Artists – J

Samuel Jackson has been described as ‘the Father of the School’ of Bristol artists. His contemporary Francis Danby (1793-1861) wrote that ‘I know Jackson is a man of genius by being with him in Leigh Woods’ (see F. Greenacre and S. Stodard, ‘The Bristol Landscape-the Watercolours of Samuel Jackson’, 1986, p. 85). In 1820s Bristol was booming, the end of the Napoleonic Wars contributing to its prosperity as a trading city, the port of Bristol second only to London. This was the moment the ‘Bristol School of Artists’ flourished; Jackson and Francis Danby were its best-known members. Their original contribution to art in Britain was founded in their plein air practise in the countryside around the city, Leigh Woods, the Nightingale Valley and the Avon Gorge. Jackson was born in Bristol, the son of a partner in a firm of dry-salters with a Dutch grandmother, who dealt in the chemical products used in colour dyes and artists materials. It may be that in this business was the origin of the wide variety of pigments used in much of Jackson’s early work. Like many other Bristol artists Jackson travelled extensively and made frequent trips to Wales from 1825 through the 1830s and 1840s. In 1827 he visited Trinidad, St Vincent and Tobago in the West Indies. Scotland, the Lake District and Switzerland provided further subjects for his exhibited works. He lived in Bristol for his whole life becoming the elder statesman of the arts in the city. Jackson’s work is well represented at the British Museum, Bristol City Art Gallery and the Yale Center for British Art amongst other institutions.

In February 1904 Gwen John and Dorelia McNeill left Toulouse for Paris where they took a room in the Hôtel de Mont Blanc at 19 Boulevard Edgar Quinet in the 14th arrondissement. They acquired a female tortoiseshell cat with a white breast which Gwen John named after the street and drew frequently, and which would appear to be the subject of the present drawing which dates from around 1905-1908. Gwen John had many cats throughout her life, and when Edgar Quinet disappeared in 1908 she wrote a poem in her memory entitled Au Chat which she sent to Rodin. Her remarkable cat drawings capture the personality of the animals and are understandably acclaimed.

Johnson was born in Birmingham where he studied under Samuel Restell Lines. He was then a pupil of William James Müller in London, accompanying him on Sir Charles Fellowes’ expedition to Lycia in 1843. On Johnson’s return to London he became a founder member of the Clipstone Street Academy, along with Müller, participating in its life drawing and painting sessions with a variety of models from the streets. Johnson made sketching trips with David Cox to North Wales from 1844. The artist was elected an associate member of the R.I. in 1868 and a full member two years later. His work can be found in many museum collections, including the British Museum, Victoria & Albert Museum and the Fitzwilliam Museum. Martin Hardie (1875-1952) was the author of the three-volume bible of British watercolourists Water-Colour Painting in Britain and a curator at the Victoria & Albert Museum. He was also an authority on print making on which he published extensively as well as a practising artist in both watercolour and etching.

The artist was a surveyor and antiquarian as well as an artist who lived in Woodbridge, Suffolk for his adult life. Around 1785 he was considering a volume illustrating the most remarkable trees of Norfolk and Suffolk which never came to fruition, but for which the current drawing would have been a likely candidate. White's History, Gazetteer, and Directory of Norfolk, 1883 describes the tree which stood on the estate of the Earl of Albermarle: The celebrated 'Winfarthing Oak,' probably the largest in England except the one at Cowthorpe, in Yorkshire, stands near the Lodge farmhouse, and is a grand and picturesque old ruin. It measures 70 feet round at the roots, and 40 feet in the middle of the main stem, and must have been at one time a magnificent spreading tree, with enormous arms. It is traditionally said to have been called the 'Old Oak' in the time of the Conqueror, and is usually considered to be more than 1200 years old. It is now a mere shell, bleached snowy white, and capable of containing a large number of persons in its interior. It still retains vitality on its south side, and three years ago a rook's nest was built in its branches.

