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Inspiration from Artists Week 28 Henry Tonks and Fred Masters.

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Paul (Dixie) Dean

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Welcome to week 28 of Inspiration from Artists this weeks featuring artists are . Henry Tonks and Fred Masters. Robert will start with his introduction to Henry Tonks and on Wednesday Jenny will  introduce Fred Masters. I hope you enjoy the artwork and find some paintings you have not seen before. Have a good week. 
With Sarah, Phil, Ellen, Rose the dentist, and the granddaughter whose name I forget.

Robert Jones, NAPA

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Almost ready!  Hope Monday morning will be soon enough to introduce Henry, because I'm on the gins and tonic this evening, to be followed by dinner, with a nice Rioja ..
With Sarah, Phil, Ellen, Rose the dentist, and the granddaughter whose name I forget.

Robert Jones, NAPA

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      Henry Tonks, 1862 – 1937, was a surgeon who later became Slade Professor of Fine Art, from 1918 to 1930. Described as being like ‘a long question mark’, looming over students and with a sarcastic and remote manner, he seems to have been the tutor of one’s nightmares – although the artists who studied under and benefited from him include William Coldstream, Paul Nash, Helen Lessore, and many others. He volunteered for service in the First World War as a surgeon and medical orderly – plainly, he had no need to: he was considerably over call-up age. While in the Royal Army Medical Corps, RAMC, he produced pastel drawings of facial injury cases. He became an official war artist in 1918, accompanied John Singer Sargent on tours of the Western front, which led to Sargent’s massive Gassed painting. In 1919, he went to Archangelsk in Russia, with a British expeditionary force. He thereafter devoted himself to painting and professorship: on retirement, he refused a knighthood. During his time at the Slade, he introduced students to ‘Tonking’, a method of laying a newspaper – usually the broadsheet The Times – over paintings to absorb excess oil: a method still used by some painters today, although a sounder practice would be not to saturate the paint with excess oil in the first place. But then – he was the Prof, not me.
With Sarah, Phil, Ellen, Rose the dentist, and the granddaughter whose name I forget.

Robert Jones, NAPA

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Some repetition here, and I can't seem to get rid of it.....  

Sylvia Evans

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What fabulous figure painting and drawing....your repetition of the posh lady in long frock...interesting as the colours are so different though obviously the same picture.  Wonder which one is the correct one?.  The last picture you have posted Robert is a super  study of gestures and shadows.   

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by Sylvia Evans

Jenny Harris

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Great write-up, Robert, an interesting character.  I’ve selected a couple of his ‘prettier’ paintings which I like for the subject and colour.  (Sylvia, interesting your comment about the colours of the lady in long frock - both images look exactly the same on my iPad.)

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by Jenny Harris

Alan Bickley

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Apart from Tonking, which I was well familiar with (although never had cause to use this method), I knew very little about him, great informative write-up Robert! I’m not overly keen, perhaps it’s the subject matter, flowing dresses and disfigured faces - but I really like Robert’s last figure drawing of the man… now that’s more like it! I’ve had a struggle to find anything I like, these two I find interesting!

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by Alan Bickley

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Paul (Dixie) Dean

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Thank you for your excellent introduction Robert , I will have a look at his work and going by what has been posted so far it will be a treat. 

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by Paul (Dixie) Dean

With Sarah, Phil, Ellen, Rose the dentist, and the granddaughter whose name I forget.

Robert Jones, NAPA

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The figure on the left, in the watercolour caricature Alan Bickley posted, and possibly the seated man in the last sketch shown, is surely Tonks himself, wound in a long streak around the dinner table: for such an apparently dour individual, he clearly had a considerable sense of visual humour. Come to think of it, the figure at the top of the table, he of the exciting moustaches, might be Sickert, with Philip Wilson Steer facing him (a bit like Mole....).

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by Robert Jones, NAPA

Sylvia Evans

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I so agree Alan... re subject matter.  It just don't turn me on.  But the figures are great.   I've had another look at the two pics of lady in nightie Jenny and maybe I wasn't awake enough when I commented...
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Paul (Dixie) Dean

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I can’t claim to be a fan of his work but I do think he is a really good artist. Some I have picked out including one of his wounded images. 

Alan Bickley

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You could be right Robert! I believe the title is something like ‘and then the conversation turned to Tonks’ I’m sure the other characters are fellow artists as you knowledgeably point out! Yes, the pencil drawing is Tonks himself… I’m assuming he drew it, but you never know!

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by Alan Bickley

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