Byam Shaw: Teaching at King's College

"Now Is the Pilgrim Year, Fair Autumn's Charge"
by Byam Shaw

"In 1903 Byam Shaw joined me [author of this book, Rex Vicat Cole] in teaching at the Women's Department of King's College, London, whose premises were two houses, made into one. He was asked to embark on the innovation of a life-class, for which he was give a ramshackle building in the garden. We both tried to bring up the young in the way they should go, and so before long our little crowd of cheery, hard-working girls outgrew their wooden hut. Then the committee met, an architect got busy, and a brick studio arose, fitted with gas radiators and a permanent health ventilator - one of the pet aversions of our nude models. The latter had a dressing room connected with the studio by a leaky glass roof, and can I not see again Byam, one wet morning, holding up in his best manner an umbrella over the head of a girl, clothed as nature made her, except for slippers, as she daintily picked her way along the puddled passage!

Our students and models kept happy and so did we, in spite of our curious housing, for we had the back and encouragement of Miss L.M. Faithfull, under whose energy, ability and charm, the College grew and was kept alive. She later wrote a reminiscence of Shaw:

'He was desperately in earnest about everything he touched, and his simplicity, sincerity, enthusiasm, and humour made him an enchanting companion. He had no exalted opinion of himself, his sense of humour gave him the sense of proportion, and there was at times the shyness of a boy about him. He could be easily depressed about his work because he was an idealist, and he never ceased striving to make his students share that idealism. He was a great teacher because he had the power of quickening students and vitalizing them, making them see and feel what they had never seen of felt before.

I remember listening to a criticism of students' compositions one morning. The subject was 'An Early Martyr', and the drawing under review was of a woman standing limply in the middle of a cell with snakes curled at her feet and raising their heads to attack her. Byam was scathing: 'If you were in a dungeon with snakes, would you stand int he center of them saying pleasantly, 'Good morning, snakes'? Of course you would shrink into a corner. You would Do something. You students don't seem to read, or think, or live. You are content all day to be at an easel drawing something in front of you. But the art that would last must have Ideas...'"

To be continued

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