James McNeill Whistler’s influence extended to Australia. Monica Healy reminds us of another painter in Whistler’s circle.
Australian artist Mortimer Menpes was also one of Whistler’s studio assistants – what Sickert called ‘one of the young lions of a butterfly’.
Apprenticeship to Whistler was expected to slavishly adhere to Whistler’s ways and techniques. To veer from that meant that you were no longer considered worthy, and definitely not a part of Whistler’s coterie….
As Whistler advised Menpes: I have educated and trained you, and have created an atmosphere which enables you to carry out my intentions exactly as I myself should. You are but the medium translating the ideas of the Master. (From ‘Whistler as I Knew Him’, Mortimer Menpes, London 1904)
Mortimer Menpes was born in Adelaide in 1855 but lived most of his life in Britain. He began his art training at the Adelaide School of Design, but formal training only started after his arrival in London, at the School of Art in South Kensington. He exhibited at the Royal Academy only a couple of years later.
He met James McNeill Whistler in 1880 who invited him to be an apprentice in his studio. It was Whistler who trained him in the skill of etching. Menpes went on to be a major figure in the etching revival, and probably what he is most noted for. Whistler also nurtured Menpes interest in Japanese influences, so much so that Menpes visited Japan in the late 1880s.
Of course very opiniated people are likely to fall out at some point, and that happened with Whistler and Menpes, (as also happened between Whistler and the very opiniated Walter Richard Sickert some years later). What did Menpes do to upset Whistler? After his return from Japan, Menpes had the temerity to decorate his own home with a Japanese influence – Whistler believed it a ‘brazen copy’ of his own – an appropriation of his intellectual property.
NGV Collection
Although he painted in oil and watercolour, Menpes is mainly noted for his development of colour etching. He went to South Africa in 1900 as a war artist/illustrator for a magazine, and travelled extensively creating illustrations for varying publications.
The NGV has only two works by Menpes – both created after having visited Japan in the 1880s. The Archer (c.1897) is a watercolour and gouache kindly gifted last year by Krystyna Campbell-Pretty. A delightfully soft impressionistic landscape with the lone Archer at full stretch. The work is currently on display in Gallery 6, level 2, NGVA, and hopefully will still be on display when the gallery reopens late next week.
The Art Gallery of South Australia has a short video on YouTube, ‘The World of Mortimer Menpes’ in which the curator, Julie Robinson, describes the AGSA exhibition in 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4MqDMmoFmM. More works by Menpes and a discussion of his ‘The Great Masters’ exhibition can be found at: https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20120205171950/http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/131760/20120120-0944/www.nla.gov.au/pub/nlanews/2002/aug02/story-1.pdf
Thank you Monica for reminding us of the ‘reach of Whistler’.
Another fascinating story, thankyou Monica And Michael.
Bringing these gems in our collection to our attention is a wonderful journey of discovery we may not otherwise experience!
Thanks Monica and Michael. It is so good to learn about these many connections between the works and the artists in our NGV collection and the larger story of artists and art history.