THE NUDE | Case study: Sir Gerald Festus Kelly, D.D. V (a) (Nude Study) (1924)
 Above: Sir Gerald Festus Kelly, D.D. V (a) (Nude Study) (1924): Oil on canvas, 1924; exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Show, 1947 (catalogue number 122), where it was purchased by Newport Museum and Art Gallery
Inset: The Daily Mirror, 31 Dec 1947, A Bishop Objects to "Nude" Bought by Town * See below for further historical background on the cause celebre of leading society portraitist and Royal Academy President Sir Gerald Festus Kelly's "Newport Nude", which made the national headlines with this Daily Mirror article of December 1947: [ work in progress] Comments
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THE NUDE | Case study | Sir Gerald Festus Kelly, D.D. V (a) (Nude Study) (1924)
The nude in the history of art
The study of the nude provided the mainstay of the academic practice of art, a central preoccupation of art school training and the professional artist's studio. Whilst the Academy regulated the nude as a category of "art", this was of course not without its controversies over the years.
For example, Manet's Olympia and Rodin's Balzac provided the greatest critical controversies in Paris, capital of the nineteenth century art world, as the modern artist asserted an independence of the human subject from the traditional moorings of religion or mythology and the demands of a patron and commissioned work.
Our case study is an informal study of a nude in the studio by leading Society portraitist Sir Gerald Festus Kelly. The painting became a cause celebre and raised a a right royal fuss in Newport when it was purchased and exhibited at Newport Museum and Art Gallery in 1947. The aesthetic conception of the artist was simply in excess of acceptable taste for the Newport public.
Had he been aware of it, the Festus Kelly Newport Nude controversy would have brought a smile no doubt to the face of Sir Gerald's friend and fellow occultist from the Montparnasse years, Aleister Crowley, who bemoaned the artists decline into respectability.
The nude has been a constantly negotiated category of "art" and "taste" occasioning its periodic cause celebre of controversy, with a tendency for yesteryear's provocation to pass into silence as today's passée. The case of Festus Kelly's feisty nude highlights the fact that public reception is the critical agent in the manufacturing of controversy.
Sir Gerald Festus Kelly: Leading Society portraitist
Kenneth Clark described Gerald Kelly as the most reliable portrait painter of his time and Clive Bell thought him about the best President of the Royal Academy since Sir Joshua Reynolds [ Source: Leicester Galleries: www.leicestergalleries.com/art-and-antiques/d etail/11396 ]
In the immediate post-war years leading society portraitist Sir Gerald Festus Kelly's career was at a high. A favourite royal portraitist, he was Knighted in July 1945 and exhibited at that year's Royal Academy Summer Show official State Portraits of both H.M. The Queen and H.M. The King.
At the 1947 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition he exhibited six paintings, including an earlier nude study of 1924 entitled D. D. V (a) - D.D. being the initials of his model, V being the number of the series, and (a) denoting its small size. Kelly was a prolific exhibitor at the Royal Academy throughout his 60 year career, and often produced a numbered series of nude studies - most notably that of his wife Jane. This approach highlights the painter's passion for close observation of the the model, and the method was carried over into his habit of executing a series of studies of sitters for important commissioned portraits such as the H.M. The King, H.M The Queen or leading literary figures such as T.S. Eliot and Somerset Maugham.
D.D. V (a) was an informal study of the nude in the studio, an insight into the artist's studio practice as the nude is posed informally, as if taking a break in between a formal modelling session - a classical pose is depicted on the easel in the background, an open book lies on the mattress, and the model is sat casually with one leg folded, smoking a cigarette, and engaging the viewer- the artist - with a confident gaze.
Newport's Royal Academy Purchase
The Newport Museum and Art Gallery Committee travelled to the Royal Academy Summer show each year and acquired a work within its budget. This diligent collecting habit provided a significant boost to the gallery's public collection, adding a clutch of paintings by leading artists of the post-war years.
Visitors to the Newport Museum and Art Gallery nowadays often express surprise at the display of works of such high quality by leading British artists. Unfortunately this municipal collecting habit has been lost, across Britain as a whole, and there are general concerns for the future of collecting in today's uncertain world of art and museums. | Read more: THE ART OF COLLECTING [artofcollecting.googlepages.com/welcome ]; and here [ artofcollecting.googlepages.com/essay_curator ial_reflection ].
