Pietro Annigoni: Bernard Berenson

Ink drawing of Bernard Berenson
by Pietro Annigoni

Before Pietro Annigoni began the portrait the Queen Elizabeth, he returned to Florence and there, as he writes, "gave myself up to painting landscapes and a self-portrait, the one I call 'Gulliver.' I also made a pen and ink drawing of Bernard Berenson, the famous art historian, as he lay ill in bed at him home. When it was finished he looked at it and said, 'In this portrait I am impressive, a personality to be taken seriously. Other people in general, yes, they have taken me seriously. I, never.'

Over the last twelve years of his life BB, as everyone called him, was a good friend to me. We had first met in 1947 when, flatteringly, he had asked, through mutual friends, to meet me. He must have been already eighty then. Later, he supported me when I was campaigning against the reckless cleaning of Old Master paintings in the great museums and art galleries of the world. We shared also, to a great extent, the same feelings about the excesses of much so-called modern art. As a clever businessman, he liked to keep in with everyone, but in private he was very outspoken. One night at 'I Tatti,' his beautiful villa near Settignano, he interrupted some of his guests who were talking about certain abstract painters: 'Stop talking about abstract art, it's so tedious.'

After I had been to India in 1957, he asked me to show him the drawings I had made of Indian scenes - twenty large watercolours and five albums of sketches. Later that same year I saw him again and showed him a colour transparency of the portrait of Princess Margaret that I had just finished. 'I enjoy you,' he said. I envy you your talent, your youth, what you have done, and what you will be able to do.' And he added, 'I don't say this only to your face, I tell it to everyone.' Unaccustomed as I was, and still am, to even a little praise from the intellectuals, I cherish those words, his last to me."

To be continued 

(Excerpted from "Pietro Annigoni: An Artist's Life" by Pietro Annigoni, 1977.) 

Pietro Annigoni: Princess Margaret, Pt. 2

 

"Portrait of Princess Margaret" (detail)
by Pietro Annigoni

"With December came the fog and smog and I had often to work by artificial light, which was bad. Once again things were not going well with the portrait and I became increasingly irritated with myself. Irritation turned to depression from which only the company of my friends, always ready to help, could lift me. Usually we had dinner in a restaurant and then adjourned to the Pheasantry Club for a last drink. One night when I was saying my farewells there, intent upon a good night's sleep before going to Clarence House next day, a man came to me and told me to keep quiet while his friend was singing. Something snapped in me and I punched him in the chest and bellowed at him to get out of my way. When my friend, Alex, tried to stop me, I flung him under a table. That night I slept like a log but awoke full of sadness and uncertainty. 

Before leaving for Clarence House, I tried in vain to ring Alex and ask his forgiveness. It was a dark sombre day and the light in the 'studio' was very bad. I felt nervous and could not concentrate and that, in turn, must have made Princess Margaret restless. Her face on the canvas appeared to me deformed. Unloading some of my emotions, I told her the sorry tale of the previous evening, and she laughed and said, 'Be careful you don't end up in jail here, too.' Then she looked at the portrait and exclaimed, 'Oh, what's happened to my eyes? You've done something terrible to them! I was mortified and I worked on in silence until the end of that day's sitting when, to my horror, she asked, 'Is it all right for my mother to come to see it now?' There could not have been a worse time, but of course I had to answer, 'Yes'.

Left alone for a few minutes, I sponged off most of that day's work and corrected some passages, working as if in a trance, which end abruptly when the Princess returned, accompanied by her mother. The Queen Mother greeted me with a warm smile, looked at the portrait, and said immediately: 'But it's beautiful, such a good likeness. Really, I'm so moved. Look at me, there are tears in my eyes.' I looked, and it was true. Then I looked at the painting and suddenly it seemed to me, too, that I had at least achieved a good likeness. I was immensely cheered."

To be continued 

(Excerpted from "Pietro Annigoni: An Artist's Life" by Pietro Annigoni, 1977.) 

 

Pietro Annigoni: Princess Margaret

"Portrait of Princess Margaret"
by Pietro Annigoni

"I had first seen Princess Margaret in Florence, when she was, I believe, making her first official overseas visit on her own. But it was not until I met her at Buckingham Palace, while painting the Queen, that I began to think seriously that she might sit for me. Then I let it be known in the right quarters that I would like to paint her and eventually a message came back from the Queen Mother that no member of the Royal Family could accept a gift. In reply I suggested that a nominal fee could be paid, and a sum of two hundred guineas was agreed.

At the end of October a room at Clarence House was allotted to me for my studio and I came over from Florence for the first sittings. But almost from the start nothing seemed to go right with the portrait. The principal reason was that, instead of making preliminary drawings, as was my usual practice, I had begun painting direct on to the canvas. The result was that after six sitting, a total of nine hours, I was so dissatisfied with the painting that I destroyed it. When I told the Princess what I had done and that I would have to start all over again, she was very understanding and promised me an extra six sittings if I needed them. I began work again, this time on a drawing, remarking that I had asked all my friends to pray for me. 'I'll pray for you, too, then,' she said with a little touch of mockery. At the end of the sitting, when she looked at the drawing, she commented, 'I see the Almighty has answered our prayers!'

To be continued 

(Excerpted from "Pietro Annigoni: An Artist's Life" by Pietro Annigoni, 1977.) 

 

 

Pietro Annigoni: Commissions Rejected

"Portrait of Don Giulio Facibeni"
by Pietro Annigoni

"Inevitably the exhibition of the Queen's portrait and all the publicity accompanying it brought a new avalanche of requests for portraits, more than I could possibly have painted if I lived a hundred years and did nothing else. Today, when I have given up painting commissioned portraits altogether, it is like a nightmare to recall those days. But how revealing they were of the extraordinary ideas many people have about artists. How many people thought themselves so important that I could not possibly refuse them, and how many more thought that I would change my mind if they offered more than my usual fee.

Then there were people, intelligent and famous people, like Clare Boothe Luce and Queen Juliana of Holland, who apparently thought that I could paint them at one sitting. I offered to make a sketch of Mrs. Luce, who was passing through Florence and had only a few hours, but she wanted a painting, and that was that. For the portrait of the Dutch Queen, I was approached by the Netherlands Embassy in London. When it was suggested that I should have one sitting I replied, 'The Queen of England gave me sixteen sittings. Why should the Queen of Holland give only one?' and that, too, was that.  

