Frank Brangwyn

The Artwork of Sir Frank William Brangwyn

Born at Bruges in May of 1867, Sir Frank William Brangwyn was a Welsh artist, painter, illustrator, watercolorist, printmaker and designer. A prolific artist, he created more than twelve-thousand works including ceramics, stained glass panels and windows, glass tableware, furniture, and both interior and exterior architectural designs.

One of four children born to ecclesiastical architect William Curtis Brangwyn and Eleanor Griffiths, Frank Brangwyn received his primary education at Westminster City School. However, he often played truant, spending time at his father’s workshop and sketching at the South Kensington Museum. Brangwyn later took an apprenticeship with progressive architect and designer Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo, a major influence in the Arts and Craft Movement. With a recommendation from Mackmurdo, he was able to enter the workshops of designer William Morris, one of the most significant cultural figures in Victorian England.

After one of his paintings sold at the 1884 Summer Exhibition of the Royal Academy, Brangwyn joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve and began painting seascapes. Securing a berth on a freighter to Istanbul, he spent 1890 and most of 1891 at sea, visiting Spain, Morocco, South Africa and Zanzibar. Brangwyn created many paintings during these voyages. His 1890 “Funeral at Sea”, a work done with a largely gray palette, was awarded a medal at the 1891 Paris Salon. Brangwyn, while traveling with Scottish orientalist painter Arthur Melville, became particularly influenced by the bright light and colors of the southern countries. He altered his palette towards lighter colors and produced many paintings and drawings in Spain, Morocco, Egypt and Turkey.

In 1895, German-French art dealer Samuel Siegfried Bing commissioned Frank Brangwyn to decorate the exterior of his Parisian art gallery, the Galerie L’Art Nouveau. Pleased with the work, Bing encouraged him to broaden the scope of his art. Brangwyn began creating tapestry and carpet designs, murals, posters and stained-glass designs for Louis Comfort Tiffany. In 1896, he created a series of illustrations for a six-volume reprint of British orientalist Edward William Lane’s translation of “One Thousand and One Nights”. After collaborating with Japanese artist Urushibara Mokuchu on a 1917 series of woodblock prints, Brangwyn met a fellow collector of Asian art, industrial magnate Kojiro Matsukata, who later became his patron.

Although not an official war artist during the First World War, Brangwyn produced more than eighty poster designs during the conflict. The majority of these designs were donated to charities including the Red Cross, the Royal National Institute for the Blind, and the L’Orphelinat des Armées, a charity that supported French orphanages. Brangwyn also produced six lithographs for the Ministry of Information’s 1917 “Britain’s Efforts and Ideals” portfolio to raise money for the war effort. As the chairman of the English Committee for Diksmuide, a Belgian city torn apart by the war, he donated a series of woodcuts to aid in its reconstruction.

Frank Brangwyn became widely known for his mural work and received numerous commissions from both England and the United States. Originally commissioned to paint the altar recess of Saint Aidan’s Church in Leeds, he decided to work in glass mosaic due to the pollution in the air. This work, completed in 1916, covers the entire altar recess with scenes from the life of St. Aidan. Included among Brangwyn’s other mural commissions were the Great Hall of the Worshipful Company of Skinners for the Royal Exchange in London, the Missouri State Capitol Building, the Manitoba Legislative Building in Winnipeg, and a mural created specifically for exhibition at the 1915 San Francisco Panama-Pacific International Exposition. Brangwyn, in collaboration with muralists Diego Rivera and Josep Maria Sert, decorated the concourse of the RCA Building in New York City.

The most notable of Brangwyn’s mural commissions, due to both its size and its history, was the one requested by Edward Cecil Guinness, First Earl of Iveagh, in 1926. Brangwyn was to paint a pair of large canvases for the Royal Gallery of the House of Lords at Westminster. These canvases were to honor those peers and their family members who died in the First World War. Finished after the death of Edward Guinness, the life-size battle scenes were found by the House of Lords to be too grim and, thus, they refused the work. In 1928, the Lords offered a second commission, a series of sixteen large works which became known as the British Empire Panels. This series, completed in 1933, was viewed by the Lords who, considering them too colorful and lively for the proposed location, again refused the work.The sixteen canvas murals were later purchased in the following year by the Swansea City Council who installed them in the city’s Brangwyn Hall.

