Christopher Wood (English painter)
Encyclopedia
John Christopher Wood often called Kit Wood, was an English
painter born in Knowsley
, near Liverpool
.
in Wiltshire, then briefly flirted with medicine and architecture at Liverpool University before pursuing an artistic career.
, who encouraged him to be a painter. The French collector Alphonse Kahn invited him to Paris in 1920. From 1921 he trained as a painter at the Academie Julian
in Paris, where he met Picasso
, Jean Cocteau
, Georges Auric
and Diaghilev
. He travelled around Europe and north Africa between 1922 and 1924.
By the 1920s his father was running a General Practice in Broad Chalke
, Wiltshire, and Wood painted a series of canvases there including Cottage in Broadchalke, Anemones in a Window, Broadchalke, and The Red Cottage, Broadchalke.
In 1926 Wood created designs for Romeo and Juliet
for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes
, although they were never used. The same year he became a member of both the London Group
and the Seven and Five Society
plus meeting and befriending Ben Nicholson
and Winifred Nicholson
. The Nicholson's dedication to his work had a great influence and they subsequently painted together in Northumberland
and Cornwall
, then exhibited together at the Beaux Arts Gallery
in April–May 1927. Like Nicholson, Wood admired Alfred Wallis
who they met on a trip to St Ives
, and whose primitivism
influenced Woods' stylistic development. He painted coastal scenes, and his finest works are considered to be those painted in Brittany
in 1929. He claimed that his "mother's people were Cornish and that he got his love of the sea and for boats from his Cornish ancestry".
In April 1929 Woods held a solo exhibition at Tooth's Gallery in Bond street
London where he met Lucy Wertheim
at a Private View
. She purchased a picture and soon became one of his biggest supporters, buying up his work. For his part Wood apparently appreciated the support, telling Mrs Wertehim at her birthday party that :
In May 1930 he had a largely unsuccessful exhibition with Nicholson at the Georges Bernheim Gallery in Paris. In June and July he made a second sojourn to Brittany to create new work. later in July Wertheim travelled to meet Wood in Paris, to choose the paintings for a one-man show that would be the opening exhibition at her new Wertheim Gallery in October. While discussing the exhibition over lunch the day after her arrival, Wood issued her with an ultimatum: "'I want you to promise to guarantee me twelve hundred pounds a year from the time of my exhibition, one hundred pounds a month being the least I can live on. If I can't have this sum I've made up my mind to shoot myself'". When she complained, he begged her forgiveness, and they went to review the paintings again. Following his death in August the show was cancelled; it was eventually staged as a memorial show at another gallery.
. In 1927 his plans to elope and marry heiress Meraud Guinness were frustrated by her parents whereupon he required emotional support from Winifred Nicholson. (Meraud went on to marry Alvaro Guevara
in 1929.) Wood also had a liaison with a Russian émigrée, Frosca Munster, whom he met in 1928.
and painting frenetically in preparation for his Wertheim exhibition in London, he suffered paranoia and began carrying a revolver. On August 21 he travelled to meet his mother and sister for lunch at 'The County Hotel' in Salisbury
and to show them a selection of his latest paintings. After saying goodbye he jumped under a train at Salisbury railway station
, although in deference to his mothers wishes it was reported as an accident.
Christopher Wood is buried in the churchyard of All Saints Church in Broad Chalke. His gravestone was carved by fellow artist and sculptor Eric Gill
.
Although his planned exhibition at the Wertheim gallery was cancelled on his death, a posthumous exhibitions was held in February 1931. This was followed by an exhibition at the Lefevre Gallery in 1932.
The 1938 Venice Biennale
included some of his paintings, and later the Redfern Gallery (part of the New Burlington Galleries
) compiled a major retrospective as part of the Neo-Romantic movement.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
painter born in Knowsley
Knowsley (village)
Knowsley is a large village and civil parish within the Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley in Merseyside, England. It is more commonly known as Knowsley Village....
, near Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
.
Biography
Early life
Christopher Wood was born in Knowsley to Doctor Lucius and Clare Wood. He was educated at Marlborough CollegeMarlborough College
Marlborough College is a British co-educational independent school for day and boarding pupils, located in Marlborough, Wiltshire.Founded in 1843 for the education of the sons of Church of England clergy, the school now accepts both boys and girls of all beliefs. Currently there are just over 800...
in Wiltshire, then briefly flirted with medicine and architecture at Liverpool University before pursuing an artistic career.
Artistic career
At Liverpool University, Wood met Augustus JohnAugustus John
Augustus Edwin John OM, RA, was a Welsh painter, draughtsman, and etcher. For a short time around 1910, he was an important exponent of Post-Impressionism in the United Kingdom....