Other portraits I didn't paint included the blonde American woman who forced her way into my Florence studio and demanded to be painted immediately, the Emperor Haile Selassie, and Margaret, Duchess of Argyll. The unknown American threatened me, 'If you don't do my portrait I'll go to Dali!' I told her to go to the devil for all I cared. The Emperor was a rather longer problem. The request for a portrait of him with his wife, came to me from the Ethiopian Embassy in Rome. My enthusiasm was somewhat diminished when I learned that, instead of wearing the colourful Ethiopian costume I had expected, he wanted to be painted in military uniform. But I agreed to take the commission and offered to go to Addis Ababa for two months to carry it out. Then I heard no more about it. For seven months I wrote a number of letters asking what was happening. They all went unanswered. Then one day I received a telegram brusquely worded like a royal command: You are expected in Addis Ababa on such and such a date . . .  I ignored it.

I was invited by the Duke and Duchess to lunch at their London home. The Duke treated me as though I was asking him for the favour of being permitted to paint his wife. He spoilt my lunch by lecturing me about his wife's beauty and how I should treat this and that feature in the portrait. Later, he wrote several letters to me explaining what he wanted and telling me to remember this and not to forget that. When I could stand no more of this nonsense, I wrote to him and told him not to worry any more about the portrait because I was not going to paint it." 

To be continued 

(Excerpted from "Pietro Annigoni: An Artist's Life" by Pietro Annigoni, 1977.) 

 

Pietro Annigoni: Rights to Queen Elizabeth's Portrait

"The subsequent history of the portrait of Queen Elizabeth is public knowledge. It was shown in the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1955 and received an enormous amount of publicity throughout the world. (The painting, which received immense publicity, had a great popular appeal and the attendance throughout the fifteen weeks reached a total of almost 300,000, the highest for over fifty years.*) But there is one persistent fallacy about it that I would like to kill. It did not make a fortune for me. When I agreed to paint it for a fee of two thousand pounds, I fully expected to earn a considerable sum from the subsequent sale of reproductions. Only after I was offered ten thousand pounds for the reproduction rights did I discover that they were not mine to sell. 

Whereas in Italy an artist retains the copyright of any of his works unless he contracts otherwise, in Britain (as I learned too late) the copyright of a commissioned portrait goes to the buyer unless there is a contract to the contrary. When I appealed to the Fishmongers I was given the rights of reproduction outside Britain as a consolation prize. Then, at the end of 1955, they allowed me to buy the British rights. But by that time the enormous initial demand for reproductions had waned and I had already passed up the ten-thousand-pound offer. (Later, when I painted the Duke of Edinburgh, I sign the portrait with a tiny figure of myself carrying a big fish on my back. The fish symbolised the reproduction rights which, that time, I succeeded in keeping for myself.)

The picture of the Queen was used on postage stamps in dozens of countries all over the world, but few paid any fees. For the British stamps I was paid about thirty pounds. For those of Hong Kong, which were particularly good, I received a specimen sheet of stamps. Several countries also used the portrait on their paper month. One or two graciously sent me a sample banknote - overprinted 'Cancelled'! Most gave me no acknowledgement at all." 

To be continued 

*A note by Robert Wraight, collaborator with Annigoni on his autobiography. 

(Excerpted from "Pietro Annigoni: An Artist's Life" by Pietro Annigoni, 1977.) 

 

Pietro Annigoni: The Portrait of Queen Elizabeth, Pt. 4

"Portrait of Queen Elizabeth"
by Pietro Annigoni

"The last sitting (I think it was the sixteenth - an extra one generously conceded by the Queen) took place at the end of February 1955. I worked on for a few days at the Palace and then decided to give the portrait its finishing touches at Tim Whidborne's studio in Chelsea. But before Tim and I could remove it, I had a message from the Queen saying that she and the rest of the Royal Family would like to see it before it left the Palace. So I continued to work on the cloak and the background until one morning it was suddenly announced that the Royal private view would take place after lunch that day.

At lunchtime I was quite happily drinking my coffee and munching a few biscuits in front of the portrait when I began to feel renewed doubts about the right eye, doubts that I had allowed to receded while there were so many other details to worry about. Now, virtually everything else was satisfactory, but the eye looked balefully at me, demanding attention. Naturally I was reluctant to start again on a detail that I had thought finished. Especially I was reluctant to try to do anything so vital a detail as an eye in the short time before the Royal Family would arrive. After several moments of panic, when I seemed to have destroyed the entire expression of the face, I knew that I had been successful. But the Queen appeared now to have a black eye! Normally this would not have alarmed me at all for oil-tempera becomes lighter in tone as it dries and the artist allows for this. Frantically, but vainly, I waved a  piece of cardboard over it - and heard a box of matches rattling in my pocket. I lit the matches one after another, holding each one for as long as possible and as close to the paint as I dared, and still had the last one in my hand when the Queen walked in, followed by her mother, sister, husband, and children.

Everyone showed a lively interest in the work. The Duke of Edinburgh asked questions about the technique and the Queen Mother told me that the imaginary landscape in the background reminded her of a part of Scotland she knew so well.The Queen herself said that I must be satisfied with my work because everyone in the Palace liked it, and it was clear that she was happy for the same reason.

This happy ending to my sojourn at Buckingham Palace made me sad to leave. I had even become attached to the Yellow Drawing-room, for it had been my studio for many weeks and I had had many bitter and sweet experiences in it. Looking back it is like a half-dream in which I took part in a light opera, with a military band playing off-stage (for the Changing the Guard ceremony) and a real Queen as the heroine."

To be continued

(Excerpted from "Pietro Annigoni: An Artist's Life" by Pietro Annigoni, 1977.) 

 

Pietro Annigoni: The Portrait of Queen Elizabeth, Pt. 3

"From the moment that Queen Elizabeth appeared, dressed in white under a dark blue cloak, the robe of the Order of the Garter, everything went easily. Not that I was not over-awed and embarrassed at suddenly finding myself alone with the Queen of England. As she stood in front of me, probably expecting me to say where and how I wished her to pose, I was completely tongue-tied. Desperately uncertain of myself, I asked her to stand just as she was, turned away from the light and looking into the darkest corner of the room. I began to draw, conscious all the time of the precious minutes slipping away and knowing that the sketch I was making was valueless.

