Guy Roddon; painter (great obit of another ghost soldier)
Hyfler/Rosner
11 July 2006
http://www.piersfeethamgallery.com/graphics/drawings/guy_roddon_smelters_pencils_1950s.jpg
http://www.piersfeethamgallery.com/graphics/drawings/guy_roddon_smelters3_pencils_1950s.jpg
http://www.piersfeethamgallery.com/graphics/quatorze%20juillet/g_roddon.jpg
Gorgeous stuff
http://www.art-network.co.uk/banca/rodguy/rodguy2.htm
Guy Roddon
December 6, 1919 - July 2, 2006
Nomadic painter whose fascinatingly varied life found
oblique expression in his evocative, ambiguous art
Unusually for a peace-loving artistic type, Guy Roddon
enjoyed a fascinating war. In 1939, fresh out of art school,
he was drafted into the Camouflage Unit. This experience,
added to a curious childhood, had a profound effect on the
paintings he was to produce for the rest of his life.
His works, often depicting somewhat lonely interiors,
were described by the critic Bernard Denvir as "apparently
empty of incident but full of significance". Filled with
ambiguity and alternating between the figurative and
abstract, they were most unusual in an English painter.
Roddon always said that France brought out the best in
him, whether it was Paris, where he regularly swapped
studios with Edwin John, or Menton, where he befriended
Graham Sutherland, or merely the music of Debussy, Ravel and
Fauré, which he generally listened to while painting.
Roddon's parents divorced when he was 4. His
flagrantly artistic mother wrote interminable unpublished
novels, gave exhibitions of ballet dancing, drew, played the
piano and received lovers wearing silk pyjamas and smoking
Turkish cigarettes in an amber holder. His father, the
illegitimate son of Sir Richard Wallace, was a Kipling-esque
figure retired from the Raj. He was 55 years senior to his
son whom he brought up single-handedly and with touching
paternity.
They had no permanent home, but moved in school
holidays from hotel to hotel, mostly in Europe. Travel was
Roddon's preliminary education.
While Roddon was at Bryanston, a talk on Cézanne by
the critic Reginald Wilenski - who later encouraged and
advised him - inspired him to attend first Goldsmiths, then
Byam Shaw schools of art where he was forced to paint
miserably in three-tone grisaille.
When war interrupted his studies, he was posted to
Farnham Castle, commanded by Colonel Jack Beddington, who in
civilian life ran Wildenstein's. The adjutant was the
gallery owner, Freddie Mayor, and the place was festooned
with fine pictures. Even the cookhouse was hung with
Vlaminck and early Dérain. Other artist recruits included
William Coldstream, Claude Rogers and Julian Trevelyan. Then
Roddon was moved to Norwich and the relaxed administration
of Oliver Messel. Disguising pillboxes as caravans,
haystacks, ruins or a wayside café, he was in his element.
Messel amused him by commandeering the assembly rooms
and having hundreds of pioneer guardsmen cleaning,
plastering and restoring so that, uniquely for the Army,
they later returned the building in a much better condition
than that in which they had found it.
When Messel was replaced by the painter, Roland
Penrose, the officers' mess - hitherto decorated with
theatre designs and pictures of Merle Oberon - was rehung
with works by Max Ernst and René Magritte.
After the war he had no clear idea of what sort of
painter to become. His interest was primarily in people, and
for a time he considered being ordained (laughing ever
afterwards for not having gone through with it, but in a way
that masked regret). Instead he was to paint portraits - his
gregariousness initially masking perhaps his lack of the
requisite temperament for such a specific human contact. In
1949 he arranged to share Henry Lamb's studio in Roland
Gardens, and would execute society portraits there when Lamb
was at Coombe Bissett. It was an unlikely friendship - Lamb
was an uneasy character, often acerbic, but was kind toward
his inexperienced tenant.
Commissioned portraits by him of the Archbishop of
Canterbury, Michael Ramsay, the composer John Ireland and
the writer L. P. Hartley now hang in public collections.
A genial moth to the candle of society, Roddon feared
being burnt by it. Disinclined to flatter while increasingly
unable to produce warts-and-all results, his portraiture
yielded to works with figures taken out of them: interiors
newly vacated or about to be re-entered, echoing spiral
staircases viewed from above.
