Brockhurst and Todd at Royal Academy of Arts

Tuesday, 11 July 2006 15:54

London - The exquisite etchings of women that brought acclaim to GL Brockhurst (1890-1978) and AR Middleton Todd (1891-1966) in the 1920s and 30s are the focus of this display.  The title, Skin Deep, is intended both to evoke the idea of beauty and to invite the viewer to explore the psychology behind the images on show.  This is the seventh in a rolling programme of Tennant Room displays dedicated to works on paper by Royal Academicians past and present, highlighting the diversity of the RA Collection.  On exhibit until 8 October.

The prints Brockhurst and Todd produced between the wars are examined in their context at the end of the ‘etching revival’ that had gathered momentum during the later nineteenth century.  Like other adherents of etching at this time, both Brockhurst and Todd placed great emphasis on technical virtuosity, used traditional materials, depicted subjects in old-fashioned costume and had an interest in folk culture.  Much admired in their time, both have since suffered the fate of other traditional British artists of the 20th-century, and faded from the public consciousness as art history has concentrated on the avant-garde.  However, Brockhurst’s work remains sought-after by collectors.

This display offers an opportunity to reassess the two artists.  Besides revealing similarities of subject matter and treatment in the work of these two contemporaries, differences are also explored: Brockhurst’s art suggests a world at once glamorous and, sometimes, unsettling, while Todd depicted women with a greater feeling of comfortable domesticity.  Alongside their etchings, the display includes a selection of Todd’s drawings, and three paintings: Todd’s intimate Nude, Brockhurst’s intense Ophelia, and a painted version of his most famous – and controversial – etching, Adolescence.

Brockhurst studied at the Birmingham School of Art and the RA Schools, and traveled to Paris and Italy.  He first made his reputation with his etchings of female sitters, often using his first wife, Anaïs, as his model.  During the 1930s he returned to painting, and became famous for the hard-edged realism of his portraits of fashionable figures including Wallis Simpson and Marlene Dietrich. 

Born in Cornwall, Todd studied first under Stanhope Forbes in Newlyn, then at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, and finally at the Slade under Henry Tonks.  He traveled in France, Italy and Holland, before returning to England, where he achieved early success with his images of women, in etching, watercolor and pastel.  He went on to make a career teaching art and painting commissioned portraits in oils of pillars of the establishment.  However, his favorite subjects always remained, in the words of a former pupil, ‘small, intimate portraits of young women’.

Visit The Royal Academy of Arts at : http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/