Edna Clarke-Hall - letters from Augustus John

The exhibition catalogue recently posted on Jot 101 just scratches the surface of Edna Clarke-Hall’s remarkable career. A gifted artist, whose work in many media has always been in demand, was the friend of so many colourful artists in the early years of the twentieth century—notably Gwen and Augustus John. She died in 1978 aged one hundred and may have lived even longer had the shock of being moved from Upminster Common, where she had lived for more than seventy years, to a retirement home, not played its part.

Some unpublished letters addressed to her from Augustus John just before the First World War, which a friend who knew her well, managed to acquire, reveal much about her relationship with the older artist who, like many other men, was captivated by her beauty. They also reveal John to be a deep thinker on art and society whose was capable of decidedly Lawrentian rants against convention. Two of these letters are worth quoting in full:-

Portrait of Edna by John

8, Fitzroy St, W.

Thanks for your letter. I am sorry for the boys’ sake you can’t have them longer. As for us, we have only one room available still—hardly big enough for seven children ! We have only Pyramus and Robin with us. The rest are planted about elsewhere. Why on Earth is there not some sane communal nursery farm one could send them to.  They only want fresh air, good food and play—nothing else till they find something else on their own account—except that those who look after then should be unsentimental, unprejudiced, uncorrupted beings, with eyes in their heads and not conscious-ridden , perverted, lachrymose & frivolous tools. Conventions are useful disguises, but the Soul observes none: your quotation is a psychological observation put into terms of poetic theology. I would like you to come and pose as soon as you like. Let me know what day and I’ll be sure to have the room warmed well.
I would like to be in the country. This town disgusts me. We surely have reached the lowest point of the most abject of all ages: what’s to be done—flee from the wrath to come, or what (no, welcome anything so definite, so respectable, so rare , as wrath !)  

The New Bohemianism

Another Jeremy Reed unpublished manuscript in his trademark purple ink. From 2007 when Doherty was much discussed in the media. 'Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?'

The New Bohemianism

 5:30 at Red Snapper Books, 22 Cecil Court, under moodily atmospheric London skies, and the red desk at which I write poetry is the lapidary colour of a dull ruby. When Peter Doherty surges in fedora or top hat angled on his intense fringe, a gun-grey Dior suit, white shirt and square cut Hardy Amies black tie, and a cheap Brick Lane pirate scarf then the reinvented bohemian look comes alive naturally, not as an image, but as the unmodified real thing. We face each other, poet and musician, as two anti-establishment artists, whose lifestyles and social viewpoints go radically wide of convention. When Aaron, the shop's owner comes up the stairs from his basement office, in a wide-brimmed black felt hat, a serpent brooch pinned to his striped blazer, with the offer to Pete, to jam in the basement over a bottle of Jack Daniels, we are three, joined by an inherent bohemian instinct. Pete gives me a Big Purple, turtle-shaped Quality street chocolate, explosive with praline, before taking the steps down to the shop's insulated basement. I carry on writing while the two go through an impromptu version of the Kinks' plaintive 'Tired of Waiting For You.'