Frank Brangwyn became increasingly pessimistic after the House of Lords twice refused his work. During the 1930s, he began to dispose of his possessions, donating many of his and other artworks to museums in Britain and Europe, including the British Museum and the William Morris Gallery. In 1936, Brangwyn presented over four hundred works to the Arents House Museum in Bruges, Belgium. The two 1926 life-size battle scenes were included with the group of gifts he donated to the National Museum Wales between 1929 and 1935.

In 1944, Brangwyn, now recovered from his depression, secured Pre-Raphaelite illustrator Frederic Shields’s designs for architect Herbert Horne’s Chapel of the Ascension in London. This was an important achievement as the chapel was completely destroyed in 1940 during the bombing of London. One of Brangwyn’s last works was a 1950 series of illustrations for his friend Herbet Julyan’s book “Sixty Years of Yachts” published by London’s Hutchinson & Company. Frank William Brangwyn lived in his final years as a recluse in East Sussex until his death in June of 1956. His body was interred at St. Mary’s Catholic Cemetery, Kensal Green.

Among Sir Frank William Brangwyn’s many awards and honors were the 1902 Chevalier of the Legion of Honor; the Gold Medal of Venice and the Grand Prix of Milan, both in 1906; the 1911 Chevalier of the Order of the Crown of Italy; the 1919 Commander and Cross of the Order of Leopold I of Belgium; and the 1932 Albert Medal of the Royal Society of Arts. Brangwyn was awarded the title of Knight Bachelor, Great Britain in 1941.

Notes: The definitive Frank Brangwyn website is located at: https://frankbrangwyn.org

Sir Frank William Brangwyn was elected a full Royal Academician of the Royal Society of British Artists in 1910. The Royal Academy of Arts has a biography and a collection of his works at its website: https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/name/frank-brangwyn-ra

An extensive biographical article on Frank Brangwyn can be found at the Chris Beetles Gallery website: https://www.chrisbeetles.com/artists/brangwyn-sir-frank-ra-hrsa-rsw-rws-prba-re-hrms-roi-1867-1956.html

A lecture on Frank Brangwyn’s British Empire Panels, written by University of Bristol’s Art History lecturer Dr. Sehra Jumabhoy, can be found at the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery site: https://www.glynnvivian.co.uk/brangwyns-british-empire-panels/

Top Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Frank Brangwyn”, circa 1900, Vintage Print

Second Insert Image: Frank Brangwyn, “Study of Artichokes”, Date Unknown, Gouache and Pencil on Paper, 121 x 81 cm, Private Collection

Third Insert Image: Frank Brangwyn, “The Tarpit”, Date Unknown, Intaglio Etching on Paper, 65.4 x 73.3 cm, Museum Wales

Fourth Insert Image: Frank Brangwyn, “Bricklayers, Study for Rebuilding Belgium”, 1915, Black and Red Chalk on Buff Paper, 69 x 47 cm, Private Collection

Bottom Insert Image: Frank Brangwyn, “Makeing Sailors, The Gun”, circa 1917, “The Great War, Britain’s Efforts and Ideals” Series, Lithograph on Paper, 47.1 x 37.1 cm, Tate Gallery, London

Jan Toorop

The Art of Johannes (Jan) Toorop

Born in the Purworejo Regency of the southern Central Java province of the Dutch East Indies in December of 1858, Jan (Jean) Theodorus Toorop was a Dutch-Indonesian painter who influenced the development of Dutch modern art at the beginning of the twentieth century. Gifted and sensitive to new ideas, he originally was influenced by Amsterdam Impressionism and later worked in the Symbolist, Art Nouveau, and Pointillist styles.

The third of five children born to civil servant Christoffel Theodorus Toorop and Maria Magdalena Cooke, Johannes “Jan” Toorop lived on the island of Bangka, an important mining center in Asia, until he was nine years old. He received his initial education in the city of Batavia, now Jakarta, on the island of Java. In 1869, Toorop traveled to the Netherlands where he continued his education in Delft and Amsterdam. Beginning in 1880, he entered a two-year course of art education with studies under Impressionist painter August Allebé at Amsterdam’s Rijksakademie, home to the Amsterdam Impressionist movement.

