CLIFFORD HALL'S JOURNAL ~ 1943 - 1947 Page 8
July 9 1945
Evening at the studio. Primed three wooden panels Robert gave me - a godsend. It is so beautiful and quiet here. I have been jumpy for the last few days, now I feel right again.
July 11 1945
A day off, so I worked at the Cheyne Row, repainting the sky and the trees and other portions. I am much more pleased with it now and I am quite sure it is better than the little oil sketch I painted out of doors.
Lillian sold another picture for me yesterday.
July 14 1945
Drew from the model yesterday. I could only try to get down the idea, the picture, each pose immediately gave to me. The results were wild and yet I prefer them to more careful drawings where the facts kill the idea. But I think one should produce both kinds of drawings. All the same an interesting model. Looks like one of the prostitutes I pass each evening in Maddox Street when I am on my way to The Polytechnic.
July 15 1945
Repainted the head in the picture of Hanna. Not easy, but a few more sittings and I think I will make something of this canvas. There is a lot to be done yet, and next time I want to paint the same sort of subject I will not paint from nature; drawings and a note for colour. All the same I can get something with the direct way which I invariably fail to get when I have not got the motif actually in front of me.
July 20 1945
A number of drawings from the model. I enjoyed myself.
July 22 1945
Made a sketch of two women in a room. For this I was able to use some of the drawings I have been doing recently. I did no work yesterday. Dentist, toothache, it put me off.
July 27 1945
I have seen the last of that ghastly school at Wimbledon. I must paint well. Now I will have time.
We have a model this evening.
Perhaps it served some purpose, that frightful school. It has taught me that one can purchase security too dearly. I will certainly need to sell my paintings for although the job at the Polytechnic, one full day and three evenings per week, is well paid there are nearly three months of holidays when I will get nothing. But I am happy about it all. I feel free again.
Leger, to whom I took a painting last Wednesday, was gloomy and predicted terrible things if Labour won. It would be very hard to sell paintings. Well Labour has won. I voted for them. I felt they were very, very definitely the lesser of two evils. I could not see even a glimmer of hope if Churchill and his crowd got in.
July 28 1945
Three drawings last night; two of them good and one passable - another one today.
Tomorrow I hope to go on with the painting of Hanna. I am very anxious to get it more advanced. It is in my mind.
July 29 1945
I think I have been able to get something into the painting. I will leave it as it is, but I intend to make a large charcoal drawing from it decorated, here and there, with colour. I feel I have got about all I can from the painting and dear Hanna has so little time.
July 30 1945
Worked at the drawing of two women; making use of some recent drawings from life.
July 31 1945
Went to Battersea and painted a sketch of the river with barges. A grey day, lavender grey, cold, lovely. Tide running out. Gesso primed board, toned pink (with a wash of Indian red). It brought up the greys so beautifully.
August 1 1945
Painted another panel again by the river, but I was not pleased with it and so wiped it out.
August 2 1945
Went to the river after lunch and sketched. A very much better result than yesterday's poor effort. I like this one. Started a drawing in the morning of two figures. I intend to do some more to this.
August 4 1945
No work yesterday. I went to the country to fetch Julian. Worked off and on today at the drawing I started last Thursday. I think I will make another version of it tomorrow.
August 5 1945
Did another version of the subject I was working at yesterday and this enabled me to destroy the first one which was not particularly good.
Greenwood came last night. I was most encouraged that he liked the paintings I have been doing from drawings , in certain cases preferring them to work painted direct from nature. He suggested a few touches to the shadow side of Cheyne Row and he was perfectly right. I put these in this morning.
With George Hill's help I fixed the new stove in the studio. This is the one I bought from him some months back. The old one literally fell to bits. It had served me well and was lovely for making toast. I hope this one will be as good.
August 6 1945
Sketched by the river, morning and afternoon. I think I have an idea for a painting of the Chelsea side seen from about the middle of Battersea Bridge. I must make some more drawings of this and a really careful working one with facts, today's has all the feeling.
August 7 1945
Started a drawing from Battersea Bridge only closer to the Chelsea side so that I am looking down more on the subject. This will make a better picture.
