Edward Seago: Royal Approval

"Huntsman on a Horse" by Edward Seago

"Once again Lady Evelyn Jones was instrumental in tempting Seago away from the circus, the second time through an invitation from Lord Harewood, a former ADC to her father, Lord Grey. Writing from Sandringham, the Earl invited Edward to visit Egerton House and to paint his Ascot winner Alcester. He suggested that after the painter had completed the preliminary sketches, he might like to stay the night.

'We dine in short jacket and black tie at Newmarket as we shall be no party, just Princess Mary and possibly my brother and sister-in-law,' Seago read, as the pendulum of his lifestyle again started its upward swing away from fish-and-chip suppers in a horse-drawn circus wagon.

That evening at Newmarket proved a memorable one for the country as a whole as well as for Edward enjoying his first sample of Royal hospitality. For he did enjoy himself once he had overcome his initial embarrassment during a dinner which lasted two hours and in which he recognized only a few of the dishes. It was the night of the 1931 General Election when the National Government gained a crushing victory with a majority of nearly five hundred. The party at Egerton House sat up until after three o'clock in the morning eating chocolates and listening to the election results coming in over the wireless. 

The following day he joined the Royal party for the Cambridgeshire and drove to the race course through cheering crowds, still demonstrating their election fever. Afterwards at lunch, he sat between Princess Mary and Lord Derby.

Princess Mary and Lord Harewood had also apparently enjoyed Seago's visit, for it was followed by others and resulted in several commissions including a large painting of the Derby and an illustrated calendar for the Jockey Club. From then on, Edward never lacked commissions for equestrian portraits and his 'sitters' included the famous winners Hyperion and Blue Peter. His also painted a portrait of Princess Mary on horseback, as Munnings had done, and Lord Harewood publicly endorsed his opinion of his work when in 1933, at the Sporting Gallery in London, he opened his second one-man exhibition."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Edward Seago: The Other Side of the Canvas" by Jean Goodman.)  

Edward Seago: Lucy Kemp-Welch's Criticism

"The Grand Parade, The Bertram Mills Circus"
by Edward Seago

"That winter Edward Seago finished eight circus pictures and in a letter to his brother said he was 'rather bucked with one' and thought it was the best thing he had done. However if, as seems likely, it was the large canvas he submitted to the Society of Animal Painters when he applied for membership the following year, he was over-optimistic. He was not elected to the Society for reasons explained in a personal letter from the President, Lucy Kemp-Welch, the animal painter. Her hard-hitting home truths carried more than an echo of Munnings' opinion. She wrote:

'Of course, it would be easy for me to make one of the usual excuses by which one gets out of explanations, but I am so sure that one day you will do big things - if you keep your face in the right direction - that I am going to tell you the truth about the large circus picture of yours, which was seen by myself and the Committee...'

'My dear boy, that is not art! It might possibly be an advertisement - but it is vulgar because it tries to say too much and see too much and there is no restraint or reticence, or interest of tone or lighting or mass or any of the things which might make it tolerable and perhaps admirable.'

You have been so carried away by the passing show that you have overlooked what made you feel the impulse to paint it - not the facts, not the commonplaces of clowns and Red Indians, etc. But a fine effect of light on a massive design with all the component parts and little masses lost or half seen in the group mass; everything secondary to some big idea or mass of colour or light - or all three with one thing - perhaps, such as the lady in feathers and such details lost in the mysterious blue haze, which is one of the strongest points in the circus as a painting ground.

Well now I have had my say, and I hope you will take it as it is meant from a painter of long experience, who is very interested in your career.'

Lucy Kemp-Welch, of all painters, recognized the true magic of the circus. For months at a time she had attached herself to Lord John Sanger's Travelling Circus and lived in a motor-drawn caravan and painted. Seago was grateful for her criticism. They kept in touch with one another, but he did not again apply for membership of her Society because rejection of any kind, since his parents' apparent rejection of his talent when he was a boy, was to be avoided at all costs. 

Meanwhile, in the autumn of 1931, his painting was interrupted by an invitation which any ambitious young painter would have envied."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Edward Seago: The Other Side of the Canvas" by Jean Goodman.)  

