Clarice Cliff Feature Articles

For a considerable time I have wanted to post some features about Clarice Cliff contemporaries, in several walks of life.  The two current exhibitions featuring Sonia Delaunay and Eric Ravilious in London have inspired me to start a series of articles.  Today I received an email from fellow Clarice collector and Art Deco devotee Adam Cunningham and I have edited and transformed it into the feature you see here - an appreciation of both exhibitions as viewed as recently as yesterday.  I hope you will find this first article of interest and express this on site.  Doreen Mann, Editor

…………. I managed to take in both exhibitions yesterday and very glad I did.  My personal favourite was the Ravilious exhibition as his paintings deserve a more intimate surrounding and the Dulwich certainly provides that.  His paintings are strange as they have a quiet coolness and elegance but with an underlying tone which is strange and slightly threatening.  There was a painting there of a gypsy caravan which immediately made me think of Clarice Cliff’s Applique Cravan pattern but there was not any cosiness about his version as it stood in a bleak landscape in the typical cool colour pallet of his.  It amazes me how he can even bring the horrors of war to the fore in a quiet way as if he's recording those moments just before all hell breaks loose.  He rarely commented on his work but seeing the works altogether do bring a certain clarity to his ideas.  I can see aspects of Stanley Spencer in some of his works too, which was a surprise to me.

The one painting which fascinated me was one of a greenhouse interior showing Cyclamens and tomato plants which played tricks on perspective, depending on how you focused on the different parts of the painting.  One minute you saw the greenhouse and the next, just a series of rectangles and triangles.  I kept being drawn back to that one in particular.

There was one of his woodblocks and the printed image from it which was wonderful.  The woodblock was  a work of art in itself depending on how the light hit it.  They also had a selection of his wood engraving tools in the original hessian work roll which really lent a personal aspect to that exhibit.

It was very interesting to note his colour notes on the under drawing on many of the finished works which helped to further understand his working methods.

One the way out I picked up the attached flyer which might be of interest anyone reading this.  The rest of the Dulwich is very traditional paintings by very famous artists but you can learn a lot from them if you take the time to look.  I have never been a huge fan but Rembrandt keeps pulling me when I see his work as it is modern for its’ time.  They have a famous one of a girl in a window and it just shines out from the rest because of it's modernity and colours used.

The Delaunay exhibition left me a little cold and bewildered as it suffered from too much there and being in huge cavernous spaces which make it hard to focus on each piece of work on its’ own.  The most outstanding room was the one I called the ‘fabric and fashion room’ which had sample after sample and drawing after drawing of her Simultane fabrics.  It was lovely to see some of items produced from the fabric but after all this time they have faded a bit which somewhat lessens their impact.  They had a constantly revolving exhibit on which bolts of fabric were going around and around, rather like those moving advertising hoardings you see in the street now.  It turns out it was a recreation of what Robert, her husband, had designed to show off as many fabrics at once as possible.

The influence of the Blue W pattern I just think is a fluke as I saw lots of other items which had a similar motif but it was more a lightening flash on those as they had a broader surface to cover than the scarf that Pete photographed.

There was some wonderful movie footage showing flappers in Delaunay's clothes which ended with a fantastic shot of Sonia surrounded by bolts of her fabric. The rare thing was that the footage was all in full colour.

I was a little disappointed that the famous Cleopatra outfit she designed was not there, only the drawings and a few other articles from other productions.  I know the outfit still exists so it was  shame to not see it there as it is one of her most iconic designs.

I thought some of the tango paintings she did which actually had recognisable figures in them were my personal favourites as they vibrated with jazz and life just because of the colours.  Her paintings to me are like a kaleidoscope of colour as if someone has dropped a ball into paint and you are seeing the ripples of colour radiating out.  The problem with Delaunay is that she never really changed her style over the years and so the paintings become a bit repetitive in the end only changed by a more sombre colour pallet when Robert died and a shift to other mediums, such as gouache and printing

The painting of the propeller was done specifically for a pavilion at the Paris World Fair in 1937. and she did three paintings showing various aspects of planes such as the cockpit dials and engine details.  All three paintings are in the exhibition and they are enormous -  at least 8-10 ft high by 15-20ft wide.  They are spectacular and a little different again as they have recognisable elements rather than just the colour shapes so common on all her other work. 

I'm not knocking the Delaunay exhibition but the Tate Modern is so huge that it kind of knocks the joy out of seeing her work which I feel is a true expression of feeling in colour.  

I only took one photo in the exhibit as they were a bit strict on photography but it was the original famous design she did for the poetry book about the trans-Siberian rail journey to Paris.

Enough ramblings from me but just thought you might like another take on the Ravilious and Delaunay exhibtions which really are a must even for someone with only a passing interest in the Art Deco period, which to my mind, was the last truly original style which influenced the world.