Self Portrait by Vincent van Gogh, one of the Tate exhibition paintings. PICTURE: NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART AND WHITNEY COLLECTION
A chalk drawing from Hammersmith & Fulham Council’s archives is one of the highlights of a major new exhibition at the Tate celebrating Vincent van Gogh and his links to Britain.
The nude study, drawn in 1886 by Fulham artist Archibald Stanley Hartrick, has been loaned by the borough to the Van Gogh and Britain exhibition which runs until August.
Hartrick, who lived at 75 Clancarty Road, Fulham, studied in the same Paris studio as Van Gogh. The drawing in the Tate Britain show is on exactly the same watermarked paper as several of Van Gogh’s pieces... and features the same model that the illustrious Dutch post-Impressionist sketched.
“We’re delighted to lend Tate Britain one of the most important works in the borough’s archive for this landmark exhibition,” said Cllr Andrew Jones, Cabinet Member for the Economy and the Arts.
“As well as helping to inform visitors about Van Gogh, this drawing provides important recognition for a highly skilled Fulham artist who was one of his contemporaries.”
This collaboration with the Tate Britain is a result of the council’s Arts Strategy (pdf 627KB) which aims to develop the borough into one of the leading arts destinations in the country.
It follows an innovative partnership with Watts Gallery in Guilford to restore a number of works from its Cecil French collection last year, which were later part of a landmark exhibition.
Paris link
Archibald Hatrick studied with Van Gogh in Paris, with the loan of his drawing organised by H&F Borough Archivist Kath Shawcross, based at Hammersmith Library in Shepherds Bush Road, W6.
Hartrick was born in India in 1864, returned to Scotland with his parents in 1866 and studied at the Slade School of Fine Art before moving to France to study at both the Atelier Julien and the Atelier Cormon, where he sat alongside Van Gogh.
“He spent a summer painting in Pont Aven, where he met followers of Bastion Lepage including Gauguin and Van Gogh, whose portraits he drew,” said Kath.
In 1889 he moved to London, working as a newspaper illustrator, married the artist Lily Blatherwick and moved to Gloucestershire.
Fulham link
In 1907 the pair returned to London and lived in Clancarty Road, Fulham, for more than 40 years. Hartrick took up a teaching post at Camberwell School of Art.
“He was a founding member of the Lithographers’ Society and the Chelsea Arts Club, and in 1908 was elected an Associate of the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours,” said Kath.
“In 1911 he undertook a poster commission for an innovative joint publicity campaign for the combined underground railway companies. A similar commission followed in 1940 for the government on Land Work in War Time, and in 1945 more posters for the underground.”
In 1936, Fulham Central Library held an exhibition entitled An Artist’s Pilgrimage – Fifty years of Painting by AS Hartrick, with a second exhibition staged at the library in 1952; a memorial show two years after his death.
The work of art that Tate Britain is borrowing from Hammersmith & Fulham Local Studies and Archives is A Nude Study, 1886, black chalk on paper.
The Van Gogh and Britain exhibition brings together 45 works by Vincent van Gogh to reveal how he was inspired by Britain, and how he inspired British artists. It is the biggest collection of Van Goghs in the UK for a decade, and includes Starry Night on the Rhone and Sunflowers.
The show runs until 11 August at Tate Britain, Millbank, SW1.
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