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Saturday 25 April 2020

Rex Whistler





Reginald John Whistler, who was always known as Rex, was a painter of enormous talent and considerable wit who might have been one of the 20th century’s all-time greats had his life not been cut short by World War Two.  

His early life

Rex Whistler was born in what is now part of south-east London on 24th June 1905, the middle of the three sons of an architect, Henry Whistler, and his wife Helen. He produced drawings and paintings from a very early age, winning the first of his many prizes when aged only seven.  

On leaving Haileybury College he at first failed to impress at the Royal Academy Schools but was regarded very differently at the Slade School of Fine Art, where his talent for imaginative decoration was encouraged by Henry Tonks. It was on Tonks’s recommendation that Whistler was offered the job of painting a mural in the refreshment room of the Tate Gallery (now Tate Britain). The result was “In Pursuit of Rare Meats”, a narrative in paint of a hunting party proceeding through a succession of imaginary landscapes. The commission took 18 months to complete, with the restaurant being opened in November 1927. The murals still adorn the walls today.

A latter-day classicist

Whistler’s style was somewhat out of phase with the modernism of his time; indeed, it harked back to the classicism of a bygone age, being reminiscent of artists such as Poussin and Claude Lorrain. However, this was precisely what attracted him to the landed gentry who wanted something original on their walls that was still in keeping with the architecture of their country houses.

Plas Newydd, Anglesey

The best example of his work in this genre was at Plas Newydd, the seat of the 6th Marquess of Anglesey, where the dining room had a bare wall on one side but windows on the other side that looked out over the Menai Straits and the mountains of Snowdonia beyond. This being North Wales, the view was often obscured by rain and low cloud, so Whistler’s plan was to contrast this with a view of a Mediterranean harbour on which the sun always shone. This was not in fact a mural as the term is normally understood, because the painting was done on a huge piece of canvas, 58 feet in length. Some of the work was done in London and some of it in situ.

The work (see picture above) reaches from floor to ceiling and extends to the two side walls. The main work depicts a romantic harbour scene, with ships at anchor, castle turrets, and mountains in the far distance. In the foreground steps lead down to the water. Damp footsteps can be seen, leading towards the carpet of the dining room. It is clear that Neptune has just walked out of the sea, leaving his crown and trident on the sea wall.

To the left is a town scene, where the artist himself can be seen, sweeping the patio with a broom. To the right, a colonnaded passageway leads towards a terraced bathed in sunlight, with various objects in view that had significance for the family, such as a child’s cello and their pet dogs. So realistic is the scene that visitors have been known to try to pat the dogs and walk along the passage!

The painting is full of details that might be missed on a first viewing but which have symbolic significance, particularly for the Anglesey family. A boy tries to steal an apple while the shopkeeper is not looking. The model for the boy was the son of the Marquess; he succeeded to the title as the 7th Marquess in 1947 and died in 2013.

While at work at Plas Newydd, Rex Whistler developed an attachment to the Marquess’s eldest daughter, Lady Caroline Paget, whom Whistler had met before gaining the commission, but his love was not returned. There are details in the painting that hint at his feelings, such as love taking flight in the form of a pair of swallows, and rose petals on the ground that the artist with the broom leaves unswept.

A story is told that illustrates Whistler’s ease with his medium. He remarked one day that the harbour scene was too busy, so he painted out a number of ships. He later commented that something was needed to fill the space, perhaps an island? He said this at 10 o’clock one evening; when the family came down the next morning the island, complete with houses, a church, a castle and quayside, had appeared.

His later work

Whistler’s final commission of this kind was at Mottisfont Abbey, near Romsey in Hampshire. Here he transformed a drawing room by giving it Gothic columns, plasterwork and drapery, all in paint, with a host of “trompe-l’oeil” features including books in alcoves and a paint pot with brushes. At one point visitors can see where the “careless” painter has left a box of matches high up on a painted cornice. It was years after the work was finished that an inscription was found that reads “I was painting this ermine curtain when Britain declared war on the Nazi tyrants, Sunday, September 3rd. RW”

Whistler’s work extended far beyond the medium of the mural. He was, for example, a highly accomplished book illustrator, a characteristic feature of his work being to set the illustration in a rococo frame. He designed stage scenery and costumes, and also designs for textiles, china and carpets. 

Much of Whistler’s work, as well as the mural, can be seen at Plas Newydd, where the 7th Marquess collected as much of it as he could. The collection includes a nude painting of Lady Caroline and letters written to her by Rex. Plas Newydd is now a National Trust property (as is Mottisfont Abbey), so there is public access for much of the year.

His death during World War Two

Soon after the outbreak of war in 1939 Rex Whistler took a commission (2nd lieutenant) with the Welsh Guards, although he did not go overseas until 1944. In the meantime he continued to work, including producing a mural on the wall of the officers’ mess at the Brighton barracks. He commanded a tank during the advance into France following the D-day landings, but was killed by a mortar shell when the tank was disabled by a fouled tank track. This was on 18th July 1944. He was buried in a British war cemetery in France.

Rex Whistler will always be one of the art world’s great “might have beens”. Had he lived, would his style, with its throwbacks to a distant past, have been forgotten as fashion and taste moved in a completely new direction? Or would his idiosyncracies and humour have stood out from the crowd and made him a popular favourite? Of course, we can only speculate.

© John Welford

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