Suddenly - perhaps sensing my uneasiness - she began to talk casually in French. 'You know,' she said, 'when I was a child I used to spend hours in this room looking out of the windows. I loved watching the people and the cars down there in the Mall. They all seemed so busy. I used to wonder what they were doing and where they were all going, and what they thought about outside the Palace.'

Her words were like a searchlight lighting my way. I saw her immediately as the Queen who, while dear to the hearts of millions of people whom she loved, was herself alone and far off. I knew then that was how I must show her. I asked her to look out of the great window once more and I watched her face light up at the ever-changing scene she surveyed. I began to draw with new zest and at the end of the sitting, after the Queen had left and I was gathering up my sketches and materials, I felt that a great burden had been lifted from me. But there was more good luck to come that day. 

Walking through a long gallery, on my way out of the Palace, I saw in the shadowy distance a figure all in white that seemed to be floating towards me. Only when she came close did I realize it was the Queen without the Garter cloak. I stood aside to let her pass and she smiled and was gone. But in the second or two in which I glimpsed her eager young profile against the autumn evening light, she was momentarily transported in my imagination to the open air on a clear spring day."

To be continued

(Excerpted from "Pietro Annigoni: An Artist's Life" by Pietro Annigoni, 1977.) 

Pietro Annigoni: Portrait of Queen Elizabeth, Pt. 2

Photo of Pietro Annigoni by Russell Westwood

"Queen Elizabeth's first sitting was to be on the twenty-sixth of the month and, to my great delight, she had consented to come to the excellent studio I had found in Edwardes Square, Kensington for the sittings. This would have been a tremendous help to me but unfortunately a number of unexpected events conspired to prevent it. As soon as her decision had become known, my studio was overrun by newspaper reporters and photographers, and within a few days its address (and even my telephone number) was published in the Press. One newspaper even published a picture of an old studio chair in which it said the Queen would sit! That would probably have been enough for the Palace authorities to decide to cancel the arrangement. But something even more decisive followed.

In the afternoon of 8th October, while the newspaper men were still hovering around Edwardes Square, the Duchess of Devonshire was sitting for her portrait, with her back to the fireplace, when a piece of coal exploded in the grate and sent a shower of sparks into the studio. Fortunately she was not hurt but she certainly had a nasty shock, and I was very concerned about the whole thing. But there was still more trouble to come. The following day a thief had relieved me of three hundred pounds! I had a good idea who the villain was, but I had no proof and , at that time particularly, I wanted no trouble. In spite of that, both stories leaked out to the Press and so any chance that the Queen would come to the studio was finally killed. 

On the appointed day I was at Buckingham Palace half-an-hour early and was taken straight to the Yellow Drawing-room - a huge and magnificent room, which I later discovered was to be my studio. There Colonel Martin Charteris, the Queen's assistant private secretary, joined me and in reply to my question as to the procedure when the Queen arrived he explained simply: 'When I come here with Her Majesty to introduce you, just shake the hand that she will hold out to you and make a slight bow. That's all. Don't worry about the rest, because Her Majesty will put you at your ease immediately.' And that's how it was."

To be continued

(Excerpted from "Pietro Annigoni: An Artist's Life" by Pietro Annigoni, 1977.) 

 

Pietro Annigoni: The Portrait of Queen Elizabeth, Pt. 1

Pietro Annigoni's "Portrait of Queen Elizabeth"
in Fishmonger's Hall

"One day when I was at Wildenstein's gallery, Tim Whidborne brought me a letter that he had picked up at my studio. I opened and read it. It was from the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers and asked if I would be willing to paint for them a portrait of the Queen. I thought they were some little association who would want me to copy a photograph, but I asked Tim: 'Who are the Fishmongers?' 'People who sell fish. Why?' 'They want me to paint a portrait of the Queen for them,' I said, dropping the letter. Tim picked it up, read it, and laughed. 'This is serious,' he said, and told me how important those Fishmongers were. Later it transpired that several of the most influential members had been to see my show before deciding to honour me with the commission for the portrait that would hang in their Hall alongside those of Kings and Queens of centuries past.

After I had gratefully and proudly accepted, the Queen's acceptance of me had to be obtained. The Fishmongers borrowed the portrait of Juanita Forbes to show her as an example of my work. In any case she had already seen my portrait of Mrs. Christie-Miller, and had been sent photographs of some of my paintings by ex-Queen Helena of Romania, my friend for many years in Florence.

Once the Queen's approval was given, then only did the enormous importance of the undertaking hit me. It could make or break me. If I failed, all the prestige and goodwill I had earned for myself in Britain would be lost and I would feel bitter about it for the rest of my life. For that reason I wanted as many sittings as possible. I work slowly and would have like thirty one-hour sessions, but I knew that no other painter had been given more than seven or eight sittings, so I asked for twenty-five. The reply came from Buckingham Palace that the Queen would give me fifteen. Not enough. And yet I knew that I was being exceptionally favoured.

Two months passed before all the details were settled. Then it was decided that the earliest the sittings could start would be October. I returned to Florence and tried to work but, naturally perhaps, my mind was all the time occupied with the daunting undertaking to which I had committed myself. But out of all my preoccupation with the subject came only vague, cliché-ridden, theatrical, and romantic notions about the portrait; and when I returned to London at the beginning of October I still had no serious idea and felt nothing approaching inspiration." 

To be continued) 

(Excerpted from "Pietro Annigoni: An Artist's Life" by Pietro Annigoni, 1977.) 

 

Pietro Annigoni: Juanita Forbes, Muse

"Portrait of Juanita Forbes"
by Pietro Annigoni

"The Wildenstein show was not an unqualified success but it brought me several commissions, among which was one that provided me with a truly inspiring model. Baron Marocchetti, a friend of my first English pupil, invited me to a luncheon party after which he took all his guests along to Wildensteins. Among them was Princess Marie-Louise accompanied by Mrs. Faridah Forbes, a sculptress, who asked me there and then if I would paint her daughter, Juanita. 'I'm sure she would be an ideal subject for you,' she said.