In 1883, Toorop enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts in Brussels and became an active member of the avant-garde with travels to Paris and London. He remained in Brussels until 1886, during which time he befriended and shared a studio with Belgian painter William Degouve de Nuncques who became known for his symbolist nocturnal landscapes. In 1883, Toorop joined L’Ensor, an association of artists opposed to conservative tendencies in art. In the following year, he became a member of Les XX (Les Vingts), the successor group to L’Ensor that centered its theories on the integration of decorative and major arts.

In 1884, Jan Toorop exhibited his work with the Groupe des Artistes Indépendants in Paris; his first solo exhibition was held in Paris in 1885. He traveled on several occasions to England where he became acquainted with the Pre-Raphaelites and such artists as James Whistler and William Morris. During the mid-1880s, Toorop created work in a variety of styles including Realism, Impressionism, and both Neo and Post-Impressionism.

After his marriage in 1886 to Annie Hall, the daughter of a wealthy, landed English family and a student of music and the French language, Toorop divided his painting between lodgings in England, Brussels, The Hague, and later the Dutch seaside resort town of Katwijk aan Zee. It was in this period that he developed his own personal style of Symbolism: curvilinear designs with stylized gracile figures and dynamic lines based on motifs from the Javanese culture. In 1892, Toorop exhibited these works at the Salon de la Rose + Croix in Paris and at The Hague’s Circle for the Arts, of which he was a founding member.

Jan Toorop became influenced in the mid 1890s by the Art Nouveau movement, known in the Netherlands as Noul Stil (New Style) or Nieuwe Kunst (New Art), and created several commercial poster and advertisement designs in this style. After exhibitions in Copenhagen, Dresden and Munich in 1898. he began an extended period of residence at a small marketplace house located in the seaside town of Domburg situated on the northwest coast of the Dutch province of Zeeland. Among Toorop’s many associates at Domburg were such artists as Piet Mondrian, one of the founders of the De Stijl art movement, and Dutch seascape painter Marinus Zwart.

Toorop converted to Roman Catholicism in 1905 and shortly afterward changed his name to Johannes and divorced his wife. In addition to his book illustrations and poster works, he began to produce religious works, including stained glass designs in a more geometrical linear style. After several years of residence at the Dutch city of Nijmegen, Toorop relocated in 1916 to The Hague. Beginning in 1917, he suffered from a partial paralysis that increasingly affected his later production, a series of works inspired by both religion and mysticism.

Considered to be the most avant-garde artist in the Netherlands at the turn of the twentieth-century, Johannes (Jan) Toorop died at the age of sixty-nine in The Hague at the beginning of March in 1928. His works are in many private collections and such public collections as the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterio and the Museum de Fundatie in Zwolle, both in the Netherlands.

Top Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Jan Toorop”, circa 1920-1923, Vintage Photograph, Getty Images

Second Insert Image: Jan Toorop, “Delftsche Sloalie”, 1894, Lithograph, Illustration for Delft Salad Oil Advertisement, Limegreen and Black over Pink Ink on Paper, 86 x 56 cm, Private Collection

Third Insert Image: Jan Toorop, “Madonna and Child”, 1924, Pencil and Colored Crayons on Paper, 26.5 x 21 cm, Private Collection

Bottom Insert Image: Jan Toorop, “Self Portrait”, 1915, Black Chalk on Paper, 23.3 x 20 cm, Kunstmuseum, The Hague

Calendar: January 13

Year: Day to Day Men: January 13

Armand: Old English

The thirteenth of January in 1886 marks the birth date of Russian-born American entertainer Sophie Tucker who was known for her forceful delivery of comical and risqué songs. She received billing as ‘The Last of the Red-Hot Mammas’ due to the frequent sexual subject of her songs, an unusual topic for female performers after vaudeville’s decline. Tucker became one of the most popular entertainers in the United States during the first half of the twentieth-century.

Born Sofiya Sonya Kalish to a Jewish family in Tulchyn of the Russian Empire, Tucker immigrated to the United States with her family in September of 1887. The family settled in Boston for eight years and then relocated to Hartford, Connecticut where they opened a restaurant. In 1903 at the age of seventeen, Sofiya eloped with Louis Tuck and two years later gave birth to her son Albert. The couple separated after the birth and later divorced in 1913. After leaving her son with her parents, Tucker found work in New York City’s cafés and beer gardens where she sang for food and received tips from customers; most of her earnings were sent to her family for her son’s support.

