Walter Sickert: A Life

Apollo, July, 2005 by Rebecca Daniels

Walter Sickert: A Life Matthew Sturgis HarperCollins Publishers 30 [pounds sterling]

ISBN 0 00 257083 1

Rebecca Daniels praises the way that Matthew Sturgis has forged an enthralling narrative from the life of a notoriously elusive painter.

'For he is the kindest man in the world', declared the irascible Wyndham Lewis about Walter Sickert. This unusually flowery observation contradicts the standard contemporary view of Sickert as introverted, depressive and even debauched--a gloomy image probably derived from reading his paintings of dingy Camden Town interiors as a reflection of his personality.

Matthew Sturgis's gripping biography is a long-overdue revision of this misleading interpretation. Sickert never seriously considered his posthumous reputation and, unlike his Bloomsbury Group peers, he left no diary or journal. By extensively researching his social and artistic milieu, Sturgis has enlarged what was but a scant appointment book of Sickert's life into a detailed diary. The real Walter Sickert emerges as a dedicated artist, selfish husband and a charming and witty guest; a raconteur who was just as happy discussing his friendship with Degas as he was relating his landlady's story that the former tenant of his Mornington Crescent studio was Jack the Ripper.

Sturgis has taken on an extremely challenging project. Enigmatic and contrary, with a penchant for 'strong opinions loosely held', Sickert is a notoriously elusive subject. Yet his personality becomes more comprehensible when one considers his ambiguous social position. Sickert's mother was illegitimate, being the daughter of a union between the Reverend Richard Sheepshanks, a highly respected Cambridge mathematician, and a dancer. Sickert boasted that he was middle class; however, one senses that he was more truthful when he described himself as 'like a governess, say, with an uncertain reputation who, if she is clever, takes jolly good care never to go where she might be cut'. He ensured that he pushed but did not cross the boundary of acceptable behaviour. When a friend 'cut' him because he disapproved of the 'sordid' Camden Town Murder series, Sickert responded: 'I am rather unaccustomed to being disliked. It is no doubt a salutary experience'. Sturgis's research shows that he thrived on being popular with all classes, from aristocrats to fishermen.

Sturgis publishes amusing new material about Sickert's first career as an actor. While he had everything that was needed to be successful (looks, talent and connections--Ellen Terry, Brandon Thomas, the Forbes-Robertsons and Oscar Wilde were friends), the spark, as Sturgis says, 'failed to ignite'. Sickert abandoned acting but theatrical subjects dominated his oeuvre. It was possibly a portrait of Sickert's acting hero, Henry Irving as Phillip n of Spain, shown at the inaugural exhibition of the Grosvenor Gallery, that first attracted him to Whistler's art. He was star-struck, declaring Whistler's paintings 'a revelation, a thing of absolute conviction, admitting of no doubt or hesitation' and soon Sickert was, in Sturgis's words, Whistler's 'studio dogsbody'.

The breadth of Sturgis's research is consistently impressive. He reinstates Edward W. Godwin, the architect, stage and costume designer, as a key figure in Sickert's artistic upbringing, the most likely link between Sickert's theatrical friends and the art world. Sturgis has discovered entries in Godwin's diary that prove he was friendly with Sickert from 1879 (the year Godwin completed the White House in Tite Street, Chelsea, for Whistler) until about 1882. Godwin must have been something of a mentor, employing Sickert to study historical costumes and securing him his first real theatrical break with a small role in his friend George Rignold's company (Godwin attended the opening night). Godwin almost certainly introduced Sickert to the aesthetic movement and thereby gave him an early insight into Whistler's art.

Initially Sickert was captivated by Whistler and described him as the 'god of his idolatry'. However, his decision to work with Whistler was in many ways ill-judged. Sturgis captures their friendship and mutual respect, but one is left with the overriding sense that on both an artistic and personal level Sickert and Whistler clashed. While Sickert played on his handsomeness and enjoyed 'looking nice' to women--in life, he found that 'nothing was really ugly'--Whistler increasingly retreated to an imagined aesthetically beautiful Japan. Their relationship ended ignominiously when Whistler discovered that Sickert had attended a gallery with Sir William Eden, Whistler's sworn enemy of the moment. By this time Degas had become Sickert's artistic hero. They became firm friends and regularly visited galleries and exhibitions together. Sickert seemed to share Degas' artistic vision in a way he never did with Whistler. He owned paintings by Degas and championed his work to English collectors.

Sickert's European sojourn (1898 to 1905) is one of the most enjoyable sections of this biography. Although his amorous liaisons are riveting, it comes as a greater surprise to read about his reputation in France. He exhibited at the Salon des Independents and Les xx and first showed his Camden Town Murder pictures in France, selling the most physically menacing, L'Affaire de Camden Town, to Paul Signac. Bonnard and Maximilien Luce also acquired works by him and Marcel Proust tried, unsuccessfully, to meet him. Bernheim-Jeune acted as Sickert's dealer and they sold his paintings well (albeit cheaply).