Thomas Jones was born at Trefonnen near Llandrindod in Radnorshire. At the request of his uncle, he attended Jesus College, Oxford, in order to enter the church, but in 1761 Jones went to London and enrolled at Shipley's drawing school. By March 1763, Jones had decided to pursue landscape painting and persuaded Richard Wilson (1713-1782) to take him as an apprentice. He subsequently established a thriving landscape practice. However, despite his success in London, Jones hankered after Italy. Jones had long wanted to travel to Italy; a favourite project that had been in agitation for some years, and on which my heart was fixed (A.P. Oppé, ed., Memoirs of Thomas Jones , Walpole Society, XXXII, 1946-1948, p. 37). This may have been heightened by the example of Richard Wilson, whose artistic success had been assured by the Italian scenes he painted on his return to England after six years in Rome in the 1750s. Jones had studied and copied his sketches and studies during his apprenticeship. However, for years his trip to the continent had been thwarted by mounting debts and his parents' disapproval of the scheme and Jones did not leave until October 1776. Jones was greatly affected by the changing landscape and light as he travelled through France to Italy. After a brief stay in Florence, he arrived in Rome on 27 November 1776. In his lively and informative memoirs, Jones refers to Wilson’s influence when expressing his joy at travelling through Italy and entering Rome, the: new and uncommon Sensations I was filled [with] on my first traversing this beautiful and picturesque Country ... It appeared Magick Land - In fact I had copied so many Studies of the great Man, & my Old Master, Richard Wilson ... that I insensibly became familiarized with Italian Scenes, and enamoured of Italian forms ( ibid. p. 55). From May 1780 to August 1783 Jones was based in Naples and delighted in the picturesque scenery on the road to Santa Maria dei Monti, a monastery to the east of Naples of which a number of drawings by him are known. He was influenced by the fashionable work of Salvator Rosa, with its treatment of banditti in rocky landscapes. His old friend Francis Towne arrived in Naples in March 1781, and, in his memoirs, Jones describes their trip along the wild road to the monastery : I was able to conduct him to many picturesque scenes of my own discovery, entirely out of the common road of occasional Visiters, either Cavaliers or Artists (Thomas Jones, ibid . p. 102). He drew the road many times- ten are listed in the 1970 Marble Hill catalogue- and further examples are included in the collections of the Tate, the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven and the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence. Two other drawings of the subject executed on 6 May, the same day as the present drawing, one coloured and one pencil and grey wash, are in the collection of the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester. They are of a similar size to the present work and a grey wash drawing (D2002.14) is taken from almost the same spot. Jones further recorded how he felt about this place in his Memoirs on 2nd June 1781 and another incident which he and Towne had experienced: I proceeded to meet Pars..at an Osteria in the road to S’a M’a de Monti- in this hollow Way is a most beautiful series of picturesque Objects, which I discovered by Accident in one of my perambulations-Here may visibly be traced the scenery that Salvator Rosa formed himself on-Only taking away Pine trees, which were, perhaps planted since his time, and which indicate a state of cultivation not suited to his gloomy mind, with the addition of Water and a few Banditti-And every hundred yards present you with a new sand perfect composition of that Master- When Towne was in Naples I took him with me to see this romantic place, with which he seemed much delighted- but the following whimsical incident put a stop to further explorations at that time and which I forgot to mention in its proper place- Proceeding up the valley whose boundaries contracted more and more as we advanced, increasing in proportion the Gloominess of the Scene; We arrived at a Spot, which might very properly have been termed the Land of Darkness & the Shadow of Death…Here, says I, Mr Towne, is Salvator Rosa in perfection we only want Banditti to compleat the picture- I had scarcely uttered these words when turning round a projection of the rocks, we all at once pop’d upon three ugly-looking fellows dressed in the fantastic garb of the Shirri di Campagna, with long knives cutting up a dead jackAss.-…Towne started back as if struck by an electric shock, strongly impressed, I suppose, with our late adventure on the Coast of Baja-‘I’ll go no further’, says he, with a most solemn face, adding with a forced smile, that however he might admire such scenes in a Picture- he did not relish them in Nature- (ibid. pp. 104-5). Thomas Jones’s reputation has soared in recent years, notably after the 2003 landmark exhibition Thomas Jones (1742-1803) An Artist Rediscovered (at the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, the National Gallery, London, and the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester) reinstated his reputation as one of the most idiosyncratic and innovative eighteenth-century British artists. Iolo Williams (1890-1962) was the author of Early English Watercolours (published in 1952), one of the bibles of the field. He left a large part of his collection to the British Museum, but this drawing was held back. He took a keen interest in Welsh matters, serving on the Council of the National Museum of Wales and on the Welsh Committee of the Arts Council.