Philip de Laszlo: Time's Winged Chariot

"My Nubian Servant, Aswan"
by Philip de Laszlo

"To show Philip de Laszlo in his continued success would be to overpaint the portrait. But his last years may not be neglected, although they are less significant to his career those which had gone before. He continued to work unremittingly, often neglecting the warnings of his health. Indeed, there were periods when he painted harder and faster than ever before. That he would have been a better painter had he worked more slowly is unlikely. He himself maintained that his best work was always be done at high speed. But it is safe to say that it would have been better for his art and his health if he allowed himself more rest between his pictures. 

He had no need to drive himself so hard. He was receiving 2,000 guineas for a full-length portrait, and though he lived expensively, his income was large enough for all his needs. But he had never known what it was to rest. To him leisure was like a book in the hands of a man who cannot read. He had lost nothing of his zest for social life, but that did not give him the spiritual relaxation he needed.

The mind of every creative artist must lie fallow for a while. He himself felt the need of reflection and enjoyed it in rare moments, even determined to give more time to tranquility and meditation. Then life caught him up again and whirled him off once more at a headlong pace. He could not resist. There was so much for him to do, and while he had health and strength he must be doing it. It was as though Marvell's lines were daily ringing in his head:

'Always at my back I hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near.'

'Never was I so overwhelmed with demands for portraits as at this time,' he wrote, and he continued to work hard. In January 1929, he arrived in Cairo to paint King Fouad. He was excited and full of hopes as he always was when stimulated by an important commission and a new country. At the end of the month he was joined by Mrs. de Laszlo and his son Paul. When he had finished the portrait King Fouad made him a Grand Officer of the Order of Ismael, and the de Laszlo family cruised up the Nile to Luxor and Aswan. For the first time for many years de Laszlo tried sketching in watercolors. 'But,' he wrote, 'I was not satisfied. It needs too much practice.' He did, however, complete several studies in oils, including an excellent sketch of the Temple of Karnac.

On the family's way back to England they stayed in Florence, and de Laszlo was distressed to find his self-portrait in the Uffizi Gallery more badly cracked than it had been in 1914. 'The picture as such gives me no satisfaction,' he wrote. 'I have changed much in my way of painting and propose to exchange it for another one which I am going to paint.' But he never did."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Portrait of a Painter" by Owen Rutter. To see all of his portraits just from 1928, click here.)