Henry Herbert La Thangue

Isaac Smith JP, Bradford;
His sale, Christie's London, 15 May 1911, to Rigg;
Christie's London, 6 March 1981, lot 43 (as The Tennis Player);
Spink, London

London, New Gallery, 1889, no.16 (as A Study)

The New Gallery, An Illustrated Catalogue with notes by Henry Blackburn, Chatto and Windus, 1889, p.10;
Frederick Wedmore, 'The New Gallery', The Academy, 18 May 1889, p.348;
'The New Gallery - Second Notice', The Glasgow Herald, 7 June 1889, p.9;
'The New Gallery', The Morning Post, 4 May 1889, p.3;
George Thomson, 'HH La Thangue and his Work', The Studio, vol. IX, 1896, illustrated p.176 (as In the Orchard);
Kenneth McConkey, Edwardian Portraits, Antique Collectors' Club, Woodbridge, pp.94-5, illustrated;
Kenneth McConkey, 'Tennis Parties', in Ann Sumner ed., Court on Canvas, Tennis in Art, Philip Wilson Publishers, London, 2011, pp.60, 62, illustrated p.64.

The following condition report has been prepared by Hamish Dewar Ltd, 13 & 14 Mason's Yard, Duke Street, St James', London, SW1Y 6BU: Structural Condition The artist's canvas has been lined and this is ensuring an even and secure structural support. Paint surface The paint surface has a very discoloured varnish layer and should be transformed by cleaning. Inspection under ultra-violet light shows small scattered retouchings, the most significant of which are: 1) retouchings on the lower left and upper right vertical framing edges and a number of small touches on the woman's face. All of these retouchings appear larger than is really necessary and should they be removed could be reduced with more careful inpainting. 2) A horizontal line of retouching approximately 12 cm above the lower horizontal framing edge and other very small scattered spots. Summary The painting would therefore appear to be in good and stable condition and should respond very well to cleaning, restoration and revarnishing.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

"When he [La Thangue] returned from Paris...he made his influence widely felt. Those who knew his work and methods can yet trace their results among many who would deny being either his conscious or unconscious pupils, while others who never even saw him are touched by his power at second or third hand." (Morley Roberts, 'A Colony of Artists', Scottish Arts Review, 1889, p.73)

 

With all the talk about Naturalism and Impressionism in the 1880s it is surprising that only a small number of British artists painted portraits in the open air. Few professional portrait painters were willing to leave the creature comforts of the studio for the unpredictable outdoors, and the convention of adding an exterior setting as appropriate, at the conclusion of sittings, was maintained. This practice, referred to as ‘faking it’ was strenuously rejected by the younger generation.¹ It was only at the end of the century that the Latin phrase ad vivum was taken to mean seizing the subject, unposed, in the middle of some characteristic action or activity, beyond the confines of the studio. Indeed some young painters, led by Henry Herbert La Thangue, made it clear that they had rejected the very idea of a studio (see fig.1).  

When in his thirtieth year, La Thangue painted his wife, Katherine, seated on a wicker chair in what Henry Blackburn described as ‘a green garden’, it was a noteworthy occasion. Katherine was already a familiar figure in artistic circles, having modeled for Val Prinsep’s At The Golden Gate in 1883 (Manchester City Art Galleries) and for La Thangue’s Gaslight Study (Atkinson Art Gallery, Southport) in the previous year. Known as Kate, she was born in London to an immigrant family that originated in Zurich and prior to her marriage to La Thangue in 1885 she had worked as an actress and artist’s model.²

By 1886 the couple were living at Horsey Mere in Norfolk, where the painter found inspiration in the flat landscape and daily activities of fieldworkers and Broadsmen. The portraits of Kate however, provide a brief glimpse of their domestic setting. Exhibited simply as A Study, the present canvas shows the young Mrs La Thangue looking round attentively as if to catch the words of an unseen friend, and the racquet on her lap tells us that she is resting after a game of tennis.³ Her dog, the sometimes unruly bloodhound, ‘Bor’, sits quietly in the background (fig.2).⁴ Although the setting is indeed an orchard garden, the theme is modern. Lawn tennis, a new arrival among domestic sports, had, in the previous fourteen years replaced croquet as the most popular middle class young person’s outdoor pastime.⁵ Within four years of its introduction it was the subject of Punch cartoons in which young women were seen striking Grecian poses with tennis racquets (see George Du Maurier, Modern Aesthetics, from the Punch Almanach, 1878).

