Edward Seago: The Annual London Exhibition

"After Rain - Upper Horning" by Edward Seago

"Before the opening of Edward Seago's annual London exhibitions, queues of potential purchasers camped in Bond Street from first light so that exclusive neighbouring tradesmen protested at the unprecedented sight. When the Colnaghi Gallery's doors opened at nine o'clock, the scene inside the normally quiet, elegant galleries was an undignified scramble, comparable to the first day of a sales week. Genuine collectors were enraged when they saw the pictures they wanted snatched from under their noses while speculators bought anything on which they could lay their hands. By the end of the first morning it was indeed rare for any picture to be without a red dot indicating its sale.

The annual free-for-all was a growing embarrassment, and eventually the directors of the gallery devised a routine whereby numbered catalogues were issued when the doors opened. One hour later, a member of the firm stood in the centre of the gallery, called out the catalogue numbers in sequence and took an order for one picture only from each holder. Still the queues formed long before opening time and sometimes several members of one family could be recognized there as well as representatives of an agency which had been commissioned to obtain numbered catalogues. The painter who was the cause of all the rivalry would have been far happier to see critics from some of the national newspapers at his exhibitions but, after the early years, almost without exception, they stayed away.

For the newspaper reporters it seemed the annual success story had become repetitive; for the critics the pictures rarely varied in style and content. Edward Seago rated attention only when he was lured away from his beloved landscapes to apply his craftsmanship and personal idiom to the pageants and personalities of the time. At the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten he made three impressions of the Royal procession turning into Parliament Square, paintings in which the scarlet and gold uniforms were startling in their effect in contrast to the sombre day and the dim greyness of the crowds. With such scenes of light and movement the painter's unrivalled gift of a photographic memory, painstakingly trained, came into its own. With landscape he had a total recall for up to seven years."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Edward Seago: The Other Side of the Canvas" by Jean Goodman.)