Edward Seago: Study Recommended

"Landscape near Blythborough, Suffolk" by Edward Seago

"Edward Seago stayed back home for just over two months during which time a long-postponed commission materialized to paint Brigadier-General Sir Hereward and Lady Wake and their four children riding in the grounds of their country seat, Courteenhall. In contrast to painting in a circus tent, his studio was now a Louis XVI drawing-room. When the painting was completed, Edward wrote: 'It is without doubt the best I have ever done. Sir Hereward is particularly keen that it should go to the Academy.'

The Wakes showed him around the countryside, took him to Towcester Races, to the theatre, to luncheon and dinner parties and to tea with Lord and Lady Spencer Churchill at Castle Ashby. He and Lady Wake discussed the price he should ask for his pictures. 'I have now arrived at quite definite ideas,' he wrote. 'While it is a great mistake to make your prices exorbitant, it is just as foolish to make them too small.' At the height of his success when everything at his exhibitions was sold on the opening day, he firmly resisted the suggestion that he could easily charge more and, 'a fair price' was all he ever asked.

That year Edward sent the family portrait and a large circus painting to the Royal Academy exhibit for jurying. Alfred Munnings wrote back that they were 'not good enough for so large a picture. You'll now have to study seriously somewhere because all the hanging committee are sorry about your work not being in and they all see that you have the courage and will work. Your father must let you have a year up in town. Try the Academy Schools and you'll be well seen after there. When you have learned more you'll be a great artist. Don't let this defeat worry you. Both the pictures were beaten by their size and utter lack of knowledge and you were at sea when you tried to paint the children's faces. Now you get started and no more playing about and we shall be seeing you in great places one day. The composition of that picture of the children was good. The circus a tremendous effort but a picture that size has to be better to get hung. Never mind.'

Even so, both paintings ended up being hung. 

Munnings wrote again urging Edward to talk to his father about art lessons and reminded him of the long studentships and years of learning of Velasquez, Rubens and Rembrandt and of the Italian men.

'Why did the Academy start its schools 100 years ago if schools were not needed? Why do grown up men go to night classes and draw from the nude, year in and year out? You have now to begin and learn something and from now until the end of this term you ought to go in to Norwich School and work there. Be yourself and do what you want to do. If the master there is 'up to date' as they call it, regard him as you think fit, but go and do some real study and shake the dust of utter ignorance off your feet. Let your father understand that he has to make a student of you for a while and not a young potboiler.' 

But the pull of the circus was too great, and in the end, Edward disregarded the advice. One term's evening classes at Norwich School of Art, studying drawing and working from a series of male models, convinced him that he was equipped with all the schooling he needed and immediately once term was over he rejoined the circus."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Edward Seago: The Other Side of the Canvas" by Jean Goodman.)  

 

Edward Seago: The Circus

Sketches of the Circus by Edward Seago

"An outing to see the circus had ended with Edward Seago being so artistically inspired, that he had received permission from the owner to follow and paint it. In this he was also following in the footsteps of Alfred Munnings and also of Laura Knight. Surprisingly, his decision raised no opposition from his parents. His father had a new-found confidence in him and agreed to give him a small allowance to be repaid from the sale of pictures. His mother, eager to be involved in the venture, offered to do any washing he sent home and promised to supplement Edward's supply of food. 

However, the circus folk did not like mixing with outsiders and made no attempt to conceal their mistrust of the pale, well-spoken youth who hung around their tents and caravans. They showed no interest in his work. 'How I hated those early weeks of my circus life,' he remembered, 'hated almost everything in the circus, and still more the wretched lodgings which gave me shelter for the night.' In town after town, where the circus people ;itched their tents, he wandered about a new ground exchanging nods with unapproachable familiar faces, watched the work that went on behind the scenes and made endless sketches of circus horses which he posed by tethering to stakes in the ground. Only when a drumroll heralded it was time for the next performance did the magic under the Big Top once again confirm that, somehow, one day he would become a part of it all.

Gradually the circus folk's initial distrust gave way to genuine interest when they recognized that the intruder was a man who knew his job. One morning he was working on the painting of a mare when performer Tommy Baker invited him back to the family wagon for a meal after the show. There 'Pop' Baker, with an innate 'gift of the gab,' told takes of the hardship and struggles in Ireland with his small family circus in a trail of wagons with the name 'Baker' gilded on the sides. That night Edward wrote the tales down, to the delight of the storyteller, who although he knew the shortest route to every market town in Great Britain and Ireland, had never had a day's schooling in his life. Similarly, his sons' early success in the circus ring had been at the expense of their education. This meant that Edward had at last found companions of his own age with whom, scholastically, he was at no disadvantage, so that with them he felt neither strange nor inhibited as he often did with his contemporaries.

