Frank Brangwyn
(1867 - 1956)
Jesus Falls for the Second Time
Frank Brangwyn (1867 - 1956)
£1,600
Pen and ink on paper, 13 1/2 x 19 11/16 in. (34.3 x 50 cm.)
Size:
Height – 34.3cm
Width – 50cm
1 in stock
The earliest surviving pencil sketch by Brangwyn is dated 1882. Over 60 years later Brangwyn was still producing drawings, including over 150 book illustrations.
Drawing was a compulsion for Brangwyn Рendless sketches on the backs of envelopes, letterheads and scraps of paper (in fact anything that came to hand) attest to this.Brangwyn experimented with mixed media, often combining any of the following — pencil, crayon, chalk, charcoal, pastel, pen and ink and brush and ink. The drawings were made on a variety of different coloured papers.
Although he had no formal training few 20th-century British artists rivalled his technical excellence ‚Äî in this respect he might be compared to Augustus John and William Orpen. Brangwyn obviously enjoyed the process of sketching, hence the volume of work, sometimes drawing the same subject time and again with only small variations, and would return to particular images for inspiration years later, making dating of completed works somewhat difficult. His figure studies and images of plants and animals, carried out in soft pencil, chalk, pastel or mixed media, dis-play a confidence of line which rarely required change. Brangwyn felt that sketches show the most intimate side of an artist’s career … [studies] are usually the best thing an artist does.’
In common with many artists and writers, Brangwyn enjoyed the voy¬≠age of discovery far more than reaching port, the intellectual journey, the studies and cartoons, more than the signature added to a completed painting. He explained this view to a reporter in 1933 :The ideas right at the back of my mind ‚Äî ideas impossible to express in words ‚Äî are dawning into shape. The painting is only secondary; it’s the thinking and planning ‚Äî the endless seeking for satisfaction with your work that really counts.’
It is in the drawings … that the key to Brangwyn’s greatness is to be found.’ TW Earp, Brangwyn Art at Academy’
Frank Brangwyn was born in Bruges, Belgium, the son of an English father and Welsh mother. The family returned to London in 1874, Brangwyn’s father gaining work as a designer of buildings, embroideries and furniture. Although Brangwyn appears to have had little formal education, whether academic or artistic, his earliest mentors were three of the most influential men in design at the turn of the century: Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo, William Morris and Siegfried Bing. Between 1884 and 1887 Brangwyn travelled to Kent, Cornwall and Devon, before venturing further with trips to Turkey in 1888, South Africa in 1891, Spain in 1892 and Morocco in 1893.
Brangwyn was an independent artist, an experimenter and innovator, capable of working on both large and small scale projects, ranging from murals, oil paintings, watercolours, etchings, woodcuts and lithographs to designs for architecture, interiors, stained glass, furniture, carpets, ceramics and jewellery, as well as book illustrations, bookplates and commercial posters. It is estimated that he produced over 12,000 works during his lifetime. Mural commissions included the Worshipful Company of Skinners, London (1902-09), St Aidan’s church, Leeds (1908-16), Manitoba Legislative Building, Winnipeg, Canada (1918-21), Christ’s Hospital, Horsham (1912-23), State Capitol, Jefferson City, USA (1915-25), the British Empire panels, Swansea (1925-32), and Rockefeller Center, New York (1930-34). Brangwyn married Lucy Ray in 1896 and took on the lease of Temple Lodge, Hammersmith, in 1900. In 1918 the artist purchased The Jointure, Ditchling, where he spent most of his time following his wife’s death in 1924. Elected RA in 1919, knighted in 1924, holder of countless artistic awards, Brangwyn was modest about his singular achievements, regarding art as an occupation and describing himself as a designer.
