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Inspiration from Artists Week 114 Bonus Artist : Augustus Edwin John.

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Lewis Cooper

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Augustus John is another artist that I have mixed feelings about.   His drawings impress mightily, but many of his landscapes and other paintings I'm pretty lukewarm about.  I do like his 'washing day' featured in Hilary's post above.  Some of his portraits are excellent.   I saw his Lawrence of Arabia at the National Portrait Gallery (I think, though it wasn't on display there at my recent visit...but they can't show everything they have.)  I was impressed by it, but it's always best to view the actual painting. I have much the same feelings about his 'Tallulah Bankhead' portrait above. Another one I like...'Canadian Soldier, 1918' His drawings are knockouts...above 'Edie McNeil 1906.' His unfinished mural for the Canadians also looks interesting.  Below is his cartoon for this work. And the unfinished painting is shown below... Apparently, he could be a difficult customer, he worked on this mural sporadically throughout his life, but died before he finished it.  It's 40 feet long by 12 feet high.  It depicts the Canadian forces near VIMY RIDGE in world war 1...a notable Canadian battle.  This unfinished work was not shown to the public until 2011...almost 100 years after he painted it. Difficult or not, I do admire his self-effacing quote posted by Martin, about John's sister Gwen.  (He may be right about that).

Tessa Gwynne

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I think his portrait of the Canadian soldier is amazing, if you look closely at how he has painted his face. I also like the Edie sketch below it very much.

Sylvia Evans

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His conte drawings are amazing….and yes most of his landscapes don’t do much for me.   Thanks for putting him on the forum Paul.  
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Paul (Dixie) Dean

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It was my pleasure to feature his work Sylvia. I’m not a great fan of his landscapes but his portrait I like however it his drawings that are so good in-fact some of the finest I have seen , have to admit to being a great admirer of his sketches and would love just a fraction of his talent. Certainly worth studying his style and work if your thinking of taking up drawing . 

Norrette Moore

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Fascinating to see his work of Vimy, of which I was totally unaware.  My great uncle fell there on April 9th 1917.  He'd emigrated to Canada in 1913 and joined the 2nd Canadian Rifles to get back to England. Sadly not. I'll examine the picture...you never know.
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Paul (Dixie) Dean

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Some more of his sketch of  gypsy .

Dmitry Shaklanoff-von Seipt

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Augustus John's graphics is on a par with some of the Old Masters, I would even say on a par with the likes of Rubens and Rembrandt, or  van Dyke, closer to Britain (he spent 10 years in this country). I think John was teaching in the 50 ies. But where is this great tradition of which he was part,  now? What happened?    

Dmitry Shaklanoff-von Seipt

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Thank you Paul for posting Augustus John's drawings. I can't get enough of him.
With Sarah, Phil, Ellen, Rose the dentist, and the granddaughter whose name I forget.

Robert Jones, NAPA

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Where indeed (is that great tradition now)?  First, art colleges shifted away from teaching the core subjects (so I'm told: I didn't attend one) and then - to telescope time and trends - we ended up with AI, and the claim that the human hand was redundant, or anyway all of that had already been done, and we could move on......   A look at where we moved TO is discouraging.
With Sarah, Phil, Ellen, Rose the dentist, and the granddaughter whose name I forget.

Robert Jones, NAPA

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Paul - wicked old Jones meant the elder Cox ... I am very confused myself about whom we've covered and whom we haven't..... my problem there is that I think of the paintings first and the artist second; so if we didn't feature the particular paintings I most admired and liked, I'm not likely to remember the artist just by name.  Anyway it's the 1783 - 1859 one - and now I think of it, I'm not aware of any other David Cox.....  = you've confused ME now.... PS - Found him, 1809 - 1885: more a teacher than anything else, it says; and I'd forgotten about him; David Cox Jr, not a major name poor chap: we certainly haven't covered him, and I don't think we've covered Sr either, because if we had, Google would uncover it; but, like me, Google can be wrong.  (There's a self-contradiction in my previous paragraph, but you are to ignore it, charitably, as it is an indicator of increasing age.)

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by Robert Jones, NAPA

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Paul (Dixie) Dean

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Dmitry I’m pleased that you enjoying the current thread , I try to keep as much variety as I possibly can and to that end move suggestions around so that each week is  different and features different styles etc of possible . I also try to offer different artist from different countries, cultures and of course the different styles and medium used .
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Lewis Cooper

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On reading through this thread again, I'd like to correct an impression that I might have given regarding this artist.  I'm not 'lukewarm' about Augustus John, he's a favourite artist of mine.  I greatly admire his portraits and drawings, however, some of his landscapes appeal slightly less to me.   He's a great artist. In 2021, a recently discovered drawing of his sold for £16,000 at auction.  It's of Dorelia McNeil, his lover and muse, the drawing was made in 1903.  I wish I'd had the money to buy it. Here's another drawing of Dorelia... Below, a drawing of his sister Gwen...by Augustus... Below...the Blue Pool... Below, 'Lyric Fantasy' painted in 1914.
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