How often, later on, I was to hear doting mothers say that of their daughters. BUt that first time it was true. Juanita was ideal. From our first meeting I was struck, not only by her beauty but also by her personality, in which there was a quality of romantic melancholy that so captivated me that I painted her not once, but four times. I worked on the portrait for her mother over a period of two years, striving all the time to capture what I have come to call the 'third person,' that elusive product of the fusion between the painter's spirit and the secret countenance of his sitter. During the course of painting a portrait the 'third person' may appear and disappear several times, but that it should be there, fixed, at the finish is a hope that is not always fulfilled. With Juanita Forbes it was.

It was that painting which was submitted to the Queen as a sample of my work when it was proposed that I should paint her portrait. But subsequently I painted Juanita Forbes three more times - as a Sybil, as a Vision, and as a Madonna, the Madonna in a fresco on the wall of a tabernacle at Grassina, near Florence."

To be continued) 

(Excerpted from "Pietro Annigoni: An Artist's Life" by Pietro Annigoni, 1977.) 

 

Pietro Annigoni: First English Commission

 Portrait of an Elderly Woman by Annigoni

"About this time I was introduced to the first of my English portrait subjects, Betty Howard. At first Miss Howard wanted me to make a painting of her mother and a drawing of herself, but I persuaded her to spare her mother the strain of many sittings by reversing the commissions - a drawing of her mother, a painting of herself. I did both of them in England that autumn.

Upon my success with the portrait of that charming and beautiful young English woman hung - or so it seemed to me then - my whole future in Britain, and there were several times while I was painting it that I despaired of ever getting it right.  On the last of those occasions I left my rooms at Earls Court and went by the Underground to Leicester Square to my usual eating-place. That evening there was added to my loneliness a conviction that the portrait had defeated me. Miserably I walked back to Earls Court, hoping to make myself so tired that I would be able to sleep, and vowing not to look at the painting. I failed on both counts. 

Irresistibly I was drawn into my painting-room and began to work by the light of a so-called 'daylight' bulb. In what must have been a near trancelike state I worked right through the night and at about six o'clock fell on to my bed and slept until midday. Waking, I rushed to see by daylight what good or terrible thing I had done to Betty Howard. I could have cried - with joy and relief - the picture was just as I had always hoped it would be. In later years I was often to experience similar periods of panic and despair, not all of them with such happy endings."

To be continued) 

(Excerpted from "Pietro Annigoni: An Artist's Life" by Pietro Annigoni, 1977.) 

 

Pietro Annigoni: Return to London

"London" by Pietro Annigoni

"I was urged to go back to London and 'strike while the iron's hot'. People were still talking about my self-portrait which Sir Alfred Munnings, the President of the Royal Academy, had praised in a sensational speech at the Royal Academy banquet. I learned that, after having referred to me as 'an unknown Italian painter, who is really outstanding', he had launched into a diatribe against Picasso, during which, in an aside to Sir Winston Churchill, he said something like, 'Don't you think if we could meet him somewhere in the dark one night we should kick him in the pants?' Next morning, I am told, Churchill sent him a telegram in protest at having been involved, but by then much of the speech had been reported all over the world.

I left Florence by train on 9th June for London, full of high hopes and good spirits that were temporarily jarred in Prato, where my train stopped alongside a goods train that brought back grim memories. From just such trains I had heard the hopeless groans and agonised pleas of prisoners, locked in for transportation to German concentration camps. In London, Louis Israel and Mark du Mont had organised a party for me in du Mont's house, and I hung my despised London drawings on the walls. Among the guests were many art critics and art dealers, the latter including several of those to whom I had shown the drawings earlier in the year. The irony of the scene as they discussed the finer points of the drawings aroused in me an uncomfortable mixture of bitterness and pleasure. But the irony was not complete until the man from Wildensteins, who had looked at the photographs of my paintings in March and shown no interest in seeing the originals, booked me for my first one-man show in London (and my first outside Italy) to take place in 1950.

Now I heard that Munnings wanted to meet me and to see photographs of my work. The meeting took place at the Athenaeum Club. Du Mont and the art critic, Adrian Bury, were with us, and Bury later wrote: 'It was a great occasion. We all discussed the greatness of art and the hope that it would survive the present horrible decadence. Annigoni showed us some photographs of his works. We were tremendously impressed. One charming little touch was that Munnings took Annigoni's hand and studied it, as if to say, 'out of this hand so many wonderful works!'"

To be continued) 

(Excerpted from "Pietro Annigoni: An Artist's Life" by Pietro Annigoni, 1977.) 

 

Pietro Annigoni: London

Self-Portrait, 1946, by Pietro Annigoni

"I was almost forty before I first visited London. In the winter of 1948, Dimitri, who was living in England, returned to Florence more than ever convinced that London was the place for me and proceeded to talk me into joining him there. I set out by train, taking with me a portfolio of drawings, many photographs of paintings, several art publications containing reviews of my work, and three painting which, on Dimitri's advice, I was to submit to the Royal Academy. On was my self-portrait of 1946, another a landscape, the third a Biblical picture, 'Jeremiah Weeping on a Tomb."  

The following day was Sending-In Day at the Royal Academy, so that would be our first call. Next we would visit the major public art galleries and museums and then, after a few days of such delicious pleasures, I would get down to work. Dimitri had little difficulty in persuading me that I must produce a series of impressions of London scenes, in ink and colour washes, which, he said, would appeal immediately to the great British public and, it followed, to the art dealers who would soon be vying with each other to show my work in their galleries. Then would follow the one-man show that must inevitably assure future success in England.

We mounted the drawings, put them in a portfolio and, next morning, went by Underground to Bond Street. Dimitri, who knew the people at Agnew's felt sure we would get a good reception there. Then we went to other galleries, we tried them all, and at five o'clock, beaten and exhausted, we took stock - dismally aware that we had none. Dimitri was near to tears and I was convinced my journey had been in vain.

At home again in Italy with my family and friends and working in my studio, the disappointments of the London adventure soon assumed a proper perspective and disappeared completely when I learned that the Academy had accepted all three of my works. Then, one day at the beginning of May, I received a cable from London which read: 'Your Self-Portrait Triumphant at Royal Academy. Stop. Regards Dumont'. A few days later every post began to bring me envelopes stuffed with cuttings from the British newspapers. Altogether there were scores, even hundreds, of them. Nearly all illustrated my self-portrait and criticised it favourably. There were also many letters from people who wanted to buy my three pictures, but I had borrowed them from my collectors for the show and were not for sale."

