Appendix Seven

AUGUSTUS JOHN: CHRONOLOGY AND ITINERARY

1878	4 January, born at Tenby, Pembrokeshire, Wales.
1884	August, mother dies. Family move from Haverfordwest to Tenby.
1894–8	Slade School of Fine Art, London.
1897	Bathing accident.
1898	‘Moses and the Brazen Serpent’ wins the Summer Composition Prize. Visits Holland with Ambrose McEvoy.
1899	First one-man show at Carfax Gallery. Makes £30 and goes to Vattetot-sur-Mer with William Rothenstein, William Orpen, Charles Conder. Meets Oscar Wilde in Paris. Begins exhibiting at New English Art Club.
1900	Goes to Swanage with Conder. ‘Walpurgis Night’. Visits Le Puy-en-Velay with the Rothensteins and Michel Salaman. Painted by Orpen.
1901	12 January, marries Ida Nettleship. Moves into 18 Fitzroy Street, London.
1901–2	Art instructor at Liverpool. Meets John Sampson and the Dowdalls. Etchings.
1902	6 January, David born.
1903	Elected to NEAC.
	January, meets Dorothy McNeill in London. March, Carfax Gallery: ‘Paintings [3], Pastels [8], Drawings [21] and Etchings [13] by Augustus E. John’; ‘Paintings [3] by Gwen John’.
	22 March, Caspar born.
	August, Gwen and Dorelia’s ‘walk to Rome’, via Toulouse. Augustus and Ida move to Elm House, Matching Green, Essex.
1903–7	Involved with Orpen and Knewstub in Chelsea Art School, Rossetti Studios.
1904	Gwen and Dorelia arrive in Paris. Dorelia elopes to Bruges.
	August, Dorelia returns and lives at Elm House.
	Augustus elected to membership of the Society of Twelve.
	23 October, Ida’s Robin born.
1905	April–May, on Dartmoor. Dorelia’s Pyramus born.
	September, emigration to rue Monsieur-le-Prince, Paris.
	November, Chenil Gallery: ‘Drawings by Aug. E. John [42] and William Orpen [22]’.
	27 November, Ida’s Edwin born.
1906	January, move to 77 rue Dareau, Paris.
	May, Chenil Gallery: Eighty-Two Etchings. First drawings of Alick Schepeler.
	August, at Ste-Honorine-des-Perthes with Wyndham Lewis. Dorelia’s Romilly born.
	November, Dorelia detaches herself and moves to 48 rue du Château.
1907	February, Augustus and Ida move to 3 Cour de Rohan.
	9 March, Ida’s Henry born.
	14 March, Ida dies.
	Summer at Equihen with Dorelia.
	September, visits Lady Gregory at Coole, Ireland. Paints W. B. Yeats. Moves to 8 Fitzroy Street, London.
	November, Carfax Gallery. Eighty-one drawings.
1908	Gets to know Lady Ottoline Morrell. Starts off for Spain, via Paris.
	July–September, at Dielette with Dorelia and children. Visited by Mrs Nettleship.
	Autumn, moves into 153 Church Street with Dorelia and families.
1909	January, paints William Nicholson. Takes studio at 181a King’s Road.
	July, caravans to Cambridge. Paints Jane Harrison. August, paints ‘His Worship the Lord Mayor of Liverpool, and Smith’.
	Meets John Quinn in London.
	September, agrees to decorate Hugh Lane’s house.
1910	January–September, travels, at Quinn’s expense, to Italy and Provence. Visits Frank Harris at Nice.
	April, Villa Ste-Anne, Martigues.
	October, ‘The Smiling Woman’ becomes the first purchase of the Contemporary Art Society (£225) and is later (1917) given to the Tate Gallery.
	November–December, Chenil Gallery: ‘Provençal Studies [48] and Other Works [35 drawings]’. Begins working with J. D. Innes.
1911	Elected to the Camden Town Group.
	May, rents cottage with Innes in North Wales.
	July, paints Kuno Meyer in Liverpool.
