Charles Mahoney
(1903 - 1968)
Set Design, c.1926-30
Charles Mahoney (1903 - 1968)
Size:
Height – 56cm
Width – 47cm
Mahoney’s first depiction of Adam and Eve appears to date to the beginning of his relationship with Evelyn Dunbar in the mid 1930s; references to ‚ÄúCharlie and Eve‚Äù occur in their correspondence. The idea of the Garden of Eden encapsulated the feelings of both about plants and nature, a passion nourished by frequent trips to Kew Gardens. Mahoney delighted in depicting different points in the narrative (The Garden, The Temptation, The Expulsion) and the subject remained a recurrent theme right through to his last decorative panel, The Muses, in which elements of his vision of paradise gardens combine to form a remarkable panorama
The Tate’s Garden of Eden is reinstated as a horticultural fantasy, defined by its relationship with an unseen domestic interior. Mahoney’s image of perfection glimpsed from a window was created in the mid-1930s, when the idea of the garden was actually an accomplice of suburbanisation.
For drawing, Mahoney liked a textured paper, soft to the touch, such as Ingres, or still better, hand-made papers from firms such as Hayle Mill or Barcham Green. His use of tracing paper, as in this study, was to facilitate transferring the final design to canvas. His drawing pens were either reservoir nibs in holders or else cartridge pens.
Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, Tate Britian, 1936
In his memoir Since 50, Men & Memories 1922-1938 (New York,1940, p. 236) the first two names that appear on William Rothenstein list of top Royal College of Art students were Henry Moore and Charles Mahoney – the list continues with the names of luminaries such as Eric Ravilious, Edward Bawden, Barnett Freedman Edward Le Bas, and Evelyn Dunbar. The process of reassuring Mahoney’s place in 20th century British Art has had several important milestones including the 1975 Ashmolean exhibition, the Liss Fine Art/Fine Art Society touring show (2000) and Mahoney’s predominant feature in Tate Britain’s The Art of the Garden, (2005) – but the process of reassessment still has a long way to go.
Painter, muralist, draughtsman and teacher. Born Cyril Mahoney in London – his fellow-student Barnett Freedman re-christened him Charlie at the Royal College of Art, which he attended 1922-6 after a period at Beckenham School of Art under Percy Jowett. Early on, Mahoney established a reputation as a conscientious teacher. He was at the Royal College 1928-53, from 1948-53 as a painting tutor, and was noted there for his concern for academic discipline. His portrait is included in Rodrigo Moynihan’s celebrated Teaching Staff of the Painting School at the Royal College of Art, 1949-50. From 1954 to 1963 he taught at the Byam Shaw School of Drawing and Painting and from 1961 to 1968 at the Royal Academy Schools. He painted murals at Morley College 1928-30 with his colleagues Eric Ravillious and Edward Bawden. Unfortunately these murals were destroyed during World War II. The work led to further murals: at Brockley School, Kent, with Evelyn Dunbar; and at Campion Hall Lady Chapel, Oxford. His oil paintings are frequently of a religious nature. He was a skilled botanist, and many of his drawings depict his garden at Wrotham, Kent. He exhibited at NEAC and the RA, being made an RA elect in 1968. He is represented in the Tate Gallery and other public collections. The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, held a memorial exhibition in 1975. Exhibitions were held in 2000 at the Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston, Royal Museum and Art Gallery, Canterbury, and the Fine Art Society plc in association with Liss Fine Art.