To be continued) 

(Excerpted from "Pietro Annigoni: An Artist's Life" by Pietro Annigoni, 1977.)  

Pietro Annigoni: The General's Coat, Pt. 2

Annigoni's Portrait of Gen. Mark Clark

Photo of General Mark Clark 

After a very negative response from General Mark Clark to Pietro Annigoni's portrait of him, ending with the general walking out of the studio in a huff, Annigoni continues the account:

"Not long afterwards Clark's friend, General Hume, who was at the Allied Armies HQ, came to me and indicated that he and his colleagues wanted to pay for the portrait and keep it for themselves. As his Italian, like my English, was totally inadequate to the occasion, I pointed to my studio stove and mimed the action of breaking up the painting and burning it. I must have looked absurd but the effect was evidently effective.

In fact, I had hidden the painting, face to the wall, behind a curtain and there it stayed until after the Allies had quitted Florence completely. Then, at the invitation of my friend at the Excelsior it was exhibited in the hotel foyer, where it was seen by the proprietor of the hotel who later bought it for himself. Still later, he sold it to an American army officer who was living in Italy, and then it came into the hands of General McMahon, of the United States Army. McMahon wanted to present it to the West Point Military Academy, but the gift was refused on the grounds, so I was told, that it was not the right size! But it did finally find its way to General Mark Clark, who sent me a photograph of himself standing beside the portrait in his home and looking quite at east with it.

Probably I shall never know why he behaved as he did on the night of the presentation. But I do know that before he came to the studio he had been dining with Prince and Princess Corsini, who admired the painting and had told him that, for Italians, it expressed something of the sadness they felt about the tragedy of Montecassino (for which some people blamed Clark). Perhaps that gave him the idea that I was getting at him through the portrait. Of course I was not. But with the best will in the world I could not make a winner in war, which means so many dead, look happy like a winner in a foootball match.

Ah yes, I had almost forgotten about the General's coat. It was a combat jacket which he left behind, together with a shirt, after his last sitting and forgot to collect when he made his hurried exit from my studio I found it fitted me admirably and was very comfortable for painting in, especially when the weather was cold. I wore it at Buckingham Palace when I painted the Queen and later when I painted the Duke of Edinburgh. No, neither of them made any remarks about it. But then I had, of course, removed all the General's insignia from it long before."

To be continued) 

(Excerpted from "Pietro Annigoni: An Artist's Life" by Pietro Annigoni, 1977.)  

 

 

Pietro Annigoni: The General's Coat, Pt. 1

"General Mark Clark" by Pietro Annigoni

"About ten years after the war, when I was painting Queen Elizabeth, I read an article in an American magazine which alleged that while working on the royal portrait at Buckingham Palace I was wearing a famous American general's coat. The allegation, which was made by the wife of General Mark Clark, was correct. The coat was her husband's. And, as you say in England, thereby hangs a tale, a war's-end tale.

It was 1945. Fighting had already finished in Italy and was rapidly drawing to a close in the rest of Europe. General Mark Clark, US military commander in Italy, had moved his headquarters to Vienna but made frequent visits to Florence, where he invariably stayed at the Excelsior Hotel. There one day, the manager of the hotel, who was a friend of mine, learned that the General's staff officers wished to present their chief with a portrait of himself and were looking for a suitable painter. My friend suggested they commission me, and they did. 

It was agreed that I would have to work from sketches and studies made at the hotel whenever the General was able to spare the time. In fact he spared little time for my sitter continued to work while he sat. We were repeatedly interrupted by the visits of messengers, aides, secretaries, and a stream of telephone calls from and to places all over the world.

It was always a relief to me when the General left the city for Vienna or elsewhere, for then I worked on the portrait in my own studio. Several times, after I had started the final painting, he came there to see how the work was progressing - and he was pleased with what he saw. When at last the painting was finished, it was arranged that it would be presented to him in my studio. Many other officers were already in the studio when Mark Clark and, it seemed to me, his entire general staff, arrived and filled the place. From the demeanour of his staff officers as well as from the expression on his face it was immediately evident that the General was in a terrible mood. He went straight to the easel, studied the portrait for only a moment and then snorted, 'I've never lost a battle in my life.' And with that, he stalked out of the studio like an angry prima donna, leaving us all speechless. No one could offer an explanation and no one tried. Soon I was alone, angry and humiliated." (To be continued) 

(Excerpted from "Pietro Annigoni: An Artist's Life" by Pietro Annigoni, 1977.)  

 

Pietro Annigoni: The German Occupation

 

Drawings by Annigoni for "Destruzioni di Firenze"

"Like all Italian anti-fascists in the years immediately before the Second World War, I had watched with alarm Mussolini's toadying to Hitler, his involvement of our country in the Spanish Civil War and his annexation of Albania in emulation of the Führer's 'anschluss [connection]' in Austria. With each new madness came the hope that this time he had overreached himself, that disaster and his self-destruction must follow, that Italy would at last be free of Fascism and dictatorship. Such an act of madness came on 10th June 1940, when the country was thrown into the war alongside the Nazis.

I have called myself an anti-fascist but I was no hero. I did not 'go underground' and join the partisans. Indeed, I did no more than resolve to continue to evade military service by every honest or dishonest means it might require. In 1944 partisan activity was intensified all over the city, signalling the approach of the Allied army. Then one day at sunset, shells came whistling over the city and all of us were ordered to barricade ourselves in our homes. But instead of fear, there was jubilation in our hearts. At last the end of the terror was in sight. The possibility that either German or Allied shells might destroy us before that time arrived scarcely occurred to us.

With the arrival of British, American, and other Allied forces, Florence sighed with relief. The water supply was quickly restored to the parched city and work began almost immediately on the clearance of rubble from the streets. At the same time I was called to the Fine Arts Office and asked by a British officer if I would undertake to make a series of drawings recording the damage done to the city. Armed with permits which gave me access to places forbidden to other civilians, I set to work and, during September and October, produced twelve large and detailed drawings, most of them showing extensive areas of the city. Later they were exhibited at the Galleria Botti and published in lithographic reproduction under the title 'Distruzioni di Firenze.' Now they are in the Gabinetto di Studio of the Uffizi Gallery.