August 8 1945
Worked at the drawing in a fairly steady light from 9.30 until 1 o'clock and made it fairly complete. Traced it on to a panel this afternoon. I must make a colour sketch as soon as possible, whilst the same boats are still there. Tomorrow morning if the light is grey. I do not want sunlight. Also from Battersea Bridge, Chelsea side, I saw how I could paint the suspension bridge, in a grey pearly light. September?
August 9 1945
Painted the panel I prepared yesterday.
August 12 1945
Went to Burnham-on-Crouch with Elizabeth and Pat.
August 19 1945
Back in Chelsea after a delightful week in which I painted four panels and did a number of drawings. I must certainly go there again.
August 21 1945
Squared the drawing I did from Battersea Bridge before I went away and started a cartoon from it, size 30" x 20". This will keep me going for the rest of the week at least.
August 22 1945
Worked at the cartoon. Another day and it will begin to look reasonable.
August 23 1945
Continued with the cartoon.
Afternoon: private view at the Leicester Gallery with Hanna. Not a good exhibition on the whole although there are a few fine things. Gertler, Redon, Sickert, Wyndham Lewis.
August 24 1945
More to the cartoon.
August 26 1945
Still working at it.
August 27 1945
Morning: to the river for more information. Later transferred this information to the drawing.
August 28 1945
Worked at the cartoon until lunch time.
After lunch I went to Battersea and sat on the wall of the churchyard, and from there I painted a sketch of the river. A lively sketch which, after a certain amount of difficulty, I enjoyed. So quiet there; my only companion an old man, who also sat on the wall, a little way from me. He smoked his pipe. He had his back to the river.
On Friday I am going to stay with John Fothergill at Market Harborough, to paint a portrait of him. And it has to be a good painting.
August 29 1945
Went to the river and made a few more notes for the picture. Then I saw a lovely sailing barge moored over on the Battersea side; so I went to Roma's and had some lunch, fetched my painting things and hurried over to Battersea and painted until nearly six o'clock and enjoyed myself, although the barge kept on moving about.
Hereare some lines copied from a paragraph headed ' Civvy St. Lessons End Troops Fatigue Boredom', in last night's Evening News:
'In some areas the RAF has arranged educational visits to business houses. One instance - a bomber crew was taken to an abattoir. The Labour Ministry is appealing for more slaughterers, and this was an attempt to interest the men in butchery.'
August 31 1945
Painted a 14" x 12" panel of Hanna in her room yesterday afternoon. It came very well. I am off this afternoon.
Here, Clifford writes no further entries in his journal for nearly a month.
September 26 1945
Returned from John Fothergill's Three Swans last Sunday. The portrait was very difficult., but I am at last fairly satisfied with it.
John gave me eighteen sittings and was perfectly charming and in spite of the tussle I had with the painting I did enjoy being there; and. towards the end I enjoyed the painting too, otherwise it would have been a failure. I am working so slowly.
September 28 1945
Started on the canvas (30" x 20") of Cheyne Walk from Battersea Bridge.
Portrait of John Fothergill, 1945, by Clifford Hall
Yesterday evening I took Fothergill's portrait to Lillian for her to see. She said she was very pleased with it. I painted it in "California". You go up wooden stairway above one of the stables in the cobbled yard of the Three Swans Inn, Market Harborough. At the top of the stairs is a door, padlocked, the key is kept on your right above another door. Undo the padlock and you are on a small flat concrete roof, walls on three sides , at the far end a room. This appears to be the remains of a much larger room that once covered the entire area of the roof which is not really a roof at all but the floor of this original room. One side of the present room is glazed with small panes like a greenhouse. John built this up himself. Inside, the walls are distempered a pinkish Indian red colour. The plaster is off the ceiling in big patches, some of the glass panes are broken and there are large cracks in the walls. It is quiet except for the nearby church clock which unfailingly chimes the hours and quarters, and the chattering of the girls from Woolworths, for their recreation room is next door. There are lithographs be Gavarni and Daumier in the room and outside the roof, or floor, has fallen in places and an old shutter has been laid across the largest gap. Near the wall is a small hole. 'You may pee down that, ' said John, 'and throw rubbish down it too; it all falls below into the old stable.'
One day a large chunk of roof gave way and I nearly went with it - down into the old stable.