After he painted a picture of one of the Bakers' mounts and then from imagination, added a lady rider, he was invited to move in with the family. From then on the painter was treated as one of the Bakers by everyone in the circus. He tried to capture the magic on canvas in paintings of circus encampments, portraits of the knife-throwers; Carl Hess, the German horse trainer in the ring with his white Arab; dwarfs and clowns and acrobats, trapeze artists and Adolphe, the animal tamer. He sketched them on small panels to translate onto big canvases which, he told his parents, he thought might be suitable for the Academy. 

At the end of August his parents suggested it was time for him to come home and paint subjects other than the circus. 'I have no wish to drop painting my other stuff,' he assured them, 'but I think the two can go very well together. I can paint hunting, sporting and horse pictures during the winter, and when I come home I shall have September, October and a little bit of November to paint landscapes.' Then he described four more 'outstanding' circus subject he badly wanted to paint.

However a tragic accident made it easy for him to get away. He was working on a sketch of the German animal trainer, Adolphe Cosmeyer, when suddenly, one of the bears turned on Adolphe and killed him before Edward's eyes. In a letter to his parents, all he could say was 'It was too terrible to write about. I almost feel that I would like to come home straight away.' When Tommy Baker drove him to the station on the first stage of his journey home, he promised that he would be back with the circus before very long, and stayed away for two months."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Edward Seago: The Other Side of the Canvas" by Jean Goodman.)  

Edward Seago: Alfred Munnings

"Thorn Marsh with Cattle and Trees" by Edward Seago

"Nineteen-year-old Edward Seago had been introduced to Alfred Munnings, who, from his early painting days, had been a name to conjure with, an artist and horseman whose hard-riding life-style was legendary. Soon he was regularly driving to the painter's studio in Dedham for input. The influence of the jovial, big-hearted man, who generously dispensed practical advice to the young painter, must have been overwhelming. Its effect, consciously or subconsciously, for a time became apparent in Seago's work.

'See, he's even put in Mr. Munnings' buttercups,' was a scathing comment Edward's mother overheard about one of his paintings at an exhibition. 'Since when has Alfred Munnings had the monopoly of buttercups?' was her sharp reply. Edward, when he heard of the incident, was very concerned and mentioned it to Munnings on his next visit. 'Don't listen to such damn nonsense,' was the reaction. 'If I can't drum some of my ideas into that foolish head of yours, what on earth's the good of your coming here?' It was benevolent advice, but the donor would be sorely tried when before long, the recipient was painting portraits of some of Munnings' distinguished sitters and charging a considerably lower price.

With growing independence, Edward often joined half a dozen or so of the young 'horsey set' at the Beaufort Hotel for a pint or two of beer on Saturday evenings before moving on to the Old Café Royal for a snack and then to a Norwich dance hall where there was no shortage of girls waiting to partner the young county 'bloods,' unmistakable in their tweed sports jackets. Then in May 1930, he had the satisfaction of having a picture hung in the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition. It was a small oil called 'Over the Sticks' showing a country point-to-point meeting. Bertram Priestman was unimpressed, as was a critic of the 'Eastern Daily Press. 'It is not what I should call a good example,' he wrote Edward. 'However, I hope you will have something good ready for next year.' 

One Saturday evening Edward and a friend visited a travelling circus. It was not the first circus that Edward had seen, but suddenly the colour and movement under the strange luminosity of the Big Top, caught his painter's eye - and prepared the way for a new and unexpected adventure."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Edward Seago: The Other Side of the Canvas" by Jean Goodman.)  

Edward Seago: One-Man Exhibit in London

"Herringbone and Other Mares in a Paddock"
by Edward Seago

"Edward Seago's patroness Lady Evelyn Jones suggested that he should have a one-man exhibition in London for which she and another would underwrite any expense. However, Edward's father insisted that the financial responsibility was his. The Arlington Gallery in Old Bond Street was chosen, and on 25 November 1929, Sir Hereward Wake performed the official opening before a distinguished gathering mustered by Lady Evelyn, for which the press turned out in force.

