Wednesday, 20 April 2011

Two Spencer Gores

This year's Wimbledon championship will be the 125th - a fact that will no doubt excite much brouhaha. It was back in 1877 that a fine all-round sportsman called Spencer Gore won the first All England Lawn Tennis Championship (lawn tennis, I should explain, is the new-fangled term for Sphairistike). This was a Gentlemen's Singles competition, and it was a leisurely affair, suspended at the weekend for the Eton-Harrow cricket match at Lord's (Gore was a Harrow boy), and the final was delayed for four days by inclement weather. In the end, Gore walked off with the 12 guinea prize money and a silver cup - a quite sufficient emolument, I'd say (even minus the guinea entry fee). Spencer Gore's other great achievement in life was to father the painter of the same name, a friend of Sickert's and founder member of the Camden Town Group. Sadly, this Spencer Gore died at the age of 35, of pneumonia, after being caught in a storm while out painting. The picture above is one of his.

11 comments:

  1. Never heard of him, though to my eternal shame, I'd never heard of Sickert until this week when I stood for half-an-hour looking at his 'Jack the Ripper', which I imagine is about as far from this painting as it's possible to get.

    Can't say I like this painting... Feels like two paintings stuck jarringly together about the middle, which I suppose might be the point.

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  2. Agreed.

    Here's one that is a little better.

    http://www.hh-h.com/images/1253.jpg

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  3. Yes that's better indeed -
    but really, whichever way you cut it, English painting of that period breaks down into Sickert and the rest. I don't much like Spencer Gore's palette...

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  4. We've all been there. You've set up an All England Lawn Tennis Championship but you haven't got a champion. Enter Spencer Gore.

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  5. I know so very little of this but that struck me going around a gallery with quite a few of Sickert's paintings. I'd find myself stopping in front of paintings before I realised they were by Sickert.

    There was another artist, William Roberts, who came close. I couldn't stop looking at his wife.

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  6. Well, there was (is?) Stanhope Alexander Forbes. He could wield a pretty mean brush... (I've always felt Sickert was trying too hard).

    http://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://articlesandtexticles.co.uk/imgs/0612/forbes06x.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.articlesandtexticles.co.uk/2006/12/30/painters-i-should-have-known-about-008-stanhope-forbes/&usg=__IPXVp3TacuP6Ue2opPSBRBIMi5w=&h=835&w=1157&sz=92&hl=en&start=4&sig2=JJtghxbDxCFyXUNepyyAZA&zoom=1&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=t85UGgRSTVer0M:&tbnh=108&tbnw=150&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dstanhope%2Balexander%2Bforbes%2Bgallery%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26sa%3DX%26rls%3Den%26tbs%3Disz:l%26tbm%3Disch&ei=ER-wTY35HYrg0QHoirH9CA

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  7. Looking for a witty British blog to follow: Enter you and your hilarious followers. Thanks Nige.

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  8. Welcome aboard, Barbara - and yes Stanehope Forbes a v accopmlished painter.

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  9. شركة نقل عفش
    اهم شركات مكافحة حشرات بالخبر كذلك معرض اهم شركة مكافحة حشرات بالدمام والخبر والجبيل والخبر والاحساء والقطيف كذلك شركة رش حشرات بالدمام ومكافحة الحشرات بالخبر
    شركة مكافحة حشرات بالدمام
    شركة تنظيف خزانات بجدة الجوهرة من افضل شركات تنظيف الخزانات بجدة حيث ان تنظيف خزانات بجدة يحتاج الى مهارة فى كيفية غسيل وتنظيف الخزانات الكبيرة والصغيرة بجدة على ايدى متخصصين فى تنظيف الخزانات بجدة
    شركة تنظيف خزانات بجدة
    شركة كشف تسربات المياه بالدمام
    شركة نقل عفش واثاث

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