Sophie Tucker made her first theatrical appearance at a vaudeville venue’s amateur night. A heavy-weight person, she added weight-related humor and songs to her acts. In 1909, Tucker performed in the Ziegfeld Follies and was noticed by William Morris, a theater owner and the future founder of Hollywood’s William Morris Talent Agency. Two years later, she released her first recording of Shelton Brooks’s “Some of These Days” which soon became her signature song; her 1926 version sold a million copies and stayed number one for five weeks. In 1921, Tucker hired songwriter and pianist Ted Shapiro as her musical director and accompanist. He would remain with Tucker for her entire career and often exchanged jokes with her between musical numbers.

Tucker became friends with Mamie Smith, the first African-American woman to make a blues recording, and Ethel Walters, who became the highest paid African-American recording artist at that time. It was Walters who introduced Tucker to jazz, a music form Tucker later introduced to her white vaudeville audiences. In 1925, lyricist Jack Selig Yellen wrote “My Yiddishe Momme” which became another of Tucker’s signature songs. Now a successful singer, Tucker’s fame spread to Europe and she began a tour of England which culminated in a performance at the London Palladium for King George V and Queen Mary.

In 1926 Sophie Tucker re-released her hit song “Some of These Days”. It sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc by the Recording Industry Association of America. Tucker made her film debut in 1929 with a lead role in Lloyd Bacon’s Pre-Code musical film “Honky Tonk” which featured a number of her famous songs. This early feature sound film is now considered lost, only the Vitaphone soundtrack and its trailer still exist. When vaudeville was becoming passe in the early 1930s, Tucker turned to nightclubs where she could continue to perform for live audiences.

During 1938 to 1939, Tucker had her own radio show on CBS, “The Roi Tan Program with Sophie Tucker” and made numerous appearances on such programs as “The Radio Hall of Fame” and “The Andrews Sisters’ Show”. In 1945, she created the Sophie Tucker Foundation, which supported various actors’ guilds, hospitals, synagogues, and Israeli youth villages. Tucker appeared on many popular talk and variety shows in the 1950s and 1960s among which were “The Tonight Show” and “The Ed Sullivan Show”.

Sophie Tucker served from 1938 to 1939 as president of the American Federation of Actors, an early trade union originally for vaudeville and circus performers that expanded to include nightclub performers. She continued to perform for the rest of her life with several tours to England; her singing at the Royal Variety Performance aired on the BBC. Tucker’s last television appearance was the color broadcast of the October 3, 1965 “Ed Sullivan Show” in which she sang “Give My Regards to Broadway” and her signature song “Some of These Days”.

Tucker died of lung cancer and kidney failure in February of 1966, at the age of eighty, in her New York, Park Avenue apartment. She had played shows at New York’s Latin Quarter just weeks before her death and had two years of engagements planned. Tucker is buried in Emanuel Cemetery in Wethersfield, Connecticut.

Note: Sophie Tucker’s 1926 version of “Some of These Days”, which featured Ted Lewis and His Band, can be found by entering the title in the search box.

Hair Patterns

Photographer Unknown, (Hair Patterns)

“A great textile, like the William Morris Strawberry Thief, is a piece of art, but it takes a lot of time to make a piece of art. It isn’t simply design either. You have to understand the fabrics and what they can bear. You have to understand the dyeing process and how to achieve certain colors and what will make the color last through the ages. If you make a mistake, you might have to begin again.”
“I don’t think I know Strawberry Thief,” Sadie said.”One moment,” Mrs. Watanabe said. Mrs. Watanabe went into her bedroom, and she returned with a little footstool that was upholstered in a reproduction of Strawberry Thief. The pattern depicted birds and strawberries in a garden, and although Sadie hadn’t known the name, she recognized the print when she saw it.
“This was William Morris’s garden. These were his strawberries. Those were birds he knew. No designer had ever used red or yellow in an indigo discharge dyeing technique before. He must have had to start over many times to get the colors right. This fabric is not just a fabric. It’s the story of failure and of perseverance, of the discipline of a craftsman, of the life of an artist.”

—Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow