John, Augustus

John, Augustus (1878–1961). British painter and draughtsman, born in Tenby, Wales, the son of a solicitor. He studied at the Slade School, London, 1894–8. In his early days there ‘he appeared a neat, timid, unremarkable personality’ (DNB), but after injuring his head diving into the sea while on holiday in Pembrokeshire in 1897 he became a dramatically changed figure, described by Wyndham Lewis as ‘a great man of action into whose hands the fairies had placed a paintbrush instead of a sword'. He grew a beard and became the very image of the unpredictable bohemian artist. John himself later commented that the idea that the accident ‘had released hidden and unsuspected springs’ was ‘all nonsense', but his work certainly changed at this time as well as his appearance; previously it had been described by Tonks as ‘methodical', but it became vigorous and spontaneous, especially in his brilliant drawings—his draughtsmanship was already legendary by the time he left the Slade.

In the first quarter of the 20th century John was identified with all that was most independent and rebellious in British art and he became one of the most talked-about figures of the day. He was extremely energetic, travelling a good deal, teaching at Liverpool University (1900–2) and at Chelsea Art School, which he ran with his friend Orpen (1903–7), and pursuing a complex domestic life. In 1901 he had married Ida Nettleship, a fellow student at the Slade, but even before her death in 1907 he had fathered a child by another woman, Dorothy (‘Dorelia') McNeill, who became his favourite model and his wife in everything but name. He had a great reputation as a ladykiller, although Dora Carrington wrote in 1917: ‘ John made many serious attempts to wrest my virginity from me. But he was too mangy to tempt me even for a second.’ In 1911–14 he led a nomadic life, sometimes living in a caravan and camping with gypsies. As well as romanticized pictures of gypsy life he painted deliciously colourful small-scale landscapes, sometimes working alongside his friends J. D. Innes and Derwent Lees. During the same period he also painted ambitious figure compositions, with stylized forms that bring him close to French Symbolism (The Way Down to the Sea, Lamont Art Gallery, Exeter, New Hampshire, 1909–11). In the First World War he was an Official War Artist. It is as a portraitist, however, that John is best remembered. He was taken up by society and painted a host of aristocratic beauties as well as many of the leading literary figures of the day, including Thomas Hardy(Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 1923), T. E. Lawrence (several paintings and drawings, including a painting in Arab dress, Tate Gallery, London, 1919), and W. B. Yeats (several portraits, the best-known one being in Glasgow Art Gallery, 1930). Increasingly, however, the painterly brilliance of his early work degenerated into flashiness and bombast, and the second half of his long career added little to his achievement, although he remained a colourful, newsworthy figure until the end of his life. He was one of the few British artists who have become familiar to the general public, and his image changed from that of rebel to Grand Old Man (he was awarded the Order of Merit in 1942). He wrote two volumes of autobiography, Chiaroscuro, 1952, and Finishing Touches, posthumously published in 1964. A new edition entitled The Autobiography of Augustus John appeared in 1975.

In the catalogue of an exhibition of John's work held at the National Portrait Gallery, London, in 1975, the gallery's director John Hayes summed up his career: ‘In the decade before the Great War John was at the height of his powers and in the van of British painting. Between the wars he became the leading society portraitist, heir to the mantle of Sargent, and the acknowledged head of his profession. By the time of the great retrospective exhibition at the [Royal] Academy in 1954 his achievement was irrelevant to younger generations of painters, and the decline of his reputation generally was underlined by the low prices fetched by his pictures and drawings at the studio sales of 1962 and 1963.’ (In fact the 1962 sale brought good prices, but there was a sharp decline the following year, ‘an example of how the immediate interest after an artist's death quickly wears off ': John Herbert, Inside Christie's, 1990.) Since then there has been a great revival of interest in John, especially in his earlier work, but the reputation of his sister Gwen John now stands higher. Augustus's son Edwin John (1905–1978) and his daughter Vivien John (1915–1994) were also painters.