We had eighteen sittings. For the first two weeks John was very trying. He insisted on strengthening my easel, of the sketching variety, with a complicated system of bamboo, wire and strings. It looked most efficient when he had done but it was still shaky, and the shake had never worried me in the first place. I was used to it.
Then he must have a piece of faded crimson silk safety-pinned across the back of his coat, for he was leaning against a wall, and he said it was cold. Again, sittings were interrupted whilst he went down to the kitchen for paste and newspaper and to the workshop for stepladders and a large brush. There were draughts he declared, and he pasted sheets of newspaper over the cracks in the wall and across the broken panes of glass. It made him giddy being on the stepladders, but he insisted on climbing high enough to slap paste and a Times over the ceiling.
One day a mouse came out of a hole in the wainscoting. A very tame little mouse who did not mind us being there. Up got my sitter. Off to the kitchen for bread and milk.
The weather became slightly fresh and a paraffin stove was brought in. It smoked and the wick was trimmed. It continued to smoke and to smell of oil so it was turned out. It was lit again because John said he felt cold and it stank and smoked and was turned out once more.
The weather got warmer and John discovered flies. He was away for Flit and a spray. Round and round he went after the flies. He soaked them. 'Now we will see how long it will take for them to drop off the wall. I am a bit of a Belsen boy.'
And we were continually arguing about the painting. I felt it slipping away from me. 'Are you painting my hair? You must paint it purple. Oscar* always said it was purple.' I told him I would do as he wished and I would give him emerald eyes and a scarlet mouth. He did not refer to the purple hair again.
* i.e Oscar Wilde.
At last I said I must paint as I wished; that I would decide to take out all I had done and repaint the whole canvas. I was sleeping badly, not eating well and worried all the time about the wretched portrait.
It began to go better as I repainted. John sat well and forgot paste pot, flies, Flit, stove and mouse.
In the evening he amused himself with cockroaches and DDT. At least three cockroaches were kept in covered jam jars duly labelled according to the dosage of insecticide they had received. Night after night, after dinner, John took the jars off the shelf where he kept them and examined all three thoroughly. The DDT was not very effective, it seemed. The cockroaches were still very lively after several days. Quite suddenly, he tipped them out on to the floor. 'Not on the carpet , John,' said Kate. 'Bugger the carpet.' replied her husband, and down came his foot. A foot in a black shoe with a large square buckle, gleaming rock crystal.
John had some drawings by Hokusai and I asked him to show them to me. One, a delightful drawing of a man looking at a mouse which is walking up his bare arm was in in a bedroom; the others he said were put away somewhere. Later he told me he thought I would find the others in a passage leading out of the big room amongst stored furniture. I found them, dusty, on top of a wardrobe. In the sitting room after dinner I used to read in an armchair facing the fireplace and a drawing stood in the fireplace. A few days after I had seen the Hokusai drawings, I saw that the fireplace drawing had gone and one of the Hokusai had taken its place. This was the one I had told John I liked best. There were two drawings on the same sheet but the one I loved was of a naked girl squatting on the floor drying her back with a towel. I spent several hours copying this little girl.
September 30 1945
Worked on the river picture (30" x 20")
'The River', 2nd version, 1945, by Clifford Hall
October 2 1945
River picture again. Have decided not to use a monochrome, and it is now rubbed in thinly in colour very much thinned with turpentine. I will go on with it tomorrow.
October 3 1945
It has started quite well. I had thought of making another colour sketch with a more dramatic lighting. I am glad now that I decided to use the one I have, I can enjoy myself so much with the greys.
Evening at the Polytechnic.
October 5 1945
Worked at the picture yesterday and again today.
October 6 1945
Started a panel, larger than usual, of Hanna reflected in the mirror of her room.
October 9 1945
Worked at the river picture today and Sunday last. Uphill work, but it is slowly taking shape.
October 11 1945
Spent the day at the river picture. I will not touch it again until next week.
October 12 1945
Went to Brighton for the day with Hanna, Very misty; the far end of the pier invisible. Wonderfully exciting. I would love to stay there and paint. Made a pochade of the pier with a few people on the beach. I saw many other things I would have liked to paint too. I must stay there some day. The colour of a wave breaking in the misty half-light beneath the shadow of the pier. I will never forget it. And the pale gold of the little towers on the pier seen against the blue mauve sky. Astounding!