	August, moves to Alderney Manor.
	September, in France with Quinn.
	October, in Wales.
	December, Chenil Gallery: Paintings, Drawings and Etchings.
1912	March, Pyramus dies. Poppet is born.
	Summer, west coast of Ireland with Francis Macnamara and Oliver St John Gogarty.
	September, stays at Chirk Castle with the Howard de Waldens.
1913	January, in South of France with Innes.
	February, Armory Show, New York (23 paintings, 14 drawings).
	Spring, Madam Strindberg’s cabaret club opens.
	July, North Wales with Holbrooke and Sime.
	August, visits Modigliani in Paris.
	September, North Wales.
	November, Goupil Gallery: Fifteen Panels.
1914	February, elected President of the National Portrait Society. In Cornwall with Laura Knight and others.
	April, Crab Tree Club opens.
	May, Cardiganshire. Gives up studio at 181a King’s Road, moves into 28 Mallord Street.
	June, one week in Boulogne.
	August, Eilean Shona, Archarcle, Argyllshire. Last visits to Innes at Brighton and Swanley in Kent before his death.
	October–November, drilling with Wadsworth in the courtyard of the Royal Academy.
	December, sees Gwen John in Paris. Fails to persuade her to return to England.
1915	March, Vivien born.
	May, Hugh Lane drowned in Lusitania.
	June, at Coole. Paints three portraits of Bernard Shaw.
	October, Aran Islands and Galway.
1916	February, Chenil Gallery: Paintings (21) and Drawings (41). Portrait of Lloyd George.
	May, Chenil Gallery: ‘Etchings by Augustus E. John’.
	July, goes to Herbert Barker for knee operation.
	August, rejected for military service. ‘Galway’ shown at Arts and Crafts Exhibition, Burlington House.
	Starts experiments in lithography. Bust by Jacob Epstein.
1917	20 March, Monster Matinée at Chelsea Palace Theatre.
	27 April, meets Lady Cynthia Asquith.
	August, portrait of Oliver St John Gogarty.
	9 October, begins portrait of Lady Cynthia Asquith (‘Lady in Black’).
	November–February (1918), Alpine Club: pictures and decorations (67 exhibits).
	December, advances to Aubigny as a Canadian Army major.
1918	March, retires from France after knocking out Captain Wright.
	May, starts Canadian cartoon (National Gallery of Canada) and ‘Fraternity’ (Imperial War Museum, London).
	8–28 August, represented at ‘Englische Moderne Malerei’, an exhibition organized by the Contemporary Arts Society at the Kunsthaus, Zürich.
1919	February–May, in Paris as official war artist. Paints Marchesa Casati and Duchess of Gramont. First drawing of T. E. Lawrence.
	March, Chenil Gallery: 125 etchings.
	September, at Deauville with Lloyd George.
1920	Augustus John by Charles Marriott published by John Lane in the ‘Masters of Modern Art’ series. Elected Fellow of University College, London.
	March, Alpine Club: War, Peace Conference and Other Portraits (39 exhibits).
	April, Sister Carline Hospital. Operation on nose.
	May, Rouen and Dieppe.
	October, rumpus over Lord Leverhulme’s decapitated portrait.
	Campbell Dodgson’s Catalogue of Etchings by A. E. John published.
1921	22 April, elected Associate of the Royal Academy. Begins painting of Mme Suggia.
	June, portrait of Herbert Barker.
1922	March, the Sculptors’ Gallery, New York: works by Epstein, Gaudier-Brzeska, Innes, Augustus John and Wyndham Lewis from Quinn Collection (7 paintings, 7 drawings).
	April, Paris.
	May, arrives in Spain.
1923	March, Alpine Club Gallery: Paintings and Drawings. First showing of ‘Mme Suggia’.
	28 March–23 June, United States.
	June, Beaux Arts Gallery: paintings (29).
	Augustus John by A.B. [Anthony Bertram] published by Benn.
	21 September, meets Thomas Hardy at Kingston Maurward.
	October, completes portrait of Hardy at Max Gate.