Between marriages - to "two of the most terrifying
women in England" - he travelled. In Ireland, New York and
Tunisia he diarised, drew and mostly returned to France. In
Paris he mixed with Tinguely, Niki de St Phalle and the Pop
artist Larry Rivers; in Menton with Sutherland, whose
Catholic conversion gave them much in common that art did
not.
Generally, however, he was discerning of others' work,
keeping up with trends but thinking himself out of date when
in fact he was ahead of his time. Teaching at Goldsmiths, he
was steered into tutoring general knowledge, which he
disliked, but young people so amused him that he stuck with
it longer than suited his restless temperament. For some
years he was art master at Cobham Hall, in Kent, and he
taught at Brighton Art College. He was a member of the
Chelsea Arts Club, indeed holding the record for the
longest-standing membership.
His writing, unlike his painting, omitted nothing. He
kept meticulous diaries, published a book on portraiture and
numerous articles, including a rare interview with the
painter Ivon Hitchens, vitriolic against the Sixties art
establishment, especially the RA.
Roddon was quite unconfident, guardedly alluded to
great doubt and despair, never attached to one gallery, an
artistic movement or even a home. He was more intrigued by
new ideas than finishing off old ones, and took no long-term
view of his artistic reputation. Insufficiently well known
considering his abilities and connections, he was less
disappointed than puzzled. Complex, the more so for
appearing straightforward, much of him remained in camera.
Neither marriage nor fatherhood quite suited him, but
as a grandfather - at one remove from having to deploy
stability - he was more able to express his healing warmth
and affection.
He is survived by his three daughters.
Guy Roddon, painter, was born on December 6, 1919. He
died on July 2, 2006, aged 86.
Hyfler/Rosner
>
> When war interrupted his studies, he was posted to
> Farnham Castle, commanded by Colonel Jack Beddington, who
> in
> civilian life ran Wildenstein's. The adjutant was the
> gallery owner, Freddie Mayor, and the place was festooned
> with fine pictures. Even the cookhouse was hung with
> Vlaminck and early Dérain. Other artist recruits included
> William Coldstream, Claude Rogers and Julian Trevelyan.
> Then
> Roddon was moved to Norwich and the relaxed administration
> of Oliver Messel. Disguising pillboxes as caravans,
> haystacks, ruins or a wayside café, he was in his element.
>
>
> Penrose, the officers' mess - hitherto decorated with
> theatre designs and pictures of Merle Oberon - was rehung
> with works by Max Ernst and René Magritte.
Amazing company. He certainly did have a good war.
.
>
> Neither marriage nor fatherhood quite suited him, but
> as a grandfather - at one remove from having to deploy
> stability - he was more able to express his healing warmth
> and affection.
A very kind description of a pain in the arse.
Brigid Nelson
Looks like he came by it honestly however. How does one learn to live
with others in any permanent way when they've had the kind of upbringing
outlined in the beginning of the article?
I must say however, that the middle part reminded me a lot of
"Brideshead Revisited". Not sure why.
brigid
Hyfler/Rosner
"Hyfler/Rosner" <rel...@rcn.com> wrote in message
news:w7idnXAwj9GVmi7Z...@rcn.net...
> The Times (UK)
> 11 July 2006
>
> http://www.piersfeethamgallery.com/graphics/drawings/guy_roddon_smelters_pencils_1950s.jpg
> http://www.piersfeethamgallery.com/graphics/drawings/guy_roddon_smelters3_pencils_1950s.jpg
> http://www.piersfeethamgallery.com/graphics/quatorze%20juillet/g_roddon.jpg
>
> Gorgeous stuff
> http://www.art-network.co.uk/banca/rodguy/rodguy2.htm
>
Guardian obit:
Guy Roddon
Artist with a talent for improvisation who relished life's
sense of ambiguity and impermanence
James Beechey
Thursday September 7, 2006
Guardian
The art of Guy Roddon, who has died aged 86, falls into no
easy category, but is defined by its strong formal
structure, abstract content and melancholic mood. From
portraits he moved on to spaces captured in pastel, and he
loved to paint abroad, particularly in France.
He first made his mark in portraiture under the influence of
Augustus John's former protege Henry Lamb, who in 1949
invited Roddon to share his Chelsea studio. Roddon's
subjects included the novelist LP Hartley, the composer John
Ireland, Archbishop Michael Ramsey and Sir Roy Strong, but
it was not his true metier, and gradually the human figure
began to fade from his work. Sometimes it might register as
a reflection in a mirror; more often, it was alluded to as
an invisible, but suggested, presence in a room recently
deserted or about to be entered.