In the evening we saw the Art Gallery which remains open until 7. Many horribly coloured contemporary paintings. I liked a Clausen for its fine craftsmanship, and a Robert Bevan; but best of all a painting by Jan Lievens, 'Raising of Lazarus' *. This is dramatic in exactly the right way, exquisite n feeling and actually makes one believe a miracle is taking place.
October 13 1945
Painted the panel of Hanna, the one I started last Saturday. I think it is one of the best I have done. I was terrified of it, then less afraid, and finally came a really wonderful burst of energy when everything seemed to appear exactly right. And now I have it back at the studio I still like it.
October 16 1945
The idea of the figures by the river will not leave me. Today I commenced to draw yet another version. But this is not exactly true; for I have gone back to my first design and I will use no models, they interfere with the feeling and murder the poetry. I am doing this one on a 37" x 27" canvas, one of those I bought from Meo some months ago. It is an old but clean canvas and I think it will be good to work on.
October 18 1945
Yesterday I worked at the composition. Today I have been painting on the 20" x 30" from Battersea Bridge; that is as from Battersea Bridge, for I have now accumulated nearly a dozen sketches to work from.
October 19 1945
Drew the stuffed humming birds, this time out of their glass case. I should make a painting of this subject. It comes well.
Evening; model. Four drawings. One very good, another quite good. The other two at least worth keeping.
The morning taken up in the phoning Sir William Nicholson whom Lillian wants me to paint. He has agreed to sit after seeing the portrait of John. It is going to be a difficult job getting him here. He is so forgetful and not very well, and I am sure he will get tired very quickly.
October 20 1945
A drawing of dear Hanna in the pose we had last Saturday. The light was very bad. I think I draw better in a bad light. Two more ideas for paintings of Hanna. One, standing against the window, full length. She must wear her long black coat with the brass buttons, and her black fur hat. Two, sitting at the tea table holding a cup in both hands. The white teapot. This last to be painted from its reflection in the mirror - as I saw it.
October 23 1945
Washed in the Women by the River. A good start, I think. I feel happier being without models and there is no doubt that this one is, so far, more expressive than the other for which I used models for each of the figures. It is going on from the start and finishing which is the devil, and the delicate feeling so often gets lost in the process. But the ability to go on at least a good deal of the way will always remain the true test. Anyone can start.
October 24 1945
Made a good study of Hanna's dressing table, for I would like to paint a larger one from the sketch I made recently. She must sit again for a few details, hands in particular. I must also study more carefully the two pictures on the wall behind her. And the legs and feet.
October 25 1945
Worked at the Women by the River from 9.30 until 5. I will know more about it tomorrow.
October 26 1945
Started a head of Kate. Model in the evening.
On the whole I like what I did yesterday. It is amazingly like the original version. It is a sketch, on rather a large scale, but it does have the feeling I want: more, far more than the previous finished version has, or ever did have even in its early stages.
October 28 1945
Began a drawing on tracing paper for a painting I want to do of Hanna, from the studies I already have; although I must make more. I want a canvas 36" x 20" for this.
October 30 1945
Wasted the early part of the morning waiting to phone Sir William Nicholson who now says he does not feel equal to sitting for his portrait. It is a pity. I am sure I would have painted an interesting one.
Started work about 11.15 on the picture of the river from Battersea Bridge. Have just left off - 4.15. It looks a great deal better. Had not touched it since the 18th. No doubt about the benefit of a decent interval between workings. Apart from the obvious advantage of giving the paint time to settle one comes to it fresh, catches it off guard and one is able to see the faults far more easily.
Spent yesterday evening with Hanna. Talked of how difficult it will be for her to see me when she goes to live with her cousin, whom she means to marry someday*. She does not love him deeply I think, but she wants security, companionship. I understand. What can I give? Yet I believe she hates the idea of leaving me. I dread it. No one has ever been so good for me, made me so happy, given me so much. But whatever happens I will always be grateful for what I have had.