They saw fifty-seven paintings, priced from £4 to £150 and ranging in subject from landscape to horse paintings and equestrian portraits. Twenty-three pictures were sold on the first day, representing takings of £184 18s., which was enough to send Edward's father rushing back to their home in a fever of excitement to collect more pictures and to encourage his son, when he returned from London after the first few days of the exhibition, to produce others to replace the diminishing stock.

But the painter, exhausted by the strain of a London debut, retired to bed suffering from pains in the head and contented himself with sending a couple of scribbled cartoons to his brother, one portraying himself in his studio painting with one hand and with the other passing a finished canvas through the door to his father's outstretched hand. The second cartoon showed him in bed languishing against the pillows with a bandage round his head. It was captioned, 'He that holdeth exhibitions in London, is not only in danger of hellfire, but of Neuralgia!'

As far as the critics were concerned they commented on the nineteen-year-old's 'extraordinary promise and natural instinct as a painter' while, almost unanimously, they decried his drawing ability. He himself confessed 'Of course I must learn to draw. I have colour and technique, but my horses are all wrong. Any critic would pull them to pieces,' and 'my education has been terribly neglected.' The critic from 'The Morning Post' recognized 'most encouraging signs of future development' and, added, 'as yet he is influenced by the art of the elder men, for instance, of Mr. A.J. Munnings and Mr. Wilson Steer. He could not seek advice from better painters.'

Edward never hesitated to act where any possible benefit to his work was concerned, and it seemed but a logical step for him to approach Munnings. In the small world of East Anglian horselovers, an introduction to the popular painter presented no problem and a portrait on loan to Seago's exhibition from Richard Bullard represented the key. Bullard often entertained Mr. and Mrs. Munnings at his home at Stoke Holy Cross, and it was most probably he who arranged the introduction."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Edward Seago: The Other Side of the Canvas" by Jean Goodman.)  

Edward Seago: First Patron

"The Norfolk Point-to-Point" by Edward Seago

"It was in the guise of a new neighbour, Edward Seago at last came face to face with his first important patron. She was Lady Evelyn Jones, daughter of the 4th Earl Grey, a former Governor-General of South Africa and Canada. She was artistic and a great activist who loved people and could never resist helping the underdogs and encouraging them to achieve their potential. Edward could not have know as much, but the instinct which five years before had motivated him to write to Bertram Priestman, once again asserted itself and, with an unswerving singleness of purpose, he cycled over to Stoke Hall.

Again his instinct had been right. Lady Evelyn herself opened the door to the pale, good-looking youth with a stack of pictures under his arm. 'I'm a painter,' he said. 'I live near here and I'm trying to find someone who'll help me to earn a living because my parents refuse to give me any encouragement.' The unconventional intrusion convinced Lady Evelyn that here indeed was a painter and one worth helping. She would introduce him to people with fine horses who might well like to have their portraits painted.

She wrote to her aunts, the Countess of Antrim and the Countess of Minto, both Ladies in Waiting to Queen Mary, and also thought of local friends to whom she would introduce him. Archibald Jamieson, the City financier and Chairman of diverse companies was one. The philanthropist lived nearby and had a wife with a keen artistic sense who had studied at the Slade with Professor Tonks. He was an ideal patron. They took an immediate liking to the young painter whose pictures they considered reflected a great appreciation of living. It was a perceptive judgment of the work of a boy who had learned to live and paint with the knowledge that he might be existing on borrowed time and that each day might prove to be his last.

After a time, Edward persuaded his father to let him take over two unused loose boxes at the back of the house and, with the money he had saved from selling his paintings, converted them into a large studio with a north-facing window overlooking the farmyard. It was the stable where, less than a decade before, Munnings had loved to paint. It was completed shortly before his nineteenth birthday, and his Priestman wrote to him: 'You may be sure, I would not give my time to trying to give you any little help I do, if I did not believe in you. If not now, one day, your people will be proud of your work.' Then he reminded his pupil of God's words to Joshua: '...only be strong and of good courage.'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Edward Seago: The Other Side of the Canvas" by Jean Goodman.)