1924	‘Mme Suggia’ wins first prize at International Exhibition, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh.
	April–June, United States.
	July, in Dublin for Taillteann Games. Stays with Lord Dunsany.
	September-October, Paris.
1925	February, Lord Duveen gives ‘Mme Suggia’ to the Tate Gallery.
	March–April, in Berlin. Paints Gustav Stresemann and Lali Horstmann.
	May–June, Ischia with T. W. Earp.
	Italy. Starts flower painting.
1926	February–March, Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, United States: drawings.
	February–April, France.
	April, Elected member of Royal Society of Portrait Painters.
	May, New Chenil Gallery: Paintings (47) and Drawings (35); Gwen John, paintings (44) and 4 albums of drawings.
	17 June, begins portrait of Hugh Walpole.
	9 July, ‘Art and the Public’, BBC talk. Meets and paints Sean O’Casey.
	October, walks from Avignon to Marseilles with Horace de Vere Cole and A. R. Thomson.
	December (till February 1927), at Villa Ste-Anne.
1927	Begins portrait of Lord D’Abernon.
	March, moves from Alderney Manor to Fryern Court.
	June–July, at Château de Missery.
	July, helps Gwen John buy Yew Tree Cottage, Burgate Cross, Fordingbridge.
	December (till January 1928), South of France.
1928	14 January–4 February, Anderson Gallery, New York: Paintings and Drawings.
	April, Villa Ste-Anne sold.
	August–December, in United States. Portrait of Governor Fuller.
	5 December, elected Royal Academician.
1929	February, at Cap Ferrat with James Dunn.
	4 April–17 May, Tooth’s Gallery: Recent Paintings (27).
	May–June, designs sets for Act II of Sean O’Casey’s The Silver Tassie.
	July, Château de Missery.
	September, Rheims.
	October, paints T. E. Lawrence at Fryern Court.
	November, drawing of Frederick Delius.
	December, designs Noah’s Ark for Chelsea Arts Club Ball at Albert Hall.
1930	Contributes reminiscences to Ifan Kyrle Fletcher’s Ronald Firbank.
	April, Harlow, McDonald & Co, New York: Etchings and Drawings.
	1 April, begins portrait of Montagu Norman.
	April–May, in hospital, Preston Deanery Hall, Northampton.
	July–September, Ireland. Portraits of W. B. Yeats and Brenda Gogarty.
	October, Kiddalton Castle, Port Ellen, Isle of Islay. In Amsterdam with Dorelia.
	November, Paris, James Joyce drawings.
	December (till February 1931), Cap Ferrat.
1931	21 November, funeral of John Sampson who bequeaths John under Clause 8 of his will, ‘my Smith and Wesson Revolver No. 239892’.
1932	February–March, in Jersey with Sir Herbert Barker. More attention to knee. Lord D’Abernon’s portrait signed.
	May, portraits of Joe Hone and T. W. Earp.
	June, represented at XVIII Biennial International Art Exhibition, Venice.
	July, France.
	August, Cornwall. Romilly John’s The Seventh Child published by Heinemann.
	December, Majorca.
	Death of Mrs Nettleship.
1933	January, Leicester Galleries: Sixty Etchings. LL D Cardiff University.
	August, appointed trustee of the Tate Gallery (to 1941). Venice.
1934	Augustus John by T. W. Earp, published by Nelson.
	21 May, elected President of Royal Cambrian Academy of Art.
	September, Paris.
	October (to February 1935), ‘Etchings at the National Museum of Wales’ (catalogue by Kighley Baxandall). Mallord Street sold to Gracie Fields. New studio built at Fryern Court.
1935	30 April, ‘La Séraphita’ and other paintings destroyed in fire at Fryern.
	14 May, letter to The Times about Stanley Spencer’s works.
	June, borrows Vanessa Bell’s studio for one month.
	22 June, Henry John missing. Body found drowned on 6 July.
	November, takes studio at 49 Glebe Place.
