William Coldstream
Sir William Coldstream | |
---|---|
Born | William Menzies Coldstream 28 February 1908 Belford, Northumberland, England |
Died | 18 February 1987 London, England | (aged 78)
Education | |
Known for | Painting, drawing |
Spouses | |
Children | 5 |
Awards | CBE 1952; Knighted 1956 |
Sir William Menzies Coldstream, CBE (28 February 1908 – 18 February 1987) was an English realist painter and a long-standing art teacher.
Biography
Coldstream was born at Belford, Northumberland, in northern England, the second son of country doctor George Probyn Coldstream and his wife Susan Jane Lilian, daughter of Maj. Robert Mercer-Tod, of the 43rd Regiment.[1][2][3]
His mother's family were Scottish landed gentry.
In 1934, Coldstream joined the GPO Film Unit to make documentary films with John Grierson. During his time with the GPO, Coldstream worked alongside W. H. Auden, Benjamin Britten and Barnett Freedman but also continued to paint. In 1937, with some financial support from Kenneth Clark, Coldstream returned to painting on a full-time basis.[6] Later that year, he co-founded the Euston Road School with Graham Bell, Victor Pasmore and Claude Rogers, having previously been involved in the short-lived objective abstraction movement.[7]
Notable among his paintings of this period is the portrait of
At the start of World War II Coldstream enlisted in the Royal Artillery before transferring to the Royal Engineers.[9] At first he served as a gunner with a training regiment near Dover and then, from 1940 until 1943 was a camouflage officer with Camouflage Command in Farnham and later in Bristol.[10]
In 1943, the
In November 1945, he became a visiting teacher at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts, and later its Professor. In 1949 he returned to lead the Slade School as Principal, and Professor of Fine Art. Under his direction the Slade achieved an international reputation.[13]
In 1952, he became a
Other administrative posts he held were as Vice Chairman of the Arts Council, and as a director of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and as a trustee of the National Gallery. He was also Chairman of the
Coldstream retired from the Slade School in 1975, and continued to paint until 1984, when his health was in marked decline. He died in the Royal Homeopathic Hospital in London on 18 February 1987.[citation needed]
Personal life
As a student at the Slade in 1931, Coldstream met and married Nancy Sharp. The marriage lasted until 1942, and produced two daughters. In 1960 he married his model, Monica Hoyer, and together they had three children, a boy and two girls.[6] Coldstream's cousin, Nicolas Coldstream, was a leading archaeologist and academic.[18]
Method and works
This section needs additional citations for verification. (December 2019) |
Coldstream was committed to painting directly from life; he once remarked, "I lose interest unless I let myself be ruled by what I see".[19] His type of realism had its basis in careful measurement, carried out by the following method: standing before the subject to be painted, a brush is held upright at arm's length. With one eye closed, the artist can, by sliding a thumb up or down the brush handle, take the measure of an object or interval. This finding is compared against other objects or intervals, with the brush still kept at arm's length. Informed by such measurements, the artist can paint what the eye sees without the use of conventional perspective. The surfaces of Coldstream's paintings carry many small horizontal and vertical markings, where he recorded these coordinates so that they could be verified against reality. As a result of his painstaking methods, Coldstream worked slowly, often taking scores of sittings over several months to complete a work. His subjects include still-life, landscapes (usually centered on architecture), portraits, and the female nude.
References
- ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ The Plantagenet Roll of the Blood Royal: Being a Complete Table of All the Descendants Now Living of Edward III, King of England. The Mortimer-Percy volume, Volume 4, Part 1, Melville de Massue, Marquis de Ruvigny, Genealogical Publishing Co., 1994 (reprint), p. 546
- ^ "UCL Archives: Home Page".
- ^ A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain, 13th ed., ed. A. Winton Thorpe, 1921, p. 1235
- ISBN 1-85149-106-6.
- ^ a b c Tate. "Artist biography, Sir William Coldstream". Tate. Retrieved 17 October 2016.
- ^ "Objective Abstraction, Tate website". Retrieved 31 October 2014.
- ^ "The Tate Britain".
- ^ Gowing and Sylvester 1990, p. 111.
- ^ Imperial War Museum. "Coldstream, William Menzies (Oral history)". Imperial War Museum. Retrieved 18 November 2016.
- ^ Imperial War Museum. "War artists archive, William Coldstream". Imperial War Museum. Retrieved 17 October 2016.
- ISBN 978-0-300-10890-3.
- ^ Gowing and Sylvester 1990, p. 114.
- ^ "No. 39555". The London Gazette (Supplement). 30 May 1952. p. 11.
- ^ "No. 40787". The London Gazette (Supplement). 25 May 1956. p. 2.
- ISBN 0-19-860476-9.
- ^ "The Sir Misha Black Medal - Misha Black Awards". mishablackawards.org.uk.
- ^ Cadogan, Gerald (15 April 2008). "Professor Nicolas Coldstream: Pioneering investigator of Greek culture and history of the ninth and eighth centuries BC". The Independent. Retrieved 19 October 2013.
- ^ Gowing and Sylvester 1990, p. 21.
- Gowing, Lawrence; Sylvester, David (1990). The Paintings of William Coldstream 1908–1987. London: ISBN 1-85437-048-0.
Further reading
- Wilson, Colin St.John. (1999) The Artist at Work: On the Working Methods of William Coldstream and Michael Andrews. London: Lund Humphries. ISBN 0-85331-759-3
- Wilcox, Tim, et al. (1990). The Pursuit of the Real: British figurative painting from Sickert to Bacon. London: ISBN 0-85331-571-X.
- Laughton, Bruce (2004), William Coldstream. New Haven: Paul Mellon Center for British Art. ISBN 0-300-10243-7.
External links
- 51 artworks by or after William Coldstream at the Art UK site