Edward Seago: The Capricorn

"August Afternoon, Champs Elysées" by Edward Seago

"Apart from occasional trips to London and the visits to Sandringham, the only time Edward Seago spent any time away from home was to live on his boat. At sea he became more ambitious and exchanged 'Endeavour' for a younger, more seaworthy craft, 'Capricorn,' a thirty-ton auxiliary ketch, which he equipped as his ideal floating studio.

Even her name fired his romantic imagination. It had been chosen because she was registered in the month of December and Seago learnt with satisfaction that those born under the symbol of the goat were headstrong and brave of heart. Further investigation revealed that the symbol should, in fact, be a sea-goat - half goat, half fish. He interpreted it in a pair of frolicsome creatures with long scaly tails which he had cast in brass, covered in gold leaf and fixed to either side of the bow of his boat's blue-green hull. A red pennant held by another golden capricorn streamed from the top of the main mast.  Gold flashed from her symbols, the name on her hull, her lifebelts and from an extravagant thin gold line just above the rubbing rail. 

In his refitted floating studio he crossed the Channel to Dieppe for the first of a series of memorable cruises to Paris. He had never seen the port, but he felt he knew it well from the pictures of Bonington, Fancia and Whistler. Its character had been changed by modern features like lamp posts, telegraph poles and traffic, and he queried whether the older artists would have recognized it. But, for his own part, he often found good painting material in the evidence of modern times. In Dieppe, Seago set up his easel near the port to sketch the ragged skyline of leaning roofs and chimney stacks and old grey-washed houses.

Capricorn cruised up the Seine in the August sunshine and the painter made notes in his sketchbook of the passing scenes. Had he stopped long enough to set up his easel and make more permanent records he knew he would have been faced with the difficulty he invariably encountered in strange places where he saw so much to paint that he did not know where to begin.

'At first, all the more obvious compositions catch the eye,' he wrote in his last book 'With Capricorn to Paris,' after they had passed a chateau he longed to paint. 'If I had painted the chateau it would have been the whole chateau as I had first seen it - pink and grey against the dark trees and the cool, green pattern of the shadow-streaked pasture. Then I expect the light would change and I should want to paint it again. Only after I had worked there several days would my eye become more selective. I should find bits of the chateau - a corner of a terrace and some stone steps; perhaps only one doorway - and then I should leave the chateau and find endless subjects under the trees and along the smooth grass of the river bank where anglers sat by the hour.'" 

To be continued

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

Edward Seago: The Royals

"The Fish Quay, Istanbul" by Edward Seago

"The Royal family, it appeared, were as united in their interest in Edward Seago's work as the critics were in ignoring it. Queen Mary visited one of his exhibitions on the eve of the birth of her great-grandchild to see Seago's portraits of the King and Queen. Soon afterwards Seago was invited to stay at Sandringham House for the first of a series of bi-annual visits in January and July, when the Royal family were in residence. It seems that he established a particular rapport with Queen Mary. In a letter from Sandringham in her flowing handwriting dated 11 January 1950, Queen Mary warmly thanks Mr. Seago for his book, expresses her pleasure in meeting him and in watching him sketching so quickly. Afterwards he sent her his painting of Old Babingley Church. His gift was reciprocated by a book of drawings of Windsor by Paul Sandby which Queen Mary thought he would 'find attractive.' 

As a result of that first visit, Seago also designed the mascot for Princess Elizabeth's and Prince Philip's car - a silver statuette of St. George and the Dragon. Afterwards he usually sent gifts of paintings to Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother) at Christmas and just before her birthday, on the occasion of his summer visits to Sandringham over the next twenty-two years.

The allegations that Seago deliberately sought Royal favour and in so doing dropped some of his old friends were refuted by many Royal letters over the years. For instance, he declined the Queen Mother's suggestion that he might like to spend a few days with her in Caithness to see if he felt like painting her some pictures - she thought it would be so delightful to show him the strange landscape and wonderful skies. Later, he refused Prince Philip's invitations to stay at Balmoral or to join him for two months on the Royal Yacht for a winter cruise to the Far East.

Sandringham, however, was conveniently a part of his familiar Norfolk while the Royal approval of his work was the much-needed antidote to his perpetual insecurity. Phrases like: 'I cannot thank you enough for giving me yet another glorious addition to my Seago collection...' were the encouragement he never tired of receiving and he responded with generosity."

To be continued

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

Edward Seago: The Annual London Exhibition

"After Rain - Upper Horning" by Edward Seago

"Before the opening of Edward Seago's annual London exhibitions, queues of potential purchasers camped in Bond Street from first light so that exclusive neighbouring tradesmen protested at the unprecedented sight. When the Colnaghi Gallery's doors opened at nine o'clock, the scene inside the normally quiet, elegant galleries was an undignified scramble, comparable to the first day of a sales week. Genuine collectors were enraged when they saw the pictures they wanted snatched from under their noses while speculators bought anything on which they could lay their hands. By the end of the first morning it was indeed rare for any picture to be without a red dot indicating its sale.