The recurring motifs of Roddon's pictures were a spiral
staircase, generally seen from above, the view from a window
or balcony, and the empty interior - all legacies of his
nomadic upbringing. Pastel, in which he worked more
effectively than oil, perfectly suited the sense of
ambiguity and impermanence he sought to convey. In 1979 he
published a useful technical guide to working in the medium.
Roddon had an unconventional childhood. His parents divorced
when he was four, and he was brought up single-handedly by
his father, a man already in his mid-50s by the time his
only son was born. Robert Roddon had spent his working life
as private tutor to the maharajahs of Jodhpur, but on his
retirement from India he found it impossible to settle.
Instead, father and son traversed Europe, living in a
succession of hotels and boarding houses. Guy made his first
visit to the Louvre at the age of six, and by his early
teens was familiar with most of the major European
galleries.
He was educated at Bryanston school, in Dorset, where a
lecture on Cézanne by the art critic RH Wilenksi proved a
further step in his decision to become an artist. He went on
to Goldsmiths College, London, and to the Byam Shaw School
of Art, from neither of which he greatly profited.
Along with many artists during the second world war -
including William Coldstream, Claude Rogers and Julian
Trevelyan - Roddon found a comfortable billet, diverting
work and genial company in the Camouflage Corps. In his
first posting, to Farnham castle, Surrey, he was under the
command of Colonel Jack Beddington, the suave director of
Wildenstein's, and the gallery owner Freddy Mayor. Following
a transfer to Norwich, he was one of a band of camouflage
officers working for the theatre designer Oliver Messel.
The headquarters of the Eastern Command camouflage school
were the city's 18th-century Assembly Rooms, which Messel
had lavishly restored by the troops. Messel was replaced by
the painter and critic Roland Penrose, who hung the
officers' mess with examples from his impressive surrealist
art collection. Penrose offered Roddon a chance to sample
the choppy waters of European modernism, into which, on
demobilisation, he dipped a cautious toe.
After the war Roddon earned a living by teaching. He was
artist-in-residence at the University of North California,
lectured at Goldsmiths and was on the staff of Brighton
College of Art. The position from which he derived most
fun - and which provided him with a fund of amusing
anecdotes - was at Cobham Hall, a girls' boarding school in
Kent. He had an enormous enthusiasm for, and genuine
interest in, young people in general and attractive young
girls in particular. He never lacked female admirers, though
neither of his marriages - to "two of the most terrifying
women in England" - was a success.
Roddon inherited his father's restless temperament, and out
of term time he painted in north Africa, America and
Europe - above all in France, where he produced much of his
best work. In Paris he often borrowed the studio of his
friend Edwin John, but he was just as likely to be found
sketching at a pavement cafe or in the secluded corner of a
left-bank restaurant. Until the end of his life he was a
frequent visitor to Menton, on the Côte d'Azur, and a
regular member of the English delegation that, each year on
the anniversary of Aubrey Beardsley's death, processed to
the hill-top cemetery and laid a wreath on his grave.
Roddon never lost his disarming wit, nor the mischievous
glint in his eye. He was an essentially kindly and
good-humoured man, whose occasional testiness betrayed some
of the disappointment he must have felt at his critical
neglect. In old age - bearded, dressed in well-tailored but
shabby clothes, and invariably sporting a French beret - he
seemed a relic from a long extinct bohemian world. At the
time of his death he was the longest-standing member of the
Chelsea Arts Club, which he had joined more than 60 years
earlier.
His minor eccentricities added to the image. In later years,
when his supply of female models ran dry, he was sometimes
to be seen in the telephone box near his studio, furtively
stuffing prostitutes' advertising cards into his coat
pockets - excellent silhouettes, he maintained, from which
to draw.
Of course, he relished the surprise on the part of his
neighbours - some of them fellow worshippers at the local
Catholic church - at his behaviour. But it was also typical
of his talent for improvisation. All his life he displayed
an enviable knack for making the most of the many unlikely
situations in which he found himself. He is survived by his
three daughters.
· Guy Lindsay Roddon, artist, born December 6 1919; died
July 2 2006