A sad story of early 20th century British art at Dulwich

Curator David Boyd Haycock, author of A Crisis of Brilliance on which the exhibition is based, in front of David Bomberg's In the Hold

 

The new show at Dulwich Picture Gallery, A Crisis of Brilliance, is rightly attracting a lot of favourable attention and is a worthy follow up to its spectacular Murillo exhibition. The show is based on the work of a group of outstanding students who studied at the Slade between 1908 and 1912, a phenomenon which tutor Henry Tonks described as a "crisis of brilliance". The artists are Stanley Spencer, Paul Nash, Mark Gertler, David Bomberg, Dora Carrington and Christopher Nevinson, and the show describes how they dealt with their talent, their differing reactions to continental modernism, and the First World War.

I attended a Friends' preview, where Director Ian Dujardin said that Dulwich was the first venue freelance curator David Boyd Haycock approached with a proposal for an exhibition based on his book, and was taken aback by the alacrity with which Dulwich agreed - clearly he is a modest man: a chat I had with him was interrupted by a wildly enthusiastic fan of his book. I discovered he was disappointed that he had not been able to obtain Mark Gertler's masterpiece The Roundabout because it is an important part of the recent rehang at Tate Britain, and some Paul Nash first world war paintings at the Imperial War Museum were unavailable because of preparations for the forthcoming centenary of the First World War. But the loss is not too great as the works on display give a very good indication of the skills and importance of the six artists.

This is a show which ideally requires more than one visit as there is a great deal of information to take in - Ian Dujardin remarked that it was one of the few shows where he eagerly read every label. Initially the group was most influenced by the early Italian Renaissance, but the group was bowled over by Roger Fry's "post-Impressionist" exhibition in 1910 (which Henry Tonks begged them not to attend).  For most of them it was their first contact with continental modernism and the reactions varied: Nevinson, Bomberg, Gertler and Nash were most obviously influenced by cubism and futurism, Spencer and Carrington much less so.

During the  First World War Nash and Nevinson made their reputations with their unsparing depictions of war, while Spencer reacted to his experiences as an ambulance driver by retreating to his home village for the rest of his life and Carrington tried to ignore it altogether. Gertler escaped conscription because of ill health and Bomberg was unsuccessful in his attempt to find a niche as a war painter.

But the most striking thing about this group is the failure of most of them to build on their early talent. Only Spencer built a solid growing international reputation, and while Nash continued to build a successful professional career he remained best known for his First World War work (admittedly this is of a very high order). Nevinson, Gertler and Carrington all committed suicide, and Bomberg worked in obscurity until his death in 1946. The most startling case, however, is that of a fellow student, John S Currie: the label to his highly accomplished group portrait of some of the six almost casually ends by saying that he shot his mistress and killed himself in 1914, thus ending a very promising career. 

It is noticeable that the two most successful of the group, Nash and Spencer, in the end can be seen as being in the British tradition deriving from William Blake and his disciple Samuel Palmer - the depiction of mysticism in everyday life and in the English landscape. Were the others less successful in their day partly because they lacked this secure anchor in a milieu which was not supportive of modernism? Still, this show is a wonderful demonstration of their talents and is part of a general reappraisal of 20th century British art at the moment, making the case for a British modernism which fused continental influences with uniquely British concerns.