GERALD WILDE
BRITISH ARTIST 1905-1986
Gerald Wilde, 1955. Photograph by Gilbert Cousland. © October Gallery (OG).
Gerald Wilde's artwork is in national and international public and private collections, including Tate Britain, yet he has remained relatively unknown. He was admired by eminent artists, art critics, and writers such as John Berger, David Sylvester, Joyce Cary, Sir Kenneth Clark, Tim Hilton, Martin Harrison, William Feaver, John Best, Frank Auerbach, and Lucian Freud.
An essay written by Dr. Victoria King for October Gallery's 2015 exhibition Gerald Wilde: From the Abyss can be read at:
GERALD WILDE: EXISTENTIAL MAGICIAN
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Website text by Victoria King unless otherwise noted. If anyone has artwork by Gerald or reminisces that they would like to include on this site, please contact Victoria: vkblackstone@gmail.com
© OG = Copyright of artwork and photographs courtesy of October Gallery, London.
© AG = Copyright of photographs taken by Annette Green.
October Gallery, 24 Old Gloucester St, London, represents Gerald's artwork and the 2015 exhibition catalogue is still available: 020 7242-7367, email: gallery@octobergallery.co.uk
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Gerald lived on a razor’s edge of insecurity; a ‘modern’ man might well have crumpled at the first blow. He once said "My life may be miserable but I am not." His reward was always in the present moment, the satisfaction of a colour well-balanced, a form triumphant in its emergence. To look back or even forward was too dangerous an undertaking. In a childhood accident involving a knitting needle and his mother, he lost the vision in one eye. His experiences were channelled directly onto paper and canvas through one unblinking eye to an often-shaky hand.
He was born in London and worked in a solicitor's office before going to Chelsea School of Art where he was taught by Graham Sutherland and Henry Moore who both recognized his talent and became lifetime friends. He served in the Pioneer Corps during WWII, and lost much of his work during the blitz. In 1946, he was commissioned along with Matisse, Derain, Sutherland, and John Piper to produce textile designs for Zika Ascher.
Gerald was good friends with many famous artists such as Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, and Freud painted his portrait in 1943. He was part of the heavy drinking Soho set who after the war gravitated towards Tambimuttu, editor of Poetry London. The influential magazine published some of the era's greatest writers, including Lawrence Durell, Elizabeth Smart, Vladimir Nabokov, and Henry Miller. Gerald paid a heavier price than most of his peer group for his heavy drinking. Yet despite his precarious daily existence he had prestigious London solo exhibitions at the Hanover Gallery in 1948, the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in 1955, the Serpentine Gallery in 1977, and October Gallery in 1979, 1988, and 2015. Seven of his artworks were included in the 1987 Barbican exhibition A Paradise Lost: The Neo-Romantic Imagination in Britain 1935-55. Influential British art critic and writer John Berger praised his paintings for "their conviction and amazing strength of line, devouring colour and interlocking shapes... we think - however rashly - of the word genius."
I was fortunate to know Gerald when he was producing astounding, mature work. J. G. Bennett (1897-1974), a spiritual philosopher, writer, and former scientist, mathematician, and industrial research director, recognised the metaphysical, visionary power of Gerald's artwork and he and his wife Elizabeth had long been his benefactors. During the 1960s, Gerald spent time with them at Coombe Springs in Kingston-upon-Thames where he created artwork for the cover of Bennett's book Energies. In 1971, Bennett invited him to join them at Sherborne House, a neglected but once magnificent, enormous stately home in a small Cotswolds village. Gerald created huge, colourful abstract artworks on paper for the walls of the grand ball room. He had free meals and a studio and living accommodation in a long, stone outbuilding that had once been a stable. At the age of 74, Bennett had embarked on a five-year project there to share his experiences from a lifetime of working with remarkable spiritual teachers. The International Academy of Continuous Education, IACE, took the form of five intense 10-month residential courses for 100 international students each year. I arrived in 1972 from America at the age of 21 for the second course with an arts background and little confidence, and Gerald immediately befriended me. After my course ended, Bennett asked me to stay and work as part of a three-person team in his publishing company Coombe Springs Press in one of the old stone outbuildings. I transcribed recordings of his talks which Penny Gibson edited, and on a noisy offset press, Brian typeset and bound the monographs into soft-cover books. I also designed the covers and often collaborated with Gerald on them. Sadly, Bennett died on the 4th Course, but Elizabeth continued his five-year project to its completion.