1936	5–29 February, Adams Gallery: Forty Etchings.
	April, Paris.
	25 April, Laugharne Castle, Carmarthen. Portrait of Dylan Thomas.
	26 May, fined £5 for drinking after hours at the Old Mill Club, Salisbury.
	June, represented at XX Biennial International Art Exhibition (4 paintings).
	Autumn, British Empire Exhibition, Johannesburg. Works (later with Ernst Stern) on designs for costumes and scenery for C. B. Cochran’s production of J. M. Barrie’s The Boy David, which opened on 14 December.
1937	Associated with new school of drawing and painting under the direction of Claude Rogers, Victor Pasmore and William Coldstream. Elected President of the Gypsy Lore Society.
	March, Wildenstein Gallery, London: Thirty Drawings.
	February–May, Jamaica. Travels back on a banana boat via Rotterdam.
	September, rents Mas de Galeron, St-Rémy-de-Provence.Visits Matthew Smith at Aix-en-Provence.
1938	February, one of three British artists (with Sickert and Steer) represented at Exhibition of British Art at the Louvre, Paris.
	March, Leicester Galleries: Drawings. Takes Park Studio, Pelham Street, London.
	7 April, father dies in Tenby.
	28 April, resigns from Royal Academy following its rejection of Wyndham Lewis’s portrait of T. S. Eliot.
	19 May–11 June, Tooth’s Gallery: Latest Paintings (32), including Jamaican pictures.
	18 June, Dorelia’s mother dies following a fall from the balcony of her bedroom at Fryern Court on 20 May.
	4 July, opens Exhibition of Twentieth-Century German Art at Burlington House.
	July, signs contract with Jonathan Cape for autobiography.
	August, at Laugharne with Richard Hughes.
	27 August, goes to Mas de Galeron.
1939	February–March, Redfern Gallery: Exhibition of Paintings by John, Innes and Derwent Lees.
	July–August, Mas de Galeron.
	18 September, Gwen John dies at Dieppe.
	Autumn, begins painting the Queen. Represented at British Council Exhibition, New York.
1940	Honorary Member of the London Group.
	16 February, re-elected to the Royal Academy.
	July, moves to studio at 33 Tite Street, Chelsea.
	November, National Gallery: ‘British Painting Since Whistler: Drawings of Augustus John’ (112).
	December, exhibition at the Francis Taylor Gallery, Hollywood.
1941	February, starts writing for Cyril Connolly’s Horizon (until April 1949).
	June, Redfern Gallery: Drawings (40).
	July, joins the Green Shirts and ‘throws in his lot’ with the Social Credit Party.
	October, Augustus John Drawings, edited by Lillian Browse, published by Faber and Faber.
1942	March, etchings collected by Gerald Brockhurst shown at Boston Library, Massachusetts.
	11 June, awarded Order of Merit (investiture 2 July).
	31 June, writes to The Times deploring the lack of interest shown by press and public in Ethel Walker’s exhibition at the Lefevre Gallery.
	October, article on Gwen John published by Burlington Magazine.
1943	January, elected Honorary Member, American National Institute of Arts and Letters. Artists’ International Association (1 painting).
	May, Leicester Galleries: ‘Drawings by Augustus John, Paintings by Gilbert Spencer’.
1944	Matthew Smith stays at Fryern; he and John paint each other.
	14 March, Alfred Munnings 24 votes, John 17 in elections for the presidency of the Royal Academy.
	7 June, in a light fawn tropical suit opens Exhibition of Indian Art for the Mayor of Calcutta’s Relief Fund.
	2 August, appointed First President of the Central Institute of Art and Design.
	October, Augustus John by John Rothenstein published by Phaidon and Allen & Unwin as Phaidon Press Art Books: ‘British Artists’ series, No. 2.
1945	In Wales with the Howard de Waldens.
	July–November, Tite Street studio under repair.