Perhaps the Newport Museum and Art Gallery's purchasing policy was inspired in this annual mission by the success of Newport painter Stanley Lewis when he won the painting of the year at the Royal Academy show of 1937 for his full length study of The Welsh Molecatcher - which was purchased by Newport Museum and Art Gallery and placed on public display, a large and imposing work that was undoubtedly the most popular painting in the Newport collections in the old Dock Street Library, Museum and Art Gallery building. The painting is missed even today when it is not on public display. We may note that Stanley Lewis received an extra twelve-month's scholarship at the Royal College of Art in the 1930s when his diploma work, a life study, was adjudicated by Augustus John. Then in 1937 Stanley stole the show when his full length figure study The Welsh Molecatcher [ ] was awarded painting of the year at the Royal Academy Summer Show. - We may also note that Stanley Lewis acknowledged the mentorship of the Head of Pedagogy at the Royal College of Art, Frederick Charles Richards, likewise a product of the Newport College of Art. All in all therefore, the Newport College of Art (Newport Technical Institute) had achieved some notable success in London art circles despite its size as a small provincial art school.
Sir Gerald Festus Kelly was a sound choice - the leading society portraitist, later elevated to President of the Royal Academy in [add].
The Newport Nude controversy
The controversy that greeted Festus Kelly's feisty female nude study upon its public display in Newport sparked a public petition for its removal, the deliberation of the Newport Council, and months - even years - of discussion in the South Wales Argus newspaper.
The controversy saw a flood of some 20,000 people to the Newport Museum and Art Gallery. One commentator observed that the high level of debate upon this painting was a rare light in these gloomy times of post-war austerity.
Plunged into controversy and public pressure, the Newport Museum and Art Gallery Committee engaged the issues. The petition protesting against the continued showing of "The Nude" was supported by 150 residents, and was forwarded to the Committee by "Mr Dorian Herbert" [(- with no reference to his self-appointed ecclesiastical title this time -)] who said that its sole motive was "to remove a source of considerable public disapproval". Considered by some to be "quite indecent" and by others to be a "work of art", senior Councillor and committee Chairman Dolman perhaps best summed up the dilemma in politician's words of cautionary restraint, "The committee may be ahead of public taste. Matters of ethics are strangely mixed up with technique in painting. It is a brave man who can say which is right and which is wrong". Whilst for his part Councillor Morday assumed the higher ground of public morality over art, "The objection has nothing to do with art. It protests against the physical display of a young lady"; only to be met with the inevitable rejoinder from Councillor Smith that " There are more suggestive pictures being displayed by corset advertisers in Newport High-street". In the event, the Newport Town Council determined that "Newport's Nude stays in the Gallery" (- the words of the South Wales Argus heading), voting by six votes to two "to take no action"- and we may note that "the only members to support the petition" were "Mrs Taynton Evans, a housewife, and Mr G.H. Hoare, a journalist".
Not that that was the end of the matter as the Newport Museum and Art Gallery Committee's decision to continue to display The Nude saw a further round of letters to the press. One correspondent commended Mr Dorian Herbert as a prospective councillor, as he was single-handedly responsible for the flood of 20,000 people to the Newport Museum and Art Gallery - hitherto "almost unknown to the majority of Newport" - with no public expenditure by the council. Another entitled "A Picture Election" suggested that "the next municipal elections be contested by Nudists and Anti-Nudists" [(ref). The question of public morals and health vexed another, with reference to the possible effect of the painting upon "precocious adolescents" and reference to statistics regarding girl mothers and the current government campaign against VD.
Striking a more sober and positive note, and probably wishing to support the besieged Town Council, an elderly and disabled Mr. B. T. A. Griffiths engaged a sterling public spirited defence of the town of Newport's artistic endeavours. Mr Griffiths ( - who signs himself as Member of the Military Antiquarian Society and of the Army Historical Research Society) identifies himself as "an artist and an old Hewertson scholarship [ Newport Technical Institute] boy of 45 years ago". "What has pleased me most", he declares, "is the ever-increasing interest taken in matters of fine art by the local public". "Whether we are for or against the picture, we should be grateful to the South Wales Argus for the prominence it is always willing to give to such subjects. It is a very bright spot in these dark days. I have read all the letters (many of them of high intellectual quality) with deep interest", he observes, "There is certainly a "boom" in fine art these days, as witness the Van Gogh exhibition in London, and Newport is well to the fore in showing the world that the people of Monmouthshire are lovers of fine art, and well able to discuss the subject from every point of view". Hence the public debate surrounding the Newport Museum and Art Gallery and the Newport Nude was a healthy and enlightening one in his view, and he is keen to point out that "This town has produced some very fine artists, for instance my old fellow students, Norman Keene, Fred Hando, Edward Maybury and the late Fred Richards, and we have every reason to be proud of the fact".