Unknown to us, Hitler had ordered the complete destruction of Florence, and the officer commanding the German troops in Fiesole was later shot for not carrying out that order. Even so, many great architectural masterpieces, including the Giotto Tower, were damaged and the whole areas on the edge of the old city were devastated." 

To be continued

(Excerpted from "Pietro Annigoni: An Artist's Life" by Pietro Annigoni, 1977.)  

 

Pietro Annigoni: First Frescoes

Pietro Annigoni's fresco at the convent of San Marco

"The year 1937 was an important one for me. I began my first important work in fresco - and I decided to get married. I had begun to use fresco in a small way as early as 1934 but did not get the opportunity to paint an entire wall until 1936, when I made a large trompe l'oeil mural in a restaurant which my friends and I patronised and which, incidentally, was destroyed during the Second World War. All the work was done after dinner, by candlelight and with the aid of a flask of Chianti, starting at about ten o'clock and going on until the early hours of the morning.

Now, through an interest in transcendental philosophy, I had become very friendly with Monsignor Tanzella, who was a Professor of Philosophy in the Dominican Order and a man with a serious interest in painting. With his encouragement, I volunteered to paint a series of murals in the convent of San Marco, in Florence, my first ecclesiastical work in that medium, and the first of many that I was to undertake. I regard my frescoes as the most important things I have done, and, certainly, the works that have given me most satisfaction and pleasure. When painting portraits in my studio I have always felt a longing for the hours on the scaffolding, those lonely hours after the plasterer has done his job, and I am left entirely to my own thoughts. For many years now, portraiture has been only a minor part of my work and I have given more and more of my time and thoughts to religious frescoes. Ideas that I would like to realise in churches are going round in my head all the time.

I started the San Marco fresco with a 'Descent from the Cross', and, during the following four years added two groups of Dominican Saints and in two lunettes, 'Adam and Eve' and 'Cain and Abel'. For the first part of the work I decided that I must have a dead body as a model for the figure of Christ, so I consulted the Professor of Anatomy at a teaching hospital and was given permission to choose one from the refrigerator. I took the only one that could possibly serve my purpose and tried to hang it on a ladder, but it was far too stiff for me to do anything with it. In the end, I had to use a living model."

To be continued

(Excerpted from "Pietro Annigoni: An Artist's Life" by Pietro Annigoni, 1977.)  

 

 

Pietro Annigoni: Oil Tempera

"Mrs. Woolfson" by Pietro Annigoni

"I confess that I was myself more concerned with my work than with the fate of Italy at that time. For the first time I had a group of paintings and drawings on show in my native city, Milan, which was gratifying. But at the same time I was becoming increasingly dissatisfied with oil painting. The freer, 'impressionistic' brushwork that I employed failed to reproduce in the paintings the qualities I had in mind when I was making the preliminary drawings. For a while I gave up painting and devoted myself to etching Ia collection of 113 of my prints was published that year) and to a new study of the Renaissance masters, through which I hoped vaguely to discover some sort of secret by which they succeeded in carrying over, into their paintings, the power and vitality that informed their drawings.

Unwilling to accept that the secret lay entirely in their genius, I worked myself into a thoroughly depressed state. Then, as has so often happened to me during difficult periods of my life, a new friend came to my aid. His name was Lokoff. He was a Russian painter who for many years had been studying the technical methods of the Old Masters, the chemistry of their colours, and the nature of the mediums they used, and he was convinced he had discovered a secret medium used extensively by painters of the High Renaissance, especially the Venetians. This secret he imparted to me and I have made use of it ever since and given it to anyone else who wanted it. 

Briefly the medium is best described as oil tempera. It comprises various proportions of egg yolk, white of egg, standoil, and mastic varnish. In addition, a vinegary white wine is used for the mixing of the powdered paint. The discovery of this medium, which I learned to modify subtly for use with different colours and to produce different effects, sent me back to painting with new enthusiasm and excitement."

Formula for Oil-Tempera Medium

Egg (in the proportion of one whole egg to two yolks) 4 parts 

Mastic varnish - 1 part

Standoil - 1 part

Mix with an electric or hand egg-whisk. Store in refrigerator until required. I have learned to vary or modify this formula slightly for use with certain colours. I mix all my own colours from the basic ingredients, using a solution of white wine together with a little water.

To be continued

(Excerpted from "Pietro Annigoni: An Artist's Life" by Pietro Annigoni, 1977.)  

 

Pietro Annigoni: Paris and Salzburg

St. Wolfgang Altarpiece by Michael Pacher

"In 1935 I had a very successful one-man show, my second, at the Galleria Botti. The critics mostly ignored it but people from all walks of life crowded into the gallery, and at the end nearly all the paintings and drawings had been sold, at prices far higher than I would have dreamed of asking. But that was not all. Included in the exhibition were several portraits of well-known men and women of Florence and these brought me commissions to paint more. Altogether my prospects looked rosy, so the idea of a trip to Paris immediately appealed to me.

Paris lived up to all its promises, and I and three of my friends lived every moment to the full. We walked backwards and forwards across the beautiful city to visit museums and galleries, passed hours in the cafés of Montmartre and Montparnasse, sketching and making caricatures all the while, and at night dined boisterously in some small restaurant before collapsing.  

Then it was on to Salzburg for the Mozart festival and worshipped along with the other tourists at the house where the composer was born and at the museum devoted to his memory. But for me the outstanding attraction was the fifteenth-century altarpiece in a little chapel, the celebrated 10-year work of art by Michael Pacher which I had admired in reproductions but which in reality stunned me with its beauty and perfection. I went to see it every day and stood for hours trying to absorb its every detail. 

I had been drawn to the great German and other North European masters, Dürer, Holbein, Memling, the elder Breughel, and, later, Rembrandt and Callot, very early in my career, and, oddly my friends thought, they meant more to me than the Italian masters, until Renzo Simi and Mario Parri opened my eyes to the tremendous vitality and power of the great Florentines. Not without nostalgia the Pacher altarpiece recalled those earlier loves."

To be continued

(Excerpted from "Pietro Annigoni: An Artist's Life" by Pietro Annigoni, 1977.)  