1946	Introduction to Gwen John exhibition (Arts Council). Elected chairman of the Contemporary Art Society for Wales. Elected member of Académie Royale de Belgique. Jeu de Paume, Paris: represented in ‘Exposition de peinture anglaise du XX siècle’ (portraits and a composition).
	24 July–31 August, Temple Newsam House, Leeds: Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings (124 exhibits).
	24 December, letter to The Times about the dangers of picture cleaning at the National Gallery.
1947	A long convalescence. September–October, Mousehole, Cornwall.
1948	May, Leicester Galleries: Exhibition of work from previous fifteen years (52 exhibits), including 12-foot canvas ‘The Little Concert’ (grisaille).
	31 May, on the cover of Time magazine, USA.
	10 July, elected President of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters.
	30 July, Welsh National Eisteddfod, Bridgend. Arts Council Exhibition: Paintings (61) and Drawings (65).
	October, American-British Art Center: Drawings.
1949	7 March, ‘Engaged on a long and vast composition’ (letter to Wyndham Lewis).
	21 March–12 April, Scott & Fowles, New York: Exhibition of Works in American Collections (23 paintings).
	9 September, radio talk for BBC, Far Eastern Service, ‘I Speak for Myself’.
	November, Lefevre Gallery: ‘Works by Augustus John and Ethel Walker’. ‘Frontiers’ published by Delphic Review.
1950	30 April, profile in London Observer.
	June–July, Mas de Galeron given up.
	July–August, Hôtel de Bourgogne, Paris: ‘a course of injections’.
	29 August, letter to The Times on art students at the National Gallery. Castello San Peyre, Opio, France.
	October, Paris.
1951	15 January, Café Royal closes. Leaves Tite Street studio.
	17 August, letter to The Times about the Arts Council of Great Britain.
1952	28 January, on the cover of Life magazine.
	3 March, Chiaroscuro published by Jonathan Cape (by Pellerini & Cudahy in United States).
	5 March, appointed Vice-President of the Artists’ Benevolent Institution.
	28 March, Guest of Honour at Foyle’s Literary Lunch: ‘I am two people instead of one: the one you see before you is the old painter. But another one has just cropped up – the young writer.’
	October, Introduction to the catalogue of Ulrica Forbes Exhibition, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool.
1953	Resigns as President of Royal Society of Portrait Painters.
	Begins sculpture with Fiore de Henriques.
1954	March–April, Royal Academy, Diploma Gallery: Exhibition of Works by Augustus John OM, RA (460 exhibits). Portrait of Lord Leverhulme repaired. Walker Art Gallery: Exhibition of Augustus John pictures with Liverpool associations.
	November, Nuffield House, Guy’s Hospital, prostate gland operation.
	December (till March 1955), Spain.
1955	February, ‘Some Portraits from Memory’ published by the London Magazine.
	March, bronze head of Yeats purchased for the Abbey Theatre, Dublin.
	19 September, letter to The Times on the rights of gypsies.
	November, Wales. Drawings of John Cowper Powys.
1956	August, France.
	September, Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield: Paintings (43), Drawings (88) and Prints (15).
1957	4 November, interviewed by Malcolm Muggeridge on BBC TV Panorama: ‘Have you always wanted to be a painter?’ ‘Give me another hundred years and I would become a very good one.’
	December, Fifty-two Drawings, with an Introduction by Lord David Cecil, published by Rainbird.
1958	Joins British Peace Committee.
1959	29 October, given the Honorary Freedom of Tenby.
1960	Elected first president of the Contemporary Art Society for Wales.
	4 January, eighty-second birthday. ‘Work as usual’ (Daily Telegraph).
	12 May, interviewed by John Freeman on BBC Face to Face television programme.
	14 October, letter praising the work of Matthew Smith in the Daily Telegraph.
1961	15 March–30 March, Tooth’s Gallery: Paintings and Drawings not previously illustrated.
	31 October, dies at Fryern Court.
	5 November, obituary programme, BBC TV Monitor.
1962	20 July, Christie’s first studio sale.
	Augustus John by John Rothenstein published by Beaverbrook Newspapers Ltd.
