^
Died on 08 July 1925: Robert Polhill Bevan,
English Camden
Town Group painter and lithographer born on 05 April (05 August?) 1865.
— Self-Portrait (1914, 46x26cm) >>>
— He studied at the Westminster School of Art and in Paris. In 1890–1891, having encountered Paul Sérusier at the Académie Julian in Paris, he made his first visit to Brittany, where he worked with the Pont-Aven group; he also developed an interest in lithography. After contact with Renoir, Bevan made a second visit to Brittany in 1893–1894, when he met and was influenced by Gauguin. From the early 1900s Bevan adopted a divisionist or pointillist style in paintings that often depicted London street scenes and horse trading, as in Horse Sale at the Barbican (1912), and landscapes painted on summer holidays in Devon and Cornwall, of which Green Devon (1919) is a striking example. In the last years of his life his style changed, the paint becoming thicker and more textural, with a new attention to the juxtaposition of masses. At times he approached a Cubist geometry of form, for example in rural scenes such as Hay Harvest (1916), while retaining the use of clear, pure color, and luminous colored shadows. His lithographs, which he made again from 1919, show a fluent and expressive line, with formal massing expressed through graduations of tints, as in London Church (1924), giving them a tonal delicacy equivalent to his oil paintings. Bevan was a founder-member of the Camden town group. Having contributed to the formation of the London Group he broke away in 1914 to form the Cumberland market group with Charles Ginner and Harold Gilman. Always keen to retain links with the French art scene, he and Ginner organized the exhibition Peintres Modernes Anglais at the Galerie Druet in Paris in 1921.
— Born at Hove in Sussex on 05 April 1865 Bevan was the fourth of six children. His father was a banker with a comfortable financial life style. First educated at Winchester and then by private tutors, his first teacher of drawing was Alfred Pearce who became one of the chief designers at ‘Doultons’. In 1888 Bevan went to the Westminster School of Art studying under Fred Brown before moving to Julian’s in Paris, a somewhat leisurely apprenticeship possible because of family backing.
At twenty-seven Bevan went to Tangiers and joined a group of artists. He
had a great love of horses and for one season he was Master of the Tangier
Hunt. Bevan moved on to Brittany for two years and then lived in a lonely
farmhouse at Hawkridge on Exmoor for three years where he indulged in hunting,
painting and print making (mostly of hunting subjects). In the summer of 1897 Bevan attended the wedding ,in Jersey, of his friend Eric Forbes Robertson who was marrying an art student from Poland. The bridesmaid was also a Polish art student, Stanislawa de Karlowska [<<< portrait by him, 1920, 46x38cm]. It was apparently love at first sight but because of language difficulties they had to communicate in French which was their only common language. Many were the letters Bevan wrote her and then he journeyed into the depths of Polish countryside to her father’s house. They were married in Warsaw on 09 December 1897.
The Bevans set up home near Swiss Cottage in London but made regular visits between 1899 and 1904 to Poland where he painted landscapes and horses. An exhibition of his work in 1908 at the first Allied Artists’ Exhibition broke his isolation as an artist and he became part of the circle of the Fitzroy Street Group and an original member of the Camden Town Group, the London Group and the Cumberland Market Group.
— LINKS
— Horse Sale at the Barbican (1912, 79x122cm; 326x512pix, 32kb) _ Bevan was fond of riding and often painted horses, almost always in London. They were either cab horses or, as here, horses being sold in a market. The auctioneer is standing in the decorated box in the background. Bevan's attitude in choosing to paint London, where he lived, matched the urban realism of the Camden Town Group, implied in their name. This is one of his largest paintings, and was carefully designed in detail in a preparatory drawing. The flat and textured color that characterises this work first appears in Bevan's paintings at about this time. This picture was included in the Camden Town Group exhibition of 1912
After training in London and Paris, Bevan worked in the early 1890s at Pont Aven in Brittany. There he met Gauguin. The influence of French Post-Impressionism, with its emphasis on the flat, patterned surface of the painting and its use of prominent outlines is very clear in Bevan's work. His paintings, however, tend to use more subdued colors, appropriate to his English urban subjects. After settling in London in 1910 he began to paint scenes of horse-drawn cabs and — as here — horse sales. In these works the nobility of the animal is contrasted with the drab but respectful character of the onlookers.