By 1880 the Wimbledon Croquet Club had already added tennis to its title and was holding annual championship games, and although other clubs were opening across the country and in the colonies, it was essentially a game played in the spacious gardens of rural and suburban villas. This was graphically illustrated when, in 1885, it was the subject of John Lavery’s Naturalist panorama, The Tennis Party (Aberdeen Art Gallery) - a picture that, though derided at the Royal Academy, was lauded in the Paris Salon. Tennis was the game for those with aesthetic and avant-garde aspirations.⁶

It is clear that the earnest young La Thangue shared Lavery’s ideals. As a student he too had completed his training in the Paris ateliers, and by the end of the 1880s, was renowned in the artist community as the most radical founder member of the New English Art Club.⁷ His public advocacy of the ‘democratic’ principles of French plein air Naturalism distinguished his work from that of its more timid followers and his unconventional métier was a constant source of curiosity for contemporaries. One can imagine that A Study attracted as much attention in the artist community as it did from the wealthy west Yorkshire collectors who were supporting the painter. In the late summer of 1889, when the picture had just been shown at the New Gallery, La Thangue was hailed as the founder of ‘the Square Brush School’ and esteemed for his ‘love of truth and directness’. Even those who did not know him were, we are told, affected at second or third hand. His style was described as:

'…a technical method which puts paint on canvas in a particular way with a square brush, which many older men never use. Those who practice it in its simplest form leave brush-marks, and do not smooth away the evidence of method, thus sometimes insisting on the way a picture is painted, perhaps at the sacrifice of subtleties in the subject' (Morley Roberts, ‘A Colony of Artists’, The Scottish Art Review, vol. 2, August 1889, p. 73).  

La Thangue emphasized breadth and the Naturalistic ‘truth’ of the ensemble at the expense of surface detail and to achieve his effects the painter must work exclusively on the motif. As is clear from A.D. McCormick’s drawing, he pinned his primed, unstretched canvas to a stout wooden panel while painting (fig.1).⁸ The surface thus offered no resistance to his brush-marks, each of which could be clearly seen. On some occasions this finished fragment was bounded by a painted framing rectangle before being removed from the panel and tacked to a stretcher. Contemporaries in the Chelsea ‘colony’ such as Frank Brangwyn were overawed. 

One might expect that a picture with obvious appeal to young painters would fall foul of conservative critics. This was to some degree the case. La Thangue’s large, life-size companion-piece in the New Gallery show, the Portrait of Mrs Tom Mitchell (unlocated) was extensively discussed, and not universally approved.⁹ However, in the opinion of Frederick Wedmore, one of the first British writers on Impressionism, the present Study, pleasing ‘at first because of its vividness’, was simply ‘finer than the larger painting’. The critic of The Morning Post, concurred in finding the picture ‘a clever piece of execution’ (Frederick Wedmore, ‘The New Gallery’, The Academy, 18 May 1889, p.348; ‘The New Gallery’, The Morning Post, 4 May 1889, p.3).

With a few years hindsight however, it was apparent to George Thomson that ‘the classical subject’ was ‘as dust and ashes’ and ‘a naturalistic movement was in the air’. Placing his wife in the dappled shade at the edge of an orchard with ripe corn in the fields beyond, fully expressed:

'The glory of sunlight, the envelope of the atmosphere, the verisimilitude only attainable with the model amidst [her] habitual surroundings – these aspirations come earlier perhaps, than a sympathy with the life of the toilers in the fields.' (George Thomson, ‘HH La Thange and his Work’, The Studio, vol IX, 1896, pp.167-8).    

It was indeed the case that the painter of later monumental ruralist Academy-pieces such as The Last Furrow, 1895 (Gallery Oldham) and The Man with the Scythe, 1896 (Tate) had tested his theories and found his approach in splendid canvases such as Resting after the Game.

[1]           George Thomson, ‘HH La Thange and his Work’, The Studio, vol IX, 1896, p.172.
[2]           Katherine, née Rietiker (1859-1941), outlived her husband by twelve years and they had no offspring.  Her stage name prior to her marriage was Kate Leeson.
[3]               The present, more descriptive title, was adopted after the picture entered the collection of Isaac Smith JP (1832 -1909), Mayor of Bradford. Smith also owned La Thangue’s large Leaving Home, shown at the New Gallery in 1890.
[4]               James Stanley Little, ‘HH La Thangue’, The Art Journal, 1893, p.175, describes the ‘somewhat formidable and self-willed’ animal as an important member of the La Thangue establishment, taking his name from the Norfolk abbreviation for ‘neighbour’.
[5]               For a modern survey of works of art featuring tennis see, Ann Sumner ed., Court on Canvas, Tennis in Art, 2011 (Philip Wilson Publishers).
[6]               See Kenneth McConkey, ‘Tennis Parties’, in Ann Sumner ed., 2011, pp.47-81.
[7]               Kenneth McConkey, The New English, A History of the New English Art Club, 2006 (Royal Academy Publications), pp.32-36. La Thangue’s radical practice was matched only by his radical politics. When the New English emerged, he promoted the idea that it should be the focus of a much ‘bigger movement’, side-lining the Royal Academy and opening its doors to democratically elected committees and selection juries. The Academy was perceived as a dead hand, while in France, the State control of the Salon had been relinquished in favour of the artists themselves.
[8]               Kenneth McConkey, A Painter’s Harvest, HH La Thangue, 1859-1929, 1978 (Oldham Art Gallery), pp.10, 17.
[9]               See for instance The Saturday Review, 25 May 1889, p.639; The Athenaeum, 25 May, 1889, p.670. Mrs Tom Mitchell was the daughter-in-law of Abraham Mitchell, a wealthy wool worsted manufacturer. Her husband was vice-president of the Arcadian Art Club in Bradford during the late 1880s when La Thangue was its president.

We are grateful to Kenneth McConkey for kindly preparing this catalogue entry.