B.
No thank you, Your Majesty
Behind the scenes
A list of those Britons who declined honours between 1951 and 1999 has just been published by the Cabinet Office and widely reported in the British press. You can see the full list here.
It seems this really is the list to be on: famous enough to be offered an honour, but too cool to accept it. Among the 277 who decided they did not need the Queen's patronage are many artists, such as L S Lowry, Henry Moore, Lucien Freud, Francis Bacon, Prunella Clough, Ben Nicolson and John Piper. The famously tricky Lowry declined an OBE, a CBE, a Companion of Honour (twice) and finally a knighthood.
Here's a work from our collection by another artist who said no, Buenos Aires born surrealist Eileen Agar (1904–1991)
Eileen Agar Shrimps at Sea c.1948. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, presented by Mr Rex Nan Kivell 1953. Reproduced courtesy of the estate of Eileen Agar
Related
Collection
L S Lowry Factory At Widnes
L. S. Lowry’s best-known paintings present rhythmic crowds of ‘matchstick figures’ spilling across tightly constructed northern English industrial and urban landscapes. The sparser setting of Factory at Widnes presents one of Britain’s grimmest environments, a birthplace of the chemical industry. Some have interpreted the trio of strolling bowler-hatted figures as factory managers, others as perhaps visiting comics – Charlie Chaplin and transatlantic duo Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were still in the public eye when this was painted, and two of the three had performed in Widnes. Lowry had developed his own uniquely comical outlook over forty-two years while treading the streets of Manchester as a rent collector with the same company, from which he retired on full pension in 1952. This part of his story was long kept hidden from an admiring public.
(Leaving for Work 2 October 2021 - 1 May 2022)
Collection
Eileen Agar Shrimps at Sea
Shrimps at Sea was exhibited at the Redfern Gallery in 1948 and is one of the few examples of printmaking produced by Eileen Agar. The abstract forms suggest living organisms and show her interest in Surrealism. She was one of the few women artists to be selected to exhibit in the International Surrealist Exhibition held in London in 1936. Born in Argentina, Agar arrived in England in 1906 and studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, London from 1925 to 1926. She was a member of the London Group from 1933.
Collection
John Piper Stone Wall, Anglesey
Anglesey is an island off the north coast of Wales and it was one of John Piper’s favourite places. He produced numerous works relating to the island’s landscape. Piper was a prolific printmaker and produced over 350 prints during his career. He studied at the Royal College of Art from 1928 to 1929 and between 1934 and 1935 was a member of the 7 and 5 Society, a group of progressive British artists. During the 1930s Piper’s work tended to be abstract but by 1938 his style had become more representational. He continued to produce prints alongside his painting until the end of his career.