<Archive obituary> Mr Simon Elwes (1902-75)
Michael Rhodes
<Daily Telegraph, August 8, 1975>
SIMON ELWES DIES AT 73
SIMON ELWES, who died yesterday aged 73, always claimed to have been a
genuine case of pre-natal influence. His mother, Lady Winefride Elwes,
daughter of the 8th Earl of Denbigh, was determined to have a painter
in the family. So she studied art and art galleries and even started
painting herself while she was expecting her next baby. The result was
that though her son inherited the beautiful tenor voice of his famous
father, Gervase Elwes, and for many years felt that he was meant to be
a singer, he quickly became the most successful young portrait painter
in London.
But his path was not an easy one. Taken from the Oratory at 16 so that
he could be started young at the Slade, he proved so idle that the
great Prof. Tonks wrote to his mother to say that he had no talent and
she might as well take him away; which she did. And Simon Elwes was
sent to a French family at Meaux merely to learn the language.
LATENT INTEREST
Then came the psychological moment in his life. He met a Belgian
refugee, Mme La Forge, who aroused all his latent interest in
painting, gave him the run of her studio and encouraged him to start
again where he had left off. Several months' study in Paris was
followed by the death of his father, who was killed in a railway
accident in the United States, and at 20, having borrowed the price of
the fare, he made his way to New York, where he rapidly repaid the
loan by charcoal drawings at anything from Ł5 to Ł20 apiece. During
this visit he drew President Harding from life, and, flushed with
success, returned to England.
A period of undistinguished hard work ensured until his portrait of
Mrs James Beck was hung in the Royal Academy in 1930. A flood of
orders poured in next day and did so ever afterwards. In the meantime
he had married the Hon. Gloria Rodd, daughter of the 1st Lord Rennell
of Rodd, by whom he had three sons.
At the time, he was painting as many as ten different portraits
simultaneously, but was nevertheless depressed by the "endless
cumulative effect of never getting what you really want."
The outbreak of the 1939-45 war found him in the United States, so he
came back to join the Army. Ultimately he joined the Welsh Guards,
like his ill-fated Rex Whistler, but transferred to the 10th Hussars,
and went out with them to the Western Desert. After a time he became
the unofficial war artist in the Middle East, painting Field Marshals
Wavell, Smuts, Auchinleck, the King of the Hellenes, Earl Mountbatten
and other notables.
The war over, he returned to England and was immediately laid low by a
thrombosis which paralysed the whole of his right side, including his
right hand, the one with which he painted. After months in bed and
with the realisation that he could never paint with his right hand
again, he decided to try paint with his left hand. The idea was purely
therapeutic in concept and he found it almost impossible to carry on.
Nevertheless, he did so and ended up painting better than ever.
Royal commissions included portraits of King George VI, the Queen,
Princess Margaret and the Duchess of Kent. He had already painted the
Duke of Kent just before the war.
In 1956 he became an ARA, though oddly enough he never became a full
Royal Academician. Another important commission was given him by
Viscount Camrose to do a conversation piece of a number of leading
members of White's, of which he was a member. They included such
different personalities as Lord Birkenhead, Douglas Fairbanks, David
Stirling, Evelyn Waugh and the Duke of Devonshire against a background
of the coffee room in this famous club.
END
NOTE: Who was Who says that Mr Elwes was indeed appointed RA in 1967.