* Hanna's cousin, whom she went on to marry, was Rudolf Siegfried Israel Strauss (Sept 12 1913-June 2001). An engineer and metallurgist, who was born in Augsburg, Germany and was a distant cousin on his mother’s side of Albert Einstein. Unlike Hanna's family, Rudolf's family left it very late to escape from Nazi Germany, arriving as refugees, apparently, just before the outbreak of WW2. This led to Rudolf being interned as a potential enemy alien by the British government. He was, however, released before the end of the war due to the intervention of the British industrialist, John Fry, and was given a job at the research laboratory of Fry’s metal works in London.
October 31 1945
Kate was here for most of the day and I went on with her painting.
I have been reading Fothergill's Innkeeper's Diary. I am glad I had not read it before he sat for me. It is revealing by what it does not say. How unhappy he must be.
A letter from Celia this morning. And I want her too, as much as anyone. Really I want too much. A harem would be the only solution. But not too crowded.
I often wonder what would have happened if Celia had not left me for more than year. I should not have known Hanna. I chose her deliberately to replace Celia. Perhaps she has replaced her, yet Celia remains. She is the undying past. I read a book with that title, long ago. Ebeling lent it to me and it impressed me greatly. I think it was by Sudermann. Certainly it had a German author.
November 1 1945
Worked at the 'from Battersea Bridge' picture, and had a good day.
November 2 1945
A bad light, too dark to go on with yesterday's painting; instead I painted a tiny panel of a nude from a drawing I made some months ago. I think I really am beginning to be able to read my drawings.
Evening - model.
November 3 1945
Very little work today. It took me nearly the whole morning to buy two tins of distemper and one of paint for Julian's room. Waiting to be served, going from one shop to another to get the right colour. These things can be very trying and must be avoided whenever possible. Later I was able to get a little done to the large drawing for the picture of Hanna reflected in the mirror. I must try to get a canvas for this soon and remember to take a stretcher to be altered. A 36" x 28" to be a 36" x 20". This will make a painting exactly one third larger than the drawing; which will be large enough.
November 4 1945
Sunday. The papers full of warnings about the atom bomb and the obvious need for everyone to agree to outlaw it as a weapon of war. Yes, yes, of course; but will they? There is no idiocy of which man is not capable, I fear; and the fools believe, or persuade themselves, or allow themselves to be persuaded that they are rights. Odious word!
The world is mad; a pity, for there are still a lot of very good people in it. Last week the Royal Society of Arts presented Churchill with a gold medal. Mr Churchill was described as the greatest Englishman of our time. What a miserable time, that there should be more than a little justification for the description.
Painted another little panel from a drawing. I wanted to see what I could do with white, yellow ochre, Indian Red and charcoal grey.
November 6 1945
Portrait of Kate. To the Princess of Wales for a drink before lunch. There we discovered some Hollands gin. We had draught stout first and then a gin. Kate was delighted with the gin, very different stuff from the shocking spirit one usually gets. She had another and I nobly resisted the temptation, although I would have liked a second one. It was good and made me feel pre-war. After lunch I tackled the rather severe alterations we had already decided on in the portrait. It now looks a lot more interesting. Kate is sure the improvement is due to the Hollands. Maybe it is - a successful day.
I will go on with the painting next week and I am sure Kate will want to see if there is still any of the Hollands left at the Princess. I will be quite interested myself.
November 9 1945
Drew, on Wednesday, a group consisting of a loaf, bottle, glass and fruit, background of the studio. I had no wine in the bottle so I made a mixture of red and blue ink with which I half-filled the glass. Painted the same thing yesterday starting at 9.30 and leaving off at 4. No lunch. But it's a rotten time and place when one has to make coloured ink do for wine, even for a painting. And I used to buy it for 4˝d a litre!
November 13 1945
Painted a little nude, from a drawing, on a panel the same size as the ones I did a little while ago
Lillian came yesterday to choose the pictures for my exhibition which is to be sooner than I thought for they have fixed the middle of February. I had been thinking of March or April, however, I seem to have plenty of work.
November 14 1945
Spent the day with Hanna and painted a 14" x 10" sketch of her. A very perfect day.
November 16 1945
Went on with Kate's portrait. It is improving, but it needs more vigorous painting. The light is so bad these days and it is almost too dark to work by three in the afternoon.
November 17 1945
Made some more studies for the painting of Hanna, which I must start soon.
November 18 1945
Painted a sketch in body colour of my table with some flowers in the decorated vase.