Gerald was reclusive and rarely left his Stables studio. Yet he enjoyed collaborating with J.G. Bennett, and on silk screen projects with Roy Marsden who taught art at Sherborne House, and with me on book covers for Coombe Springs Press. He frequently invited me for tea in his studio where he would boil water in a battered pan on a small camping stove and make a pot of exotic Lapsang Souchong tea while he regaled me with stories from his past. He was a gentle, highly sensitive man and loyal to those he trusted, yet could be terrifying to others. He did not suffer fools. I will forever be grateful for his kindness. He opened my eyes to the power of modern art and the discipline and dedication that it takes to be an artist. It was a privilege to be his friend.
Victoria King, 2023.
EARLY YEARS
"Possibly any artist, to produce, let alone have a name, needs a kind of vulgar self-assertiveness, whatever appearance he gives of modesty. And I think that Gerald is really without that self-assertiveness. He's not only self-effacing in the sense of retreating politely to a corner, or hiding himself, but almost effacing himself in the sense of trying to disappear. And, I don't think he ever had any doubt about his talent, I really don't." *
* Written by British art critic David Sylvester for a June 1972 BBC art documentary about Gerald's art and life called 'The Man Who Read About His Own Death', directed by Alan Yentob. The title refers to his reading a report of his death in London newspapers.
Gerald's early work was figurative, and although he quickly developed a highly sophisticated abstract pictorial language, he continually returned to figuration. Having lived through the trauma of the blitz in London during WWII, and with his own adversities, it is not surprising that his artwork reflects deep existential and metaphysical questions about life and death, and the horrors that he witnessed during the war.
Countless of his drawings, prints, and paintings were lost during his lifetime, not just because of the war, but because he was often homeless and frequently gave his artwork away. He preferred working on paper with gouache and pastel, not least because of their portability and affordability. It is remarkable that any of his early work on paper survived as paper is fragile, and easily damaged.
Gerald was well-read and an avid reader. On the floor of his Stables studio at Sherborne House were always piles of art and poetry books, many from Cheltenham Library. He knew the Anglo-Irish author Joyce Cary, and it is believed that he was the inspiration for Cary's main character Gully Jimson in the 1944 best-selling novel The Horse's Mouth. The hero, Gully, was a "charming and larcenous artist who had an insatiable genius for creation and no less remarkable appetite for destruction." (Goodreads.)
Poetry London commissioned Gerald to do artwork for a hardback volume of avant garde poetry in 1944. He made four lithographs which included one for the cover that he titled 'Lyre Bird'. For the interior he made three lithographs, and also did the distinctive calligraphy. The artworks were inspired by T.S. Eliot's poem 'Rhapsody on a Windy Night'.
In 1941, Gerald participated in the Manchester based Cotton Board's Designs for Textiles by Twelve Fine Artists which was organised as part of the wartime export drive. It was the first of many influential Cotton Board exhibitions, including Britain Can Make It. Other artists who took part were Duncan Grant, Paul Nash, Hans Tisdall, Graham Sutherland, and John Piper.
Zika and Lida Ascher were Czech refugees who arrived in London in 1933 and created Ascher (London) Ltd. which screen printed fabrics they bought. In 1942, they began to commission leading artists such as Matisse, Graham Sutherland, John Piper, and Gerald to produce exciting designs for limited edition dress fabrics and scarves, merging art, fashion, and textiles. Their markets were for a cultured home market and for export. One of Gerald’s designs printed on silk by the Aschers was worn by the Queen when she was Princess Elizabeth on the Royal Tour in 1947.
