Byam Shaw: At Twenty-Three

"Jezebel" by Byam Shaw

"Though only twenty-three years old, Byam Shaw's work had already met with great success from artists and public alike. Encouraged as he was by the backing of his contemporaries, idolized by his mother and sister, and happy in the love of his future wife and friends, as well as able to support himself by his work, the future should have held no fears for him, yet he was not always confident. In a letter to a friend he wrote, 'I have been terribly depressed about my work lately. I do not seem to be able to get up any fire about it when I get in front of it. I do not think I ever felt like this before, and it depresses me terribly, and when one says anything about it, people say, 'My dear fellow, how absurd! Why, you've been getting on splendidly.'

In the spring of '96 he was represented in the Academy by 'Whither' (painted during his engagement and expressing his dreams of the married life that lay before him), a portrait of his mother, and 'Jezebel'. 'Whither' was hung too high for the beautiful drawing and painting in it to be recognized, and his mother's portrait was skied. 

In 'Jezebel' the figure of that wicked queen was painted from Miss Rachael Lee, who was of the greatest help to him in his work. She had the instinct of catching a pose required. Her endurance in keeping it was amazing. But for some draperies, lay figures [mannequins] must be resorted to. 'Arabella' was the studio lay figure, and, in the manner of her kind, was loose-jointed. Just when putting a finishing touch to the arrangement of the drapery, down would come the whole thing, the body sagging, the helpless arms flopping, head on one side, drooping disconsolately... A friend tells us that she was also the heroine of a ride through Kensington on a push-bike trailer, wrapped in a purple silk gown in which she looking terribly corpse-like. It was a windy day and the robe blew off, disclosing her full charms to the alarm of the passers-by.

Shaw always began his pictures with the greatest confidence and carried each through in the mood that set the subject. All his faculties and resources were concentrated on each particular work, and he spared himself in no way, neither had he any object to serve except to employ, humbly and honestly, those undoubted gifts God gave him."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Art & Life of Byam Shaw" by Rex Vicat Cole.)