, who encouraged him to be a painter. The French collector Alphonse Kahn invited him to Paris in 1920. From 1921 he trained as a painter at the Academie Julian
Académie Julian
The Académie Julian was an art school in Paris, France.Rodolphe Julian established the Académie Julian in 1868 at the Passage des Panoramas, as a private studio school for art students. The Académie Julian not only prepared students to the exams at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts, but offered...
in Paris, where he met Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
, Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
, Georges Auric
Georges Auric
Georges Auric was a French composer, born in Lodève, Hérault. He was a child prodigy and at age 15 he had his first compositions published. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire with Georges Caussade, and under the composer Vincent d'Indy at the Schola Cantorum...
and Diaghilev
Sergei Diaghilev
Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev , usually referred to outside of Russia as Serge, was a Russian art critic, patron, ballet impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes, from which many famous dancers and choreographers would arise.-Early life and career:...
. He travelled around Europe and north Africa between 1922 and 1924.
By the 1920s his father was running a General Practice in Broad Chalke
Broad Chalke
Broad Chalke, sometimes spelled Broadchalke , Broad Chalk or Broadchalk, is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England, about 8 miles west of the city of Salisbury. The 2001 Census recorded a parish population of 652 but this has now risen to around 850...
, Wiltshire, and Wood painted a series of canvases there including Cottage in Broadchalke, Anemones in a Window, Broadchalke, and The Red Cottage, Broadchalke.
In 1926 Wood created designs for Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes
Ballets Russes
The Ballets Russes was an itinerant ballet company from Russia which performed between 1909 and 1929 in many countries. Directed by Sergei Diaghilev, it is regarded as the greatest ballet company of the 20th century. Many of its dancers originated from the Imperial Ballet of Saint Petersburg...
, although they were never used. The same year he became a member of both the London Group
London Group
The London Group is an artists' exhibiting society based in London, England, founded in 1913, when the Camden Town Group came together with the English Vorticists and other independent artists to challenge the domination of the Royal Academy, which had become unadventurous and conservative....
and the Seven and Five Society
Seven and Five Society
The Seven and Five Society was an art group of seven painters and five sculptors created in 1919 and based in London.The group was originally intended to encompass traditional, conservative artistic sensibilities...
plus meeting and befriending Ben Nicholson
Ben Nicholson
Benjamin Lauder "Ben" Nicholson, OM was a British painter of abstract compositions , landscape and still-life.-Background and Training:...
and Winifred Nicholson
Winifred Nicholson
Winifred Nicholson was an English painter, a colourist who developed a personalized impressionistic style that concentrated on domestic subjects and landscapes. In her work, the two motifs are often combined in a view out of a window, featuring flowers in a vase or a jug.Nicholson was born in...
. The Nicholson's dedication to his work had a great influence and they subsequently painted together in Northumberland
Northumberland
Northumberland is the northernmost ceremonial county and a unitary district in North East England. For Eurostat purposes Northumberland is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "Northumberland and Tyne and Wear" NUTS 2 region...
and Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
, then exhibited together at the Beaux Arts Gallery
Beaux Arts Gallery
Beaux Arts Gallery, London, England, founded in 1923 and closed in 1965, was known as a preeminent center for promoting avant-garde art.Founded and operated by portrait sculptor Frederick Lessore in 1923, the gallery was run by his wife Helen Lessore, a painter, until it closed in 1965...
in April–May 1927. Like Nicholson, Wood admired Alfred Wallis
Alfred Wallis
Alfred Wallis was a Cornish fisherman and artist.Wallis's parents, Charles and Jane Wallis were from Penzance in Cornwall and moved to Devonport, Devon to find work in 1850 where Alfred and his brother Charles were born. Shortly after this the children's mother died and this prompted the family to...
who they met on a trip to St Ives
St Ives, Cornwall
St Ives is a seaside town, civil parish and port in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The town lies north of Penzance and west of Camborne on the coast of the Celtic Sea. In former times it was commercially dependent on fishing. The decline in fishing, however, caused a shift in commercial...
, and whose primitivism
Primitivism
Primitivism is a Western art movement that borrows visual forms from non-Western or prehistoric peoples, such as Paul Gauguin's inclusion of Tahitian motifs in paintings and ceramics...
influenced Woods' stylistic development. He painted coastal scenes, and his finest works are considered to be those painted in Brittany
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
in 1929. He claimed that his "mother's people were Cornish and that he got his love of the sea and for boats from his Cornish ancestry".
In April 1929 Woods held a solo exhibition at Tooth's Gallery in Bond street
Bond Street
Bond Street is a major shopping street in the West End of London that runs north-south through Mayfair between Oxford Street and Piccadilly. It has been a fashionable shopping street since the 18th century and is currently the home of many high price fashion shops...
