Gluck by Diana Souhami (most interesting books to read .TXT) 📗

hat of the same colour, spent a considerable time in the Gallery, discussing the pictures with the artist.

Apparently Her Majesty found the pictures ‘decorative’, was ‘much amused’ by ‘Noel’ and ‘greatly interested’ in ‘They Also Serve …’, painted on George VI’s Coronation Day, 12 May 1937, by Gluck from a fifth-floor window of the Cumberland, and showing crowds of people and lines of soldiers at Marble Arch, waiting for the procession to pass. After the Royal visit, Gluck went on to lunch with Nesta and Molly Mount Temple at Gayfere House. Godfrey Winn was there, noting for his ‘London Letter’ in Every woman the Court gossip and the size of Lady Mount Temple’s aquamarines. On the following day Queen Mary, accompanied by the Dowager Countess of Airlie, visited the exhibition, as she had in 1932, and stayed for about three-quarters of an hour. There were no contentious paintings of bosoms this time to make her lorgnette slip. Comment on the Royal visits was made by all the daily papers, and each Queen had a page to Herself in Gluck’s Visitors’ Book.

Gluck’s friends rallied to make the occasion all it might be. Wilfrid Greene wrote the Preface to her catalogue, praising her freshness of thought, remarkable versatility, vigorous imagination, inherent simplicity and classical quality unspoilt by any trace of imitation. Nesta worked her social magic and encouraged the interest of critics and buyers: ‘Mr and Mrs Seymour Obermer’, announced The Times, 17 November 1937,

are giving a luncheon party at Claridge’s today in honour of Gluck.… The guests will include: Viscountess Davidson and Viscount Davidson, MP, Sir Philip and Lady Gibbs, Major-General Sir John Hanbury-Williams (author of The Emperor Nicholas II as I Knew Him), Lady Rumbold, Mr and Mrs Charles Morgan, Lady Mount Temple and Sir William Reid Dick (a trustee of the Tate Gallery). Afterwards a visit will be made to the private view of the exhibition.

And the Meteor was chastised by her daughter for getting in the way when the furniture arrived in the Gallery on the Press Day.

The alder room and the exhibition’s design received wide praise. ‘The result is tranquil and attractive’, said The Sketch. The large ‘Nature Morte’ of seeding plants was the focal picture in the show. ‘Youwe’ was shown alongside ‘Noel’, as Gluck had wished and Molly Mount Temple’s portrait hung by the entrance above the carved table, where 700 or so visitors signed their names with a quilled pen in Gluck’s red leather visitors’ book. The furniture, all from Louis Koch’s, was for sale, but nobody bought it.

The people in Gluck’s portraits were themselves in the news. Susan Ertz had brought out her latest novel, No Heart to Break, Joan Swinstead was being warmly reviewed for her performance of Lysistrata at the Gate Theatre and Stephen Haggard acclaimed as Marchbanks in Shaw’s Candida. (He was to die, aged thirty-one, in the impending war. Gluck’s portrait of him was also destroyed.)

Thirty-three pictures were shown on the limited wall space with more in reserve. There were Gluck’s usual themes: the stage, society people, flower pieces, idealized landscapes, and her lovers – this time Nesta, and the painter Mariette Lydis. Selling was brisk. Prices ranged from £20 to £300. Reviews spanned the art, society and gossip columns. ‘A brilliant exhibition of painting’, Bystander called it (24 November 1937):

I do not remember for years seeing such a display of versatility. Gluck’s flower paintings would be her strong point if her landscapes were not so brilliant, and her landscapes might get the top marks if it were not for her portraits or her still life.

Her pictures were reproduced in The Sphere, The Bystander, The Tatler, Studio, Apollo, Arts and Crafts, The Artist, Homes and Gardens, and a splash of seven of her best portraits in The Sketch. The Times (27 November 1937) commended her for the ‘clearness of her sense of form, her subtle use of colour and curiously reserved emotional content.’ T. W. Earp in the Daily Telegraph called her crowd scenes ‘little gems of humorous perception’ and the Daily Sketch in a personal interview described her as having ‘the profile of a Greek god’ with eyes that ‘shone like black diamonds’.

There was less comment about her name, Eton crop, plus fours and ties than in 1932. She was fêted at cocktail parties and at dinners with prospective clients. She went to tea with Sir William Reid Dick. There was success to celebrate with Nesta. They went to The Prisoner of Zenda and Morning Becomes Electra, and to parties with friends. And in the wings, but not entirely unobtrusive, the Meteor continued to involve herself in regal machinations to further her daughter’s career. Under the guise, totally fictitious, of acting as agent for a rich American benefactor, she bought, for £500, four of her daughter’s best pictures: ‘They Also Serve …’; ‘Lilac and Guelder Rose’; ‘Falmer Church’ and ‘Lords and Ladies’. ‘I have much pleasure in accepting your offer to purchase the pictures on behalf of a friend, who is to remain anonymous,’ Ernest Dawbarn wrote to her. ‘I understand that the purchaser would like these paintings to be placed among the Public Galleries and we will do our best to find Galleries who will be glad to accept them.’

The City Art Gallery, Manchester, was pleased to accept ‘White Lilac and Guelder Rose’ if bemused as to whom they were thanking or displaying. ‘My committee’, wrote their Curator to Mr Dawbarn,

were delighted at the gift and regretted that they could not express their thanks to the donor on account of the desired anonymity. Perhaps you will do so for them.… Does the artist prefer to be known simply as Gluck without any Christian name? I know that this is how she appears when she holds exhibitions, but I wondered if, on the tablet affixed to the picture she should be known by her real name.3

An effusive letter of thanks was forwarded to Mrs Gluckstein from the Gallery Chairman, and the Manchester Guardian recorded, on 18 December 1937,