Joseph Pennell: The Belgian Artists

"Sunset Over the Thames" by Emil Claus

"No idea of London in 1914-1915 can be given without mention of the Belgians who invaded it in their flight from the invaders of their country. Joseph Pennell's sympathy was great for the artists who had flown with the crowd - horror, sadness was in all their eyes. Pennell felt they would have been wiser to stay at home, but now they were in London, what he could do to lighten their exile, he did. He opened his doors wide to them, advised them, put them up at clubs, introduced them to dealers and colour men, was their guide to the beauty of London, which his studio windows first revealed to them.

They would stand staring out, as the twilight deepened and the searchlights played, all très émotionale, they would say. Later on, Emil Claus, asked by someone what impressed him most in London, the Tower? St. Paul's? Westminster? No, was his answer, he had seen nothing in London more wonderful than 'l'atelier de M. Joseph Pennell.' He treated them not as refugees to be kind to, but as friends, fellow artists with whom it was good to talk over his dinner table, as in France or Italy or their own Belgium he might have talked with them over coffee at the café. 

Gradually, they became interested in lithography, and the talk was of stone and paper, chalk and stump, transferring and printing. It led them back to work, and they his practical help. The only two artists who had done things for them as friends were Sargent and Pennell."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Life and Letters of Joseph Pennell, Volume Two" by Elizabeth Robins Pennell.)