The Newport Nude controversy would simply not go away. Five years later even, the Newport Literary and Debating Society [ ... ]
Sir Gerald Festus Kelly: The Bohemian connection?
[ work in progress]
Portrait of Katherine Francis: created a buzz when it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1926: bringing to London High Society the frisson of the jazz age (in this fateful year of the General Strike) [add]
JaneXXX: Diploma Work: exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1930 - a restrained eroticism?
At the height of his career - exhibition (yr? only one of three living artists to be accorded this privilege)
Time Magazine
quote - ? art, wine, women ?
Montparnasse:
Rodin
Aleister Crowley
Crowley married Kelly's sister
The Crowley connection ...
The artist's model
We return to the artist's model for a final reflection.
It would be interesting to know more of the identity of D.D. I have not seen other studies of D.D, but one may deduce that this model was in favour with the artist since he painted a series of her. In its studied informality I think that we may read this study as a homage to that close relationship of artist and model, as she strikes an informality that is beyond the artifice of the traditional classical pose and finished academic work ( - which is reflected perhaps in the easel study in the background). The artist's attachment to a series of studies of the same model is most well known in the case of the "Jane" series of studies of the artist's wife. Perhaps D.D. was an early artist's favourite?
We may say that the final glance belongs to the model D.D., who fixes the viewer with her gaze. - So that today's viewer is left with an open question of her identity, but certainly the model is invested with a sense of presence and identity by the artist who moves beyond academic artifice - and possibly decorum, given the pose with cigarette? - The pose and the look bespeak the confident assertion of a woman of her time? - certainly this is no Royalty, rich patron, memorialised dignitary, or Season débutante; nor probably no "Picaddilly prostitute"; but rather, an independent young woman in London who enjoyed paid work as an artist's model?
Further reading | The Nude in the history of art
Links
Locating the nude as a central category in the history of art: academy, genre, figure drawing, life class, the artists model
* the history of painting [ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_painting ] | The Renaissance is said by many to be the golden age of painting. Roughly spanning the 14th through the mid 17th century. In Italy artists like Paolo Uccello, Fra Angelico, Masaccio, Piero della Francesca, Andrea Mantegna, Filippo Lippi, Giorgione, Tintoretto, Sandro Botticelli, Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Raphael, Giovanni Bellini, and Titian took painting to a higher level through the use of perspective, the study of human anatomy and proportion, and through their development of an unprecedented refinement in drawing and painting techniques.
* hierarchy of genres [ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchy_of_genres ] | The British painter Sir Joshua Reynolds in his Discourses of the 1770s and 1780s (... ) At the summit reigned history painting, centred on the human body: familiarity with the forms of the body permitted the mind of the painter, by comparing innumerable instances of the human form, to abstract from it those typical or central features that represented the body's essence or ideal. | Until the middle of the 19th century, women were largely unable to paint history paintings as they were not allowed to participate in the final process of artistic training—that of life drawing, in order to protect their modesty. They could work from reliefs, prints, casts and from the Old Masters, but not from the nude model. Instead they were encouraged to participate in the lower painting forms such as portraiture, landscape and genre. These were considered more feminine in that they appealed to the eye rather than the mind.
* figure drawing [ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_drawing ]
* life class [ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_class ]
* the artists model [ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_%28art%29 ]
History of art and culture:
* The History of Ideas Vol 4: The Nude [science.jrank.org/pages/7929/Nude.html ] | There are four principal philosophic perspectives on "The Nude" in Western culture. (...) | Renaissance philosophers retrieved and reframed the classical definition as epitomized by Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), who identified "Man as the measure of the Universe" and envisioned "The Nude" in his Vitruvian Man (1492; Gallerie dell' Accademia, Venice). | The modern position is predicated on the liberation of "The Nude" from the boundaries of mythology and religion during the Enlightenment, and finds its fullest expression in Gustave Courbet's The Origin of the World (1866; Musée D'Orsay, Paris). | See also Scholarship of "The Nude" [ science.jrank.org/pages/10510/Nude-Scholarshi p-Nude.html ]
* art history [ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_history ] | Griselda Pollock's (and) Rosalind Krauss' [ psychoanalytical and feminist studies] (...) [have] strongly informed the reframing of both men and women artists in art history.
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# Bridgeman Art Library | Search for: "nude" [ www.gettyimages.com/Search/Search.aspx?p=nude &family=... ]
# Visual Arts Data Service (VADS) | Online database with over 100,000 images covering the visual arts, which are free for use in education | Search for: "nude" [ www.vads.ahds.ac.uk/results.php?cmd=search& words=nude... ]
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