1963	21 June, Christie’s second studio sale.
1964	12 November, Finishing Touches published by Jonathan Cape.
1965	1–30 April, Upper Grosvenor Galleries: Loan Exhibition of Drawings and Murals by Augustus John OM, RA, in aid of the Augustus John Memorial Appeal.
1967	The Drawings of Augustus John, with an Introduction by Stephen Long-street, published by the Borden Publishing Company, California.
	1 October, memorial statue by Ivor Roberts-Jones unveiled by Lord Mountbatten at Fordingbridge.
1968	18 July, Harlech Television, Augustus John programme.
1969	24 July, Dorelia dies at Fryern Court.
1970	25 October–14 November, The University of Hull: ‘Augustus John: Portraits of the Artist’s Family’.
1971	2–28 December, Lefevre Gallery: Drawings by Augustus John (36 pictures).
1972	Over 1,000 drawings, no paintings and 3 bronzes, the last remains of the artist’s studio, purchased by the National Museum of Wales.
	November, Dalhousie Art Gallery, Halifax, Nova Scotia: Augustus John (40 pictures, catalogue by Ernest W. Smith).
1974	September, Malcolm Easton and Michael Holroyd, The Art of Augustus John published. Colnaghi’s: ‘Augustus John: Early Drawings and Etchings’ (162 exhibits, catalogue essays by Malcolm Easton and Michael Holroyd).
	October, London Weekend Television Aquarius programme, Augustus John, with Richard Burton (producer, Humphrey Burton).
1975	25 March–31 August, National Portrait Gallery, London: ‘Augustus John, Paintings and Drawings’.
	30 May–26 October, National Portrait Gallery, London: ‘Augustus John. Life and Times’ (catalogues for both exhibitions by Malcolm Easton and Romilly John).
1978	15 April–21 May, National Museum of Wales Centenary exhibition, ‘Augustus John: Studies for Compositions’ (catalogue by A. D. Fraser Jenkins).
	October–December, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge: ‘Augustus John: Paintings, Prints and Drawings in the Fitzwilliam Museum’ (128 exhibits, catalogue Foreword by Michael Jaffe). BBC TV South, Augustus John (producer John Coleman).
1979	Augustus John by Richard Shone published.
	17 December, Augustus John papers sold at Sotheby’s for £52,000 to anonymous buyer in the United States.
1982	August, Mostyn Art Gallery, Llandudno: ‘Some Miraculous Promised Land: J. D. Innes, Augustus John and Derwent Lees in North Wales 1910–13’ (catalogue by Eric Rowan).
1985	21 November–9 February 1986, Manchester City Art Gallery: ‘Augustus John and Friends’. Exhibition in conjunction with ‘Gwen John: an Interior Life’ (28 November–26 January 1986).
1988	June, Augustus John papers sold by private treaty at Sotheby’s to National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth. National Museum of Wales: ‘Portraits by Augustus John: Family, Friends and the Famous’ (50 exhibits, catalogue by Mark Evans).
1991	3–27 July, Piccadilly Gallery, London: ‘Augustus John Paintings, Drawings, Etchings’ (4 oils, 38 drawings, 12 etchings, catalogue by Rebecca John). Ceridwen Lloyd-Morgan’s Augustus John Papers published by the National Library of Wales.
	21 September–17 November, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea: ‘Passionate Visions. Gwen John and Augustus John’ (52 exhibits, catalogue by David Fraser Jenkins).
1994	29 July–4 August, Mercury Gallery, London: single work exhibition, cartoon of ‘The Mumpers’.
	December, HTV Wales, Augustus John: King of Bohemia programme.
1995	Mark Lewis, Augustus John (pamphlet published by Tenby Museum & Art Gallery, including list of works in the gallery’s collection).
1996	July–September, National Museums and Galleries of Wales, Cardiff ‘Themes and Variations: The drawings of Augustus John 1901–1931’. Augustus John. Papers at the National Library of Wales by Ceridwen Lloyd-Morgan published.