Two Friends ....
The camaraderie that can exist between artists, especially those of a gregarious bent, is particularly powerful. Sir Lawrence Gowing and Frederick Gore were sociable, generous characters who exerted a formidable influence upon the British establishment and art education. And they were friends.
Frederick Gore, as Head of Painting at St Martin's for twenty eight years was said to have been the most influential Royal Academician never to have been made President and Lawrence Gowing, although self-taught, became a world famous art historian, broadcaster and highly acclaimed Curator for the Arts Council and Royal Academy, and followed in the footsteps of his mentor, William Coldstream, to become Slade Professor of Fine Art.
Above all, both men were consummate artists.
Lawrence Gowing was recognised for the astuteness and tenderness of his portraits at a young age. The artist inhabits the canvasses, each one is a journey contributing to the greater narrative of portraiture. By contrast his poetic, sous-bois scenes of the English countryside, of thickets and lanes tunnelling through trees, depict a private world, filled with light, reflection and ‘glare’, green scenes un-intruded upon and the antithesis of his public life. His early technique recalled the informality of Constable's sketches. The colours burst open in glorious flourishes, or lie dormant in secretive green-greys.
Gore carried his easel to remote mountain sites in search of solitude and inspiration. En plein-air he managed to capture the southern light of Provence, create his palette of singing colours and excite his imagination. The essence of an Indian Summer, joyful and celebratory subjects of harvests and lavender fields, olive groves and vineyards, a sun blessed France or his Chelsea garden live on in his canvasses and lesser known watercolours. A man for all seasons in sympathy with the eccentric and avante garde, he devoted his life to painting but his second great love since childhood was for Russian Dancing. As an adult Freddy joined ‘the Balalaika Dance Group and danced with them for over thirty years.
Both artists’ commitment to colour and open brushwork, their closeness to the modern French masters, the great blossoming of form – to use Gowing’s own phrase, is ‘.. enormously stimulating’
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Laurie
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