London where he met Lucy Wertheim
Lucy Wertheim
Lucy Carrington Wertheim was a British Gallery owner who founded the Twenties Group of "English artists in their twenties" in 1930 and was Christopher Wood's main patron before his death....
at a Private View
Private view
A private view is a special viewing of an art exhibition by invitation only, normal at the start of a public exhibition. Typically wine and light refreshments are served on the form of a reception. If the artworks are by a living artist, it is normal for them to attend the private view.An opening...
. She purchased a picture and soon became one of his biggest supporters, buying up his work. For his part Wood apparently appreciated the support, telling Mrs Wertehim at her birthday party that :
In May 1930 he had a largely unsuccessful exhibition with Nicholson at the Georges Bernheim Gallery in Paris. In June and July he made a second sojourn to Brittany to create new work. later in July Wertheim travelled to meet Wood in Paris, to choose the paintings for a one-man show that would be the opening exhibition at her new Wertheim Gallery in October. While discussing the exhibition over lunch the day after her arrival, Wood issued her with an ultimatum: "'I want you to promise to guarantee me twelve hundred pounds a year from the time of my exhibition, one hundred pounds a month being the least I can live on. If I can't have this sum I've made up my mind to shoot myself'". When she complained, he begged her forgiveness, and they went to review the paintings again. Following his death in August the show was cancelled; it was eventually staged as a memorial show at another gallery.
Personal life
Wood was bisexual. In the early summer of 1921, Wood met Antonio de Gandarillas, a Chilean diplomat. Gandarillas, a married homosexual fourteen years older than Wood, lived a glamorous life partly financed by gambling. Their relationship lasted through Wood's life, surviving his affairs with Jeanne Bourgoint and, probably, Jean CocteauJean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
. In 1927 his plans to elope and marry heiress Meraud Guinness were frustrated by her parents whereupon he required emotional support from Winifred Nicholson. (Meraud went on to marry Alvaro Guevara
Alvaro Guevara
Álvaro Guevara was a painter, based in London and loosely associated with the Bloomsbury set.He was born 13 July 1894 in Valparaíso, Chile.Guevara left Chile in 1909 and arrived in London on 1 January 1910. He attended Bradford Technical College, studying the cloth trade, but also spent two years...
in 1929.) Wood also had a liaison with a Russian émigrée, Frosca Munster, whom he met in 1928.
Death and commemoration
By 1930, addicted to opiumOpium
Opium is the dried latex obtained from the opium poppy . Opium contains up to 12% morphine, an alkaloid, which is frequently processed chemically to produce heroin for the illegal drug trade. The latex also includes codeine and non-narcotic alkaloids such as papaverine, thebaine and noscapine...
and painting frenetically in preparation for his Wertheim exhibition in London, he suffered paranoia and began carrying a revolver. On August 21 he travelled to meet his mother and sister for lunch at 'The County Hotel' in Salisbury
Salisbury
Salisbury is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England and the only city in the county. It is the second largest settlement in the county...
and to show them a selection of his latest paintings. After saying goodbye he jumped under a train at Salisbury railway station
Salisbury railway station
Salisbury is a railway station serving the city of Salisbury, Wiltshire. Located southwest of London Waterloo, the station is the crossing point of the West of England Main Line and the Wessex Main Line...
, although in deference to his mothers wishes it was reported as an accident.
Christopher Wood is buried in the churchyard of All Saints Church in Broad Chalke. His gravestone was carved by fellow artist and sculptor Eric Gill
Eric Gill
Arthur Eric Rowton Gill was a British sculptor, typeface designer, stonecutter and printmaker, who was associated with the Arts and Crafts movement...
.
Although his planned exhibition at the Wertheim gallery was cancelled on his death, a posthumous exhibitions was held in February 1931. This was followed by an exhibition at the Lefevre Gallery in 1932.
The 1938 Venice Biennale
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...
included some of his paintings, and later the Redfern Gallery (part of the New Burlington Galleries
Burlington Arcade
The Burlington Arcade is a covered shopping arcade in London that runs behind Bond Street from Piccadilly through to Burlington Gardens. It is one of the precursors of the mid-19th century European shopping gallery and the modern shopping centre...
) compiled a major retrospective as part of the Neo-Romantic movement.
See also
- List of British artists
- List of St. Ives artists
- Seven and Five SocietySeven and Five SocietyThe Seven and Five Society was an art group of seven painters and five sculptors created in 1919 and based in London.The group was originally intended to encompass traditional, conservative artistic sensibilities...
External links
- Christopher Wood (1901-1930), TateTate-Places:*Tate, Georgia, a town in the United States*Tate County, Mississippi, a county in the United States*Táté, the Hungarian name for Totoi village, Sântimbru Commune, Alba County, Romania*Tate, Filipino word for States...
- Christopher Wood (1901-1930), Art in Connu