The annual free-for-all was a growing embarrassment, and eventually the directors of the gallery devised a routine whereby numbered catalogues were issued when the doors opened. One hour later, a member of the firm stood in the centre of the gallery, called out the catalogue numbers in sequence and took an order for one picture only from each holder. Still the queues formed long before opening time and sometimes several members of one family could be recognized there as well as representatives of an agency which had been commissioned to obtain numbered catalogues. The painter who was the cause of all the rivalry would have been far happier to see critics from some of the national newspapers at his exhibitions but, after the early years, almost without exception, they stayed away.

For the newspaper reporters it seemed the annual success story had become repetitive; for the critics the pictures rarely varied in style and content. Edward Seago rated attention only when he was lured away from his beloved landscapes to apply his craftsmanship and personal idiom to the pageants and personalities of the time. At the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten he made three impressions of the Royal procession turning into Parliament Square, paintings in which the scarlet and gold uniforms were startling in their effect in contrast to the sombre day and the dim greyness of the crowds. With such scenes of light and movement the painter's unrivalled gift of a photographic memory, painstakingly trained, came into its own. With landscape he had a total recall for up to seven years."

To be continued

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

Edward Seago: "Endeavor"

"The Bure Near Upton" by Edward Seago

"Back in Norfolk after the war, Edward Seago found a temporary antidote to his restlessness in the shape of an old naval sailing vessel and sported a 'For Sale' notice across her bows. The 'Endeavor' was fifty-two feet long, sturdily built and suitable for cruising on the Broadland rivers and at sea. Seago visualized sailing her up the Norfolk coast to familiar painting spots or going south to explore the Suffolk and Essex estuaries and then cruising up the Thames, lingering in the Pool of London to paint before working his way up the river to Oxford and the Berkshire meadows.

His preoccupation was with tantalizing views from the wheelhouse of subjects he could hardly wait to paint. He visualized himself, during the coming years, mooring his floating studio to every yard of bank along some two hundred miles of local rivers. So he finally embarked on his life-long mission which was to discover and portray the meaning behind the beauties of nature he recognized all round. 

From then on, like Constable, he took nature as his subject and was the constant student. 'My attitude to nature is one of enquiry - an endless search for explanations and discovery,' he noted in pencil on blank pages of his sketchbook. 'I believe that the more searching one does the more one's appreciation grows. Subjects present themselves which had not been apparent before, and fresh lines of thought invite enquiry.' 

It was the first time since his lonely boyhood that he had long periods of quiet to indulge his thoughts uninterrupted by the succession of events that had crowded his life since the day, sixteen years ago, when he had left home to join the circus. The circus and the ballet had tested and proved his technique and broadened his personal perspective; the war had released his capacity to express emotion. At last he had arrived at a point when he could accept that his senses were most stirred by the great expanses of sky and by moving clouds and the shadow of trees reflected in slow-moving water so that he need go no further than the familiar places he had loved in boyhood, where wind and weather and the seasons offered him a new subject every day and a joy which it was his challenge to convey."

To be continued

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

Edward Seago: Ins and Outs of Army Life

"The Tape Line to Forli" by Edward Seago

"Edward Seago had been taken ill with a prolonged heart turn and, as usual [trying to hide his condition from the army], was in the care of a civilian doctor. After he had been absent for a couple of weeks, a conscientious army medical officer decided to pay a courtesy call on Edward, whom he though was suffering from influenza. He was shocked and startled to discover the real nature of his illness. On his report, Seago was summoned before a medical board and told to consider himself out of the army from the moment he left their presence. As far as Seago was concerned it was the ultimate rejection.

The pain and humiliation were clearly apparent in a letter which he wrote to General Harold Alexander, a close friend who had become Commander-in-Chief of the 15th Army Group in Italy. The General's reply was characteristic of his firmness and readiness to turn his power to patrician use. He wrote: 

'My Dear Ted - This will be a grand opportunity for you to come out and pay me a limitless visit. You will stay at my HQ as my guest and I can probably find some work for you to do if you get bored - but bring all your painting materials, and you will be able to paint to your heart's content...' 

