'I first came into contact with Stanley Grimm when I answered his advertisement in The Artist stating that he had vacancies in his studio for tuition in oil painting to private pupils,' says John Humphreys.
Stanley Grimm, ROI, RP (Photograph by John Humphreys)
He went to Munich in about 1911 to study art in the Knirr atelier, and was at this time exhibiting in Berlin, Munich and Venice. In 1913 he married a childhood friend and fellow art student Maria (Masha) Oulpe.
When the First World War broke out, Stanley was interned at Ruhleben until an exchange was organised in 1916. England then became the home for Grimms, apart from the brief visit Stanley paid to Russia 1918. Money ran out, and he was forced to work for the Bolshevik authorities painting propaganda pictures “by the mile” and always in red, to mark the anniversary of the revolution.
He escaped by way of a smuggler’s fishing boat through Finland and back to London.
Tugboat, 1924, oil, (10x14")
Matisse saw the young Grimm’s work and described him as a very gifted painter with a fine sense of colour.
In 1919 there was an exhibition of paintings from Ruhleben which must have been a sensational attraction in post-war London, for it was visited by about 40,000 people. Stanley’s paintings sold well, one purchaser being the Crown Princess of Sweden.
In 1924 the Sunday Times critic wrote, “There is a brilliant decorative glamour in some of Utrillo’s street scenes and some of Grimm’s vigorous paintings.”
He became a very fashionable portrait painter, although he has also painted forceful landscapes and attractive flower pieces. Among his portrait commissions were such diverse characters as Beatrice Eden, Aneurin Bevan and Prince Youssoupoff (who helped kill Rasputin).
One of the conditions of this last mentioned commission was that the sitter could take a gramophone with him since he could no longer bear silence. I do not know how this went down with the painter, as, when painting the Catalan cellist Antoni Sala, the gentleman is said to have let his bow stray over the strings, when he was told sharply, “For goodness sake man, stop it and keep your hands still: do you want your music to make a mess of my picture?”
In 1930 the Sunday Times wrote, “He is evidently an instinctive painter with a large way of looking at things and a downright way of setting them down. it is clear, too, that he allows every subject to dictate its own style of execution and this gives his work an effect of variety… ploughing his way to composition through painting would not be a bad description of his way of making a picture.”
Stanley was elected the ROI in 1934 and the RP in 1936. He consistently refused to let his name be put forward for election to the RA.
Hampshire Chrysanthemums, 1936, oil, (31x25")
War again engulfed the world, and Stanley served his country first as a Special Constable, the first bearded one in London, but later his skills in languages resulted in his becoming a Liaison Officer with the RNVR, spending 18 months in Iceland where he painted landscapes later exhibited in London.
After the war, and the peace talks, for he was part of the Naval contingent in Paris, Stanley returned to his Chelsea studio to continue painting, and some years later this was where I telephoned him, replying to his advertisement for pupils.
The ‘phone rang and a gruff heavily accented voice said “You better come round to see me,” and almost as an afterthought, “And bring some work.”
When I went up to see him he quickly summoned up my work as quite good but monochromatic.
His generosity was immediately apparent because when we agreed that I should study with him for two days a week, he said that the second day would be for half his usual fee. I continued with him for three years.
My first day at the studio started at 10 o’clock with an explanation of how to set out his recommended list of paints on the palette. As I am left handed it meant reversing the palette and its layout, which was a frequent source of confusion to him over the years.
We then set up a still life and I was left to make a charcoal drawing of it, “as simple as possible – remember it’s a drawing for painting, not a worked out, finished drawing”
At 1.00pm we broke for “luncheon” (always luncheon, never lunch), and Stanley disappeared to the Chelsea Arts club. Painting began again at 2, and continued until the light faded or the pupil dropped from exhaustion.
I was to find out that in the winter it was usually the former, and in summer sometimes the latter. Although Stanley was no longer a young man, his vitality and enthusiasm often outmatched those of his students.
His teaching methods were direct and forthright, and left a little room for self-consciousness or timidity. Painting was the thing that mattered, and that is what his pupils were there to learn.
Behind that gruff exterior, though, he was kind, sensitive and perceptive. His view of kindness was direct too, and he quoted his Russian painting professor’s (and his) approach to correcting a painting, directly into the wet paint with a big brush, fingers or the side of his large hand saying, “If you have to cut off a dog’s tail, you do it quickly and decisively – it’s much less painful the messing about with little strokes, trying not to hurt the poor animal, and just dragging out the agony.”
After the initial shock I came to terms with this approach and enjoyed the cut and thrust of criticism and the defence and the occasional praise.
Fishing Huts, Walberswick, Suffolk, 1934, oil, (16x20")
The most vital aspect of his teaching was the instance on constantly looking at the subject and responding to it, not slavishly copying it but “explaining” it, and continually looking critically at the painting to assess how it was evolving and what needed to be done next. His advice was, “Make the statement as simply as you can. Keep it simple. Look at the Vermeer head of a girl – see how simple it is, how simple he does it.”
As he said in an article in The Artist in 1949, “The main problem is to learn to see, for painting is ninety per cent seeing.”
One of Stanley’s great and rather private achievements was the way he opened up new worlds of artistic vision and involvement for people who came late to painting. To quote that 1949 article again, “There is no age limit to learning how to paint, as long as the fingers and bones are not too stiff and the mind and eye not too dull.”
Stanley cajoled and guided his mixed ability groups into fresh sense of awareness and fulfilment, and helped them to paint better than anyone wold have imagined they could: all this whilst continuing to work on his own pictures.
Stanley has written, “It is the mental development, and not the craftsmanship, which separates the great artist from the mediocre one. It is just as in other runs of life – there are not many Winston Churchills among the public men of this world. The technique of drawing and painting can be learned, but it is the mind behind the tools that fashion the picture into a good or vulgar, or just dull one.”
What Stanley Grimm taught me, apart from aesthetic considerations, was a basic technique and a method of approach that has proved to be adaptable to many different needs.
I have had to adapt this technique to cope with the particular direction in which my vision has led me, and it took many years to do this fully, so that, at a glance, my paintings now look very different from those of Stanley Grimm. Yet the basic method of handling has changed very little from that which I learned with Stanley some twenty-five years ago.
The application of the method has changed considerably to suit my personality as well as the demand of the subject matter, and in fact varies quite a bit from picture to picture, but the difference in the look of the paintings is probably more a matter of concept, content and subject matter than of basic technique.
I am frequently grateful for the balance of aesthetics and practical craftsmanship that was the engine room of the Grimm household.
Through the Drifts, oil, (30x24")
In a happy coincidence, John Humpheys won the Stanley Grimm Prize at the ROI show for his painting 'Through the Drifts' (see above) in the same year that he was writing this piece for Leisure Painter.
The prize was decided by public vote and was worth £500.
To read another in this 1982 series on Charles Tunnicliffe, RA, written by Jean Parry-Williams
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