oranges acid yellows—sometimes all all together as in a winning still life of Liquorice Allsorts painted in 1980., a year of their fateful first encounter.

Sheelagh and Craigie

They met in 1979 in Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge where Aitchison was having an exhibition. Sheelagh Cluney, Irish- born, had just returned with her rich husband from years in Japan where he worked. She was outspoken (some would add arrogant). Graham Snow, an arts entrepreneur and artist who was a friend of both, took her to the show and introduced them.. After the Beaux Arts gallery closed Craigie showed with the Marlborough and Knoedler but this was a financial low point in his life. Mind you the only  apparent sign of this was the quality of the booze he served and consumed.  Cluney bought one painting: A portrait of his young friend Francis Fry. The profile shows him with pink lips and coppery hair, wearing an even pinker suit and tie. As it happens, it was one of the best pictures he ever painted.

  Cluney went on to buy landscapes of Scotland and Holy Island off the west coast of Scotland where he went for childhood holidays;  portraits of birds, his Bedlington terriers, models whose looks appealed to him;  still lifes of flowers in vases (he particularly liked freesias); candlesticks, trinkets,a pomegranate and religious images of saints and especially crucifixions. Always Cluney bought only from the artist or his dealers; never at auction or from previous owners. She wanted him to benefit directly from her money. Neither before they met nor after did she collect anyone else. As a collector she was as much a one off as he was as a painter.

. Aitchison paintings covered the walls of Cluney's Eaton Square flat and in her last years  (she died in 2011) they went with her to her house in Edmunton, Canada. Until now the public was able to see only a few loaned to retrospective shows. Leslie Waddington boldly bought the lot of them—well all but two—from her son, Gregory. He kept that first portrait of Francis Fry and a green crucifixion which, if this writer’s memory is accurate, hung in her Mayfair bedroom. 

  Waddington has hung the show with great visual flair Still lifes are grouped together as if they were jewelled portrait miniatures although they are larger in size.  A big painting of Holy Island, the sky red; the pointy island  amethyst, the water a streak of deepest  blue, the foreground rusty brown, occupies the far wall opposite the door. It is the first thing first thing a visitor sees on entering. It is also a memorably radiant and brooding goodbye to the artist and his patron.

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Eros was no cutie pie

This story by me ran in The Economist, print edition, February 9. Also check out some of my other recent stories for The Economist about Morandi etchings at the Estorick Collection, Henry VIII, he was, he was: Royal Treasures at the V&A, Manet at the Royal Academy, Man Ray at the National Portrait Gallery. 

Master mischief

An impressive show in New York pays tribute to the god of love

A divine nap

A CHUBBY, snoozing toddler with thick curls above his beautiful face, “Sleeping Eros” looks deceptively benign. His right arm flops across his body; one wing (much of it now lost) is tucked under him while the other, with delicately detailed feathers, nestles against his back. The remains of his quiver and arrows lie near his head; he is exhausted but prepared to act quickly. This fine Greek sculpture was made between the third and second centuries BC, and is probably from the island of Rhodes in the Aegean Sea. It is usually in the Greek and Roman galleries at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. But Eros now slumbers at the centre of a small but captivating show at the museum about changing conceptions of the god of love (known to the Romans as Cupid), and the lasting aesthetic legacy of this compelling bronze sculpture.

The exhibition, which runs until June 23rd, features nearly 50 pieces, including ancient and Renaissance sculptures, 16th- and 17th-century drawings, painted Greek pots, Roman silver and Greek gold jewels, all inspired by Eros. It opens with a Roman bronze statue of Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep, who strides forward as if on an urgent mission. Yet the atmosphere in the room is one of tranquillity, in part because of the profound abandon with which the central Eros has given himself up to sleep (the talented Greek sculptor is unknown).

It is easy to connect this Eros to the sugary Cupid of Valentine’s Day cards, whose arrows are inevitably tokens of affection. Yet the ancient god of love was feared as well as worshipped. According to myth, Eros carried arrows tipped either in gold or in lead: the gold ones incited extreme desire; the lead ones killed it.