Pietro Annigoni: Critics and the Public

"Self-Portrait" by Pietro Annigoni

"In those early days I was a 'young man mad about drawing.' Indeed by 1950 I had made so many drawings that I realized that overproduction was reducing even the modest sums for which I was able to sell them. My studio was inundated with them, so one day I consigned more than two thousand sketches and studies to my studio stove. Many more followed later. In the previous year a group of my drawings had been shown in an exhibition at the Galleria Botti, but it was not until three years later, when I was twenty-two, that I was given my first one-man show, of paintings and drawings, at the Palazzo Ferroni in Florence. 

The response from the public and critics set a pattern for nearly all my future exhibitions. Most members of the public who came to the show were enthusiastic, most of the critics were not. Almost alone, the critic of the Corriere della Sera, Ugo Ojetti, gave a reasoned opinion and refrained from damning my work because it did not conform to current fashion. Right from the beginning of my career I have been sustained by the warmth of the public's feeling for my work and have learned not to overrate the importance of critical sneers. After all, if I had to choose between the admiration of the public or that of the critics I would always choose the first. It helped me, if I ever needed help, to stick to my guns and withstand the pressures to swim with the 'modernist' tide. Those pressures were very real and were exemplified by the Futurist artist and propagandist, Carol Carra, when, writing about me in 1936, said:

'No one expects to receive from this exhibition of Annigoni's any artistic impression of a modern character. It is a pity, a very great pity, that the young painter has taken up this stand, given the undoubted abilities which he possesses for figurative art. Let us hope that he will be aware of this in time, and that he will know how to make the effort necessary to abandon this mistaken path...' 

Ironically, when I met Carra thirty years later, he reminded me in a self-congratulatory manner that he had been one of the first critics to recognize me! But, if Carra's criticism ran true to form, Surrealist Giorgio de Chirico's did not. After paying me many flattering compliments in his memoirs he continued; 'Pietro Annigoni works seriously and goes straight on his road without heeding the chatter, the snobism, the intellectualism and the foolishness of this our unhappy period, and also without taking any notice of the spite which his work arouses.'"

To be continued

(Excerpted from "Pietro Annigoni: An Artist's Life" by Pietro Annigoni, 1977.)  

 

Pietro Annigoni: Francesco Bartoli

Drawing by Pietro Annigoni

"In 1923 my father sent me to Milan's famous Calchi-Taeggi College, where I lived a sort of double life. On the one hand, a dreamy student, mad about art; on the other, a juvenile gangster resenting authority and conformity. The good side began when I was befriended by Professor Francesco Bartoli, who subsequently taught me Classics - and oh, so much more - for a whole year. On his desk during the examination was a large art book with an illustrated cover that attracted and held my attention. After the test was over he asked me why I was so interested in the book and I told him it was because I intended to be a painter. He said that he, too, loved painting, and from then on he did all he could to encourage me in my ambition. He believed that none of the arts should be exclusive and taught me to love and appreciate architecture, poetry, music, and great literature.

Bartoli was a leading light of a Milanese society called The Friends of Art, whose members were artisans, craftsmen, or just working men interested in the arts. On Sundays he conducted groups of these men around one of the city's many museums, art galleries, or treasure-filled churches. And he took me along with them. His son, who was about my age, came too. Then, one Sunday that I remember so well, we went to the Brera Museum to see the wonderful collection or paintings there. But I must confess that it was not the paintings that made that particular visit so memorable. The Professor's daughter, accompanied us and I was dazed by her beauty. She seemed to me to have stepped straight out of Leonardo's painting of Beatrice d'Este, a portrait that I had long been in love with.

It would be impossible for me to list all the enduring pleasures of this life that Francesco Bartoli opened up to me. They were not only cultural pleasures. He instilled in me a love of nature, of the open air and, particularly, of mountains. He was himself a mountaineer and spent all his summer holidays in the Dolomites where, tragically, his son died scaling a needle, which was later named after him. My own climbing experiences were not over-ambitious, but sketching expeditions in the smaller mountain ranges of North Italy, alone or with friends and sometimes lasting several weeks, brought me many unforgettable adventures."

To be continued

(Excerpted from "Pietro Annigoni: An Artist's Life" by Pietro Annigoni, 1977.)  

 

Pietro Annigoni: Struggles

"Juanita" by Pietro Annigoni

"At ten began the most miserable period of my life. I was sent to a new school and from the start was unpopular with the other boys and with the masters. This hell lasted nearly three years, during which my whole personality changed. From being a daring and adventurous boy, I became timid and developed an inferiority complex that - and this may surprise all but my close friends - has stayed with me all my life. 

Hating school as I did, I drew even closer to my father, unconsciously looking for protection. He was still giving me drawing lessons and that, in turn, gave him a renewed enthusiasm for drawing himself. He made portraits of my brother Giovanni, and me, that seemed to me so good that I strove still harder to equal his skill as a draughtsman. Sometimes he would read to us from his favourite books and talk to us about them as though we were his equals. In that way, inevitably, we absorbed most of his ideas, including his hatred of the Church.

Ironically, my nickname at that time was 'Canonicus,' a holy-sounding name inspired first because I was a heavily-built and serious child, and second because I lived in the Via Canonica. Then, and for many years afterwards, I signed my drawings 'Canonicus.' Later, it gave way to the cipher which I still use today, a 'C' followed by three crosses representing the Via Crucis - the hard Road to the Cross which the artist has to travel.

I believe that (in spite of being the son of rabid anti-clericals) the longing for a certain and revealed faith in the Divine has deep roots in my spirit and determines one of its essential, if contradictory, traits, which does not fail to be reflected in my actions as man and artist. On the other hand, the spiritual anarchy of our time often arouses in me a furious sense of rebellion that tends to reinforce this longing, which is above all, the, the nostalgia of one who is not in accord with the epoch and the society to which he belongs." 

To be continued

(Excerpted from "Pietro Annigoni: An Artist's Life" by Pietro Annigoni, 1977.)  

 

Pietro Annigoni: A Prediction

"St. Joseph the Worker"(detail) by Pietro Annigoni

"When I made my first visit to England in 1949, I was embarrassed, even frightened, by my ignorance of the English language. Five years later, when I painted the Queen at Buckingham Palace, my English was still so poor that we talked to each other in French. And yet, the very first word I learned as a child was an English one, 'cow'. The house in which I was born, on the outskirts of Milan, overlooked fields where cattle grazed, and my mother held me in her arms at the window, pointed to the cattle and repeated the word over and over again until I, too, could say it.

