Philip de Laszlo: Winding Down

"Eva Frances Guinness" by Philip de Laszlo

"In March 1930, Philip de Laszlo was elected President of the Royal Society of British Artists, as successor to Mr. Walter Sickert. This appointment gave him intense pleasure. He saw in it the long delayed recognition of his colleagues, and wrote in his diary 'Glorious day!' He threw himself with zeal into his office, determined to do his best to serve his fellow artists.

His life was very full. When he was not painting, he was fulfilling social engagements, and during the weekends played golf with great enthusiasm. But he began to complain of feeling tired, and the death of Miss Eva Guinness, Lucy's sister, saddened both Lucy and himself. She had been a true friend to him, and he never forgot a kindness.

He himself made resolutions to think more of his age and to live a quieter life. He lost nothing of his zest for work, but his fashionable lady sitters grew more and more irksome to him. He called them 'uninspiring women.'

He was longing to have time to paint subjects of his own choosing. 'For years now,' he told a friend, 'I have wanted to paint a large picture for my own pleasure, a subject in connection with the late war, and for that reason I intend to go on to Rome from Paris, where I shall stay until Easter away from my many social duties and portrait work here. The subject of the picture is not men fighting, but the still nobler part of suffering women at home; women of all classes in a chapel surrounding the burning candles for the fallen souls. I have been trying for the last ten years to do this picture, but have not had time, and I do not want to wait until I get much older.'

He never found time to paint this picture, although the plan was in his mind until he died, and he went so far as to arrange a little chapel at the far end of his studio. He did, however, begin one notable picture for his own pleasure, and obtained permission from Lord Cromer to make a study of the staircase of St. James' Palace with two Yeomen of the Guard: a scene which had stirred his imagination when attending a ceremony at the Palace, when he had presented his sons Stephen and Paul. But this, too, he did not finish."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Portrait of a Painter" by Owen Rutter.)