In “The Golden Ass”, the oldest surviving Latin novel, written in the second century AD, the author Lucius Apuleius retells the tale of Cupid and Psyche. He introduces the god of love as an exquisite young man with an evil streak, who spends his time, “running up and down in the nights from house to house and corrupting the lawful marriages of every person.” The story ends happily, however, with Cupid marrying the ravishing Psyche, who then becomes the goddess of the soul. The two soon become the parents of Pleasure. This ancient romance is alluded to in a number of pieces throughout the show.

“Sleeping Eros” entered the Metropolitan in 1943. New research by Seán Hemingway and Richard Stone at the museum confirmed earlier studies that dated the sculpture to the Hellenistic period. This evidence supports their belief that the Met’s sculpture is the original, from which many copies were subsequently made. The exhibition provides a step-by-step analysis of their findings, which include the discovery that the drapery between the little god’s legs was replaced probably around the second century AD.

When Thomas Campbell first became director of the Met four years ago, [in an interview with me published in The Economist in January 2009]he set out to increase the number of shows that spotlight the museum’s own great holdings. He also encouraged more co-operation and less competition among its 17 curatorial departments, which some saw as independent fiefdoms. This exhibition, a collaboration of five departments, is a mark of his success.

The many exceptional works of art on view gain new meaning by being placed together within a single room. Yet always it is the “Sleeping Eros”, made on a Greek island more than 2,000 years ago, that seizes the attention. This exhibition encourages and aids the appreciation and understanding of a masterpiece, and of the mischievous god who was its inspiration.

A case of mistaken identity

Now you see her, now you don't





This art story about the reattribution of a painting is not a whodunit but a who was it.

In 1902, the American railway tycoon and prodigious art collector Henry Walters (right) bought an old master painting, a  1539 portrait of the Renaissance poet Vittoria Colonna;.a fine boned, pale woman dressed in black.   Walters painting was said to be by Jacopo Pontormo and that attribution has remained uncontested. What has changed is the the identification of its subject--or subjects as it has turned out. Walters who died in 1931, left his collection and the mansions that housed it to the city of Baltimore. In the late nineteen thirties, the Walters Art Museum gave the Pontormo a good cleaning. In the process a child appeared in the foreground and it was possible to get a much better look at the adult, too. (Below)





 The grown up was quickly reidentified as Maria Salviati a noblewoman of whom there were many portraits .Widowed at 27, she never remarried and for the rest of her life she remained in mourning dressing like a nun. (Indeed that is how Pontormo painted her in 1540,right.) As for the child: It was immediately assumed that he was her only son Cosimo de'Medici (below) who grew up to be the powerful Duke of Florence. More than sixty years passed before the little boy, finally, was seen to be a little girl. (Another round of applause for the role of the woman's movement in restoring 20-20 vision to those who, if the facts were blurry but the subject was powerful always saw a man--or in this case a boy.)

   That little girl has now been identified as Giulia de'Medici. Here come a small sample of the Byzantine carrying on in Tuscany at this time. Alessandro was the first Medici Duke of Florence but not for long. He was assassinated in 1537-- just two years before Pontormo painted the double portrait of his daughter with her aunt. By the time painting, Maria was the child's guardian.  It just could be that Maria Salviati commissioned the double portrait which shows them hand in hand to counter the gossips that Cosimo was responsible for Alessandro's murder.

   Alessandro (right) was the illegitimate son of a Cardinal and his African servant. His daughter, too, was of mixed race.(Her portrait as a young adult appears at the top of this post. It, and the portraits of her father and uncle were painted by Agnolo Bronzino.) The research that made it possible to identify Giulia in the painting bought by HenryWalters more than a century ago inspired the terrific and illuminating exhibition "Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe." For that we can thank Joaneath Spicer curator of Renaissance and Baroque Art at the Walters where the show originated. It is now at the Princeton University Museum of Art. Catch it if you can. And read about it in my Economist for sure!

                   

. “I wanted to think about the people themselves,” says Ms. Spicer, explaining the purpose of the show. “Once you take that perspective, you generate new information.” You also reveal facts that aren't new but seem to have been painted over, just as little Giulia once was .The most amazing of those facts is this:  During the era covered by the exhibition, “the long sixteenth century, 1480-1610),  African slaves brought to Europe then were NOT enslaved for life.  Read Jose Saramago's novel, Baltasar and Blimunda for an idea of what happened to many right after they were freed. It takes place in Lisbon where at this time ten percent of the population was African. Yes, really.