My mother's parents were Italians but she had been born and brought up in California, and English - or American - was her language. My father, Ricciardo Annigoni, was a mathematician and engineer working in America when he met my mother, Teresa Botti, and married her in New York. Then returning to Italy, they made their home first in Lucca, then Milan where I was born. Not long after my younger brother was born my father told me that when I grew up, I would be an artist. I had myself decided that even earlier but without knowing, as my father did, how hard I would have to work to become a good artist. He had some talent for drawing, and as a young man, may well have thought of becoming an artist himself. 

There were several of his drawings hanging in our home, one of them a self-portrait which was really good and which I tried to imitate at a very early age. But I was six when I made a curious drawing that/ presumably because it had some element of originality, prompted my father to say, 'You'll become a great painter one day.' From then on he did all he could to make his prediction come true. Even before I went to school he gave me lessons in drawing, painting - and his beloved mathematics."

To be continued

(Excerpted from "Pietro Annigoni: An Artist's Life" by Pietro Annigoni, 1977.)  

Ivan Olinsky: A Quiet and Successful Career

"Madonna" by Ivan Olinsky

"During the 1920s, Olinsky experimented with new approaches such as showing figures against translucent curtains or in front of mirrors. His style became progressively simpler, however, and by the late 1920s, his works were characterized by spare compositions in which abstract values are accentuated. In the 1930s, he continued to create minimalist designs. The portraits he executed during the decade show women who exude the energetic spirit associated with modern city life. Olinsky also explored symbolic portrayals, depicting a few images entitled “Madonna,” one of which featured his daughter Leonore. During the 1940s and 1950s, Olinsky continued to portray women, at times showing subjects engaged in reverie and at other times depicting confident subjects dressed in the casual attire typical of their time.

An impeccable craftsman, Olinsky created works that not only captured the realities of his subjects, but also expressed his enthusiasm for them. Although his art received considerable attention from the press during his lifetime, there were no articles or critical reviews devoted to him. His achievement was recognized by a memorial exhibition at the Art Students League in 1962 (where he had taught for years), but it was not until 1995, that it was given scholarly attention, when an exhibition accompanied by a catalogue was held at The William Benton Museum of Art at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, and at the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, Connecticut.

Olinsky’s work may be found in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago; the Art Students League, New York; the Brooklyn Museum; the Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio; the Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Virginia; the Dayton Art Institute, Ohio; the Everhart Museum, Scranton, Pennsylvania; the Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, Connecticut; the Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company, Hartford, Connecticut; the Hood Museum, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire; the Lyman Allyn Art Museum, New London, Connecticut; the Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, New York; the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minnesota; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the National Academy of Design, New York; the National Arts Club, New York; and the New Britain Museum of American Art, Connecticut."

Olinsky suffered a stroke in December 1961 and died at the home of his daughter, Leonore, on February 11, 1962.

To be continued

(Excerpts from the biography of Ivan Olinsky from Spanierman Gallery's website.) 

Ivan Olinsky: Work & Family

"The Poetry Reading" by Ivan Olinsky

"While Ivan and Genevieve Olinsky were living in Venice from 1906 until 1909, he created small scale spontaneously rendered street scenes. In 1907, their daughter Leonore was born. Their second daughter, Tosca, arrived two years later, around the time that the artist and his family moved to Paris. In the French capital, Olinsky established a studio and studied masterpieces at the Louvre and the Luxembourg museum. He also spent time in the Normandy town of Vernon, where he began to concentrate on the figure.

Olinsky returned to New York with his family in 1910 and set up a studio at Washington Square, where portraiture became his emphasis. At first, he painted his wife and daughters, but soon, he was flooded with commissions. By 1912, he was supplementing his income from portraits by teaching at the Academy, where, two years later, he was elected an associate member and awarded the Thomas B. Clarke Prize in its annual exhibition. He gained full membership in the Academy in 1919. He also taught at the Art Students League.

In addition to painting portraits for his living, Olinsky created paintings of figurative subjects for exhibition. Often depicting attractive women, he demonstrated his skills at modeling with color and treating three-dimensional form in a convincing fashion. Critics remarked on his skills, admiring 'the dash and verve that all his things have,' and commenting that 'his color modelling and surety of line have made him known everywhere.'”  

To be continued

(Excerpts from the biography of Ivan Olinsky from Spanierman Gallery's website.) 

 

Ivan Olinsky: Studies & Apprenticeships

"The Adjustments of Conflicting Interest" by John LaFarge
in the Supreme Court Room, Minnesota State Capitol, Saint Paul

"Moral and Divine Law" by John LaFarge
in the Supreme Court Room, Minnesota State Capitol, Saint Paul

"The Relation of the Individual to the State" by John LaFarge
in the Supreme Court Room, Minnesota State Capitol, Saint Paul

"The Recording of Precedents" by John LaFarge
in the Supreme Court Room, Minnesota State Capitol, Saint Paul

"On the basis of a drawing of an antique sculpture that Ivan Olinsky submitted, he was able to enroll in the National Academy of Design in 1894, when he was sixteen. At the Academy, he initially enrolled in the antique class, but quickly advanced to the life class. His teachers included Francis Coates Jones, Edgar Melville Ward, Charles Yardley Turner, and George Willoughby Maynard.

At the conclusion of his studies at the Academy, Olinsky assisted Maynard, an important mural painter, with decorative commissions. Through Maynard, Olinsky met Elmer E. Garnsey, who had a firm on Park Avenue that specialized in decorative work for public buildings. Garnsey, in turn, introduced Olinsky to John La Farge, who hired him as a studio assistant. Olinsky worked with La Farge on mural commissions for the Supreme Court Room of the Minnesota Capital and for the Baltimore Courthouse. He also assisted La Farge with designs for stained glass windows.

Although Olinsky craved a career of his own, he continued to work for La Farge until 1906, when he left for Europe with his wife, Genevieve Karfunkle, the sister of a fellow student from the Academy, who he had married in 1904. While living in Venice from 1906 until 1909, he created small scale spontaneously rendered street scenes."

To be continued

(Excerpts from the biography of Ivan Olinsky from Spanierman Gallery's website.)