The Aschers commissioned an abstract expressionist design from Gerald in 1947 for an 80 cm square screen-printed silk twill crepe (printed by John Heathcoat & Co.) with a striking design in vivid magenta, mauve, cerise, tangerine, orange, yellow, lemon, aquamarine, cerulean blue, all outlined in black. Ascher (London) Ltd. used it in 1947 for their advertisement in The Ambassador, a magazine started by Hans and Elsbeth Juda.
Gerald loved birds and they appear in many of his artworks. On the roof of his studio in the Stables at Sherborne House was an antique dovecote inhabited by a host of beautiful white doves that he daily fed. When annoyed by too frequent human distractions outside his studio, he would sometimes come out wearing a long, black formal tailed coat with his arms flapping in gestures not unlike those of his 'Lyre Bird' drawing above.
Gerald had access to the latest avant-garde and classical art in London's museums and galleries. Throughout his life he made hugely ambitious work that art critic David Sylvester recognised matched the best British, European and American art.
Gerald made a painting for the above cover of J.G. Bennett's book Energies: Material, Vital, Cosmic at Coombe Springs in Kingston-upon-Thames, published in 1964 by Coombe Springs Press. © Book in the collection of Victoria King.
GERALD WILDE at Sherborne House
Sherborne House, a 16th century Grade II listed building attached to the late 13th/early 14th century Grade II St. Mary Magdalene Church. © Photograph by Victoria King, 1973.
Gerald liaised on many projects with Bennett both at Coombe Springs and at Sherborne House, including creating large paintings for the sets of annual plays directed by Bennett. Above is his painting for the production of Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt performed by students in the grounds of Sherborne House in 1973. © Photograph of Annette Green in Peer Gynt by Victoria King.
The actress Diane Cilento (a close friend of photographer Annette Green) studied with Bennett and made a documentary for the BBC called J.G. Bennett: One Pair of Eyes - The Gurdjieff Work at Sherborne House 1972-1973. Two of Gerald’s large paintings are hanging in the ballroom on the link below at 13 minutes 38 seconds:
J.G. Bennett: One Pair of Eyes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJLVvarWLz0&t=1402s
The forms and rhythms in the double-sided drawing above of pea pods appear in many of his artworks, such as the one below that he made for a talk Bennett gave to launch his last book Gurdjieff: Making a New World at Caxton Hall in London on 22 November 1973.
It was a pleasure to collaborate with Gerald on book cover designs for limited edition monographs, including Gurdjieff Today in Bennett's Transformation of Man series. Below are two working proofs with Gerald's 'Energies' artwork and calligraphy, 1974.
© Books below in the collection of Victoria King.
Gerald at Sherborne House in 1974 with a painting from his 'Energies' series. He frequently returned to these rhythms in drawings, paintings, and silk screens. The graphic, flat qualities of printmaking suited his artworks, and they translated well into that medium. © Photograph by Victoria King.
Below is another collaboration with Gerald in 1974 for Coombe Springs Press with one of his paintings for the cover of Intelligence Now by Tony Blake, one of Bennett's students.
Gerald Wilde, 1974. © OG.
The 'Pompeii' Series
In 1975, Gerald began a series that he titled 'Spaceman'. The first two images below are a double-sided 'Spaceman' artwork done in ink and pastel, 79 x 79 cm. © OG.
And to close, a letter Gerald sent to Sara Elliot at Sherborne which demonstrates the gentle and kind nature of his personality which a few of us were privileged to know.
SHERBORNE
Sara,
How wonderful you were looking today, and tender. I was Ibsen inspired .... How do you do it? Hard work and no sleep, or an inner glow (Fire) You stormed my calm. Being under 10 flags and no protection money is a trial, but I scaled the heights. Time will heal.
Good night sweet child.
Gerald
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