Upon arrival in Rome, he was driven to Alexander's advance headquarters, which was a little group of caravans and tents in the middle of a wood. The commander explained, 'I thought you might like to come and paint here. If the army doesn't want you, you might as well paint, and what better place to paint than Italy? You can paint the campaign.' Edward was surprised but gratified, and wrote to a friend, 'I never knew what position I was appointed to. I had a driver, and a jeep and a pass from Alex which enabled me to go anywhere from the 5th Army to the 8th Army and attach myself to any Battalion on either front. I wasn't an official war artist, I was Alex's official artist and I remained a Major!' 

Again he knew an overwhelming desire to paint, but for once he felt quite unable to express his feelings by selecting a focal point and then seeing the whole of the picture in relation to it. '

The battered towers of ruined churches signified so much more than an 'upright' of value to the composition,' he wrote. 'Groups of rain-sodden men and vehicles, deep in mud, ceased to be mere combinations of shape and tone. Shattered houses, spilling their structure in a pile of rubble could not be dismissed as a pattern arrangement of coloured walls, and weary refugees on their journey without purpose could hardly be sketched as 'incidentals' in a landscape."

To be continued

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

Edward Seago: The Play of Light

"The East Window" by Edward Seago

"A letter from an old friend had arrived inviting Edward Seago to hold a one-man show at the Castle Museum in Norwich. It seemed only a short time ago that his mother had taken him there to admire the work of Munnings and Crome, Constable and Cotman. He would make sure that, despite wartime difficulties, it would be the most comprehensive display of his work that could be assembled, and he advertised in 'The Times' for an assistant to help him prepare it. The successful applicant was nineteen-year-old Vernon Russell Smith, recently invalided out of the RAF and waiting to go up to Oxford to study architecture. On Seago's instructions he assembled oils and water-colours, portraits and landscapes, ballet and circus scenes, and wartime studies.  

As the exhibition approached, Edward had a heart turn and for twenty-four hours the terrifying sound of his pounding heart and his laboured breathing could be heard all over his tiny cottage. Vernon was completely unprepared for the frightening sight and at times had real doubts as to whether the exhibition would be anything but a posthumous one. When the attack was over Seago lay propped up in bed, while the late afternoon sunlight traced shadows of the small square panes of glass on the flimsy curtains. He was fascinated by the play of light, and his finger itched for a paint brush. 

When he was up and about again, he was haunted by the memory of the sunlight flushing the bedroom curtains to a warm pink, and he toyed with the idea of making a picture, but could think of no context in which to use the effect of the light playing on the curtains. Then, one afternoon, he noticed his assistant Vernon shaving at the kitchen sink, with the light from the kitchen window falling across his face. He saw his picture. At four o'clock in the afternoon he persuaded Vernon to change into pajamas and transfer his shaving operation to the upstairs bedroom. By the end of the day, he had completed what he considered to be one of the best pictures he ever painted.

The small oil of a young man shaving in front of a bedroom window was listed No. 1 in the exhibition and afterwards Seago gave it to the City of Norwich to commemorate the exhibition. It was called 'The East Window,' implying that morning was normally the time for shaving. A keen observer, however, might detect a soft mellow quality about the sunlight, more evocative of afternoon than morning and a visit to the cottage would prove that not one of the tiny windows there faced the east."

To be continued

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

Edward Seago: Happy Is the Artist

"Early Morning" by Edward Seago

In the foreward to his book, "Peace in War," Edward Seago wrote: "The seasons of the year still pass, but now they are regarded as factors in the tactics of war. I try not to see them so. They hold other meanings for me, and I watch them pass with a sadness I have seldom felt before. My time is filled with Army duties, and the landscape has become a background for military activity. No longer can I lie on the springy downland grass and hear the crickets chirp, or pass long hours by the wood fires of the gypsies. Sometimes I have passed their painted wagons on the road. From the Army car I have caught a glimpse of a dark-eyed child, pulling at the bridle rein. For the next few miles I've travelled on my memories.

Brief spells of leave come like milestones on this wartime road. For a few days one can try to take the old life out of pawn. I imagine whatever that old life was, it will have frayed with wear, but that which won a man's endearment I feel may still be found...

I think most people will allow that the mentality of an artist is unsuited to the Army, but there are thousands equally disinclined to leave their civilian life. Actually, I think the artist is in many ways more fortunate. He has a more keenly developed perception of beauty, which gives him consolation in surroundings where others find none. This inward happiness is a continual source of joy which cannot be taken away, but with it there is the pain of being deprived of the means to express it; the longing to put paint on canvas which has to be suppressed.

I believe that a painter does not lose by this. His perception may even become stronger, so that when he returns to his work in life, his feelings will assert themselves with greater definition. There have been so many painters whose finest work has been achieved in times of great trial; who, beset with difficulties, have somehow overcome them. And I believe that almost every artist in the Services today is finding, during his leave and leisure moments, the opportunity to express himself in the medium he loves best." 

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Peace in War" by Edward Seago.)