— Devonshire Valley (501x600pix, 46kb) _ Bevan’s first visit to Applehayes, with his wife, was in the summer of 1912. They returned in 1913 and 1915. Due to the war Squire Harrison found it impossible to continue offering hospitality to his artist friends. Bevan had taken a special liking to the Blackdown Hills and from 1916 to 1919 he rented a cottage called Lytchetts in the Bolham Water Valley, Clayhidon. He would stay there from early May to the middle of November for a long working holiday. His wife and children, Robert and his sister (later Mrs. Charles Baty), would visit him during the school holidays. At intervals, particularly during the winter months he would travel with his family to Poland to visit relatives. On one such trip whilst drawing at Opatow he was apprehended by Russian Police for alleged spying (the second time this happened was whilst drawing in Camden Town).
Lytchetts was owned by the Chard family, who lived at Harts Farm. Anne Chard remembers Bevan from her childhood recalling he was of a shy retiring disposition and not easy to communicate with. However she, her brother and sisters frequently saw him. A solitary gentleman tramping miles across the Blackdowns carrying either a sketch book and pencils or paints and easel tucked under his arm. Anne could remember Bevan’s look of pleased amusement when turning suddenly from the easel he encountered a child gazing in wonder at the remarkable likeness on canvas of two dearly loved shire horses, Prince and Farmer. On another occasion the Chard children having been asked to collect Prince from the common decided to mount and play at hunting on the way home. Three young children hanging on for dear life trotting along a narrow lane where they met the tall familiar figure and gaily called out "Good afternoon, Mr. Bevan". The artist lifted his bowler hat in acknowledgement and stopped dead in his tracks gazing incredulously at the spectacle before him. He was dressed in a light grey check suit with a watch-chain across his waistcoat. A bow tie and spats added to the elegance of his appearance. One of his nicknames in London was "Prime Minister" because of his bearing and attire.
In 1920 Bevan moved away from Clayhidon but remained close by at Goulds Farm, Luppitt. In 1922 he spent a few weeks in a farm house near his old friend Harrison and in 1923 Bevan bought Marlpits, in the middle of Luppitt Common. Whilst alone at Marlpits in 1925 cancer was diagnosed. He was taken to London by car but failed to recover from the serious operation involved and died in St. Thomas’s Hospital on 08 July 1925.
As can be seen, of the three artists Bevan spent by far the most time in Clayhidon and naturally more of his works of the area have survived. However he was very critical and may have destroyed much work. Very little survives from his three years on Exmoor.
During his first visit in 1912 Bevan painted Evening in the Culm Valley (private collection). During his next visit in 1913 he produced Haze Over The Valley and Devonshire Valley. From the third visit in 1915 he painted at least seven works including Dunn’s Cottage (City Art Gallery, Leeds). Leeds Art Gallery acquired this in 1983 and the assistant keeper Jonathan Benington wrote to the Clayhidon Local History Group requesting information about the building for an article he was writing. He had concluded by consulting a large Scale Ordnance Survey map that it must be Dunsgreen Farm. We were able to tell him of the correct location. The cottage was known as Shepherds Villa. It is now much altered but still standing at the bottom of Applehayes Lane. Frank Dunn was Squire Harrison’s groom and lived there. A sketch of the cottage is in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. The Little Oak Tree (King George VI Art Gallery, Port Elizabeth, South Africa) was first exhibited as The Back of Dunn’s Cottage. Brimley Hill and a crayon and watercolor Sunshine at Applehayes are others. Then follows a series painted in the Rosemary Lane area. Rosemary No.I and Rosemary No.II (private collections), Rosemary (Victoria and Albert Museum).
From his days at Lytchetts we have The Chestnut Tree. This was painted at Harts Farm where the Chard family lived. — The Hay Harvest: Anne Chard remembered Bevan sketching this and identifies the central figure as her father. — The Long Barn: one of the two views painted by Bevan of barns at Harts Farm. Harts Farm and a lithograph Harts Farm. — Mare and Foal painted at Lytchetts. — Timber Hauling No.I again painted at Lytchetts and portrays working horses. A second larger version was painted in London during 1918. — Culme Bridge, Hemyock, the scene shows the bridge between Culmbridge House and Culmbridge Mill and looks directly to the building at the road junction in between. — Gore’s Applehayes.
Other known paintings by Bevan of the area are Clayhidon Church — Caller at the Mill — Troakes Farm — Up Bolham Water — An Outhouse, Devon — Fields at Applehayes — Applehayes Across the Valley — Fields Farm and a lithograph Smithy Barn, Bolham.
Finally two other paintings need to be mentioned. Firstly Self Portrait by Bevan, which was reported to be a good likeness and secondly a painting by his wife Stanislawa de Karlowska: At Church Staunton, Somerset.
— Ploughing in Brittany (1894, 25x35cm; 25x35cm, 22kb)
— The Polish Tavern (1903; 542x760pix, 86kb)
