Charles Paine A.R.C.A.

The Evening Chronicle of 10th May 1956 published this photograph of Paine in his studio with the last design for the Queen’s Park window.

‘A former student of the Salford and Manchester Schools of Art, Mr. Charles Paine A.R.C.A., is just completing the last of four designs for a new stained glass window for Queen’s Park Church, Glasgow. Mr. Paine will travel to Glasgow later this year to be responsible personally for translating the design into stained glass. His work on the new stained glass window has delayed his plans to present a one-man exhibition which he planned to do when he first went to live in Jersey six years ago.’

See post ‘Queen’s Park Window’ April 17, 2025

After Paine settled in Jersey, he exhibited little though he worked on commissions.  His most important work was a series of watercolours depicting Jersey scenery and ways of life done during the 1950’s.  Unlike his earlier commercial work this watercolour of a shipwright’s yard is meticulous in its detail and full of mysterious colour effects. The reason for the streaks in the sky is unknown.  A black and white image of this painting can be found below.

Jersey Shipwright

Signed and dated by Paine July 1959.   The cottage is typical of its kind.  

Joan Paine said that Paine regarded himself as primarily a watercolourist and it seems that was the genre he most enjoyed.   In 1948 Teuila wrote, “How I wish I could see your water colours of Ireland!”   Tramore Cove (County Waterford) was exhibited at the Royal Academy (1037) in 1959, displayed on an easel on the main staircase.     It was priced at 50 guineas and remained unsold. 

Tramore Cove, County Waterford

Paine’s need to earn a living by teaching and producing commercial art resulted in a small body of such work.   When he was more at leisure in Jersey he painted a series of watercolours that were issued as post cards, several of them of Mount Orgueil Castle at Gorey.

St. Mary’s Crypt, Gorey Castle

Gorey Castle Gate

Queen Elizabeth Gate, Gorey Castle

Gorey Pier

Geoffrey’s Leap and St. Catherine’s Breakwater

Paine titled this painting ‘Anne Port’.

Auray, Brittany, dated 1947

Auray is inland from the south coast of Brittany about half way between Brest and Nantes.  

Jersey Boat Yard 1950’s

Members of the Jersey Historical Society tried to locate the yard and suggested that it shows ‘the boat privately built [as a retirement project] by Commander [Norman] Hall RNVR.   He lived initially above St. Aubin but later … at St. Ouen.’   Paine may well have known him.

‘Jersey Shipwright’ July 1959

Titled and signed by Paine.    Location unknown, possibly at Trinity.   It is a typical building of its type.   

Jersey Farm (watercolour sketch)

Jersey View

Possibly ‘Sorcini’

Anna Paine owned a boat called ‘Sorcini’ which may be the one depicted here.   The initial ‘J’ on the boat is part of the registration, and would be followed by a number – used on all registered fishing boats.  The boat is definitely in Jersey, probably at Gorey, as the Island is subject to one of the greatest tidal ranges in the world – 38′ or 12 metres.   So the ‘legs’ that are shown had to be fitted on when the boat was in harbour to prop it up, sitting on the sand, as the tide ebbed.   (Information courtesy of the Jersey Historical Society)

‘Royal Academy Exhibitors 1905-1970’ lists the following by Paine:

1916 Design for stained glass window (1762)

Paine, Charles, painter

11North View, Brentham, Ealing W.

1943 Design for stained glass “My soul doth magnify the Lord” (934)

43 Longcroft Lane, Welwyn

1944 Study for stained glass “Fear not for I bring you good tidings” (1132)

7 Gorey Pier, Jersey

1959 ‘Tramore Cove’ Ireland (1037) Watercolour

cf. post Stained Glass October 20th 2017

Following Paine’s death in 1967 his friend and neighbour, Desmond Rexworthy, wrote a tribute for the Jersey Evening Post.

Charles Paine – A Tribute

            Charles Paine who was born in Lancashire in 1895 and died on Friday at his home, La Guerdainerie Cottage, Trinity, was a child of God, a man whose humour and love of convivial conversation overlay an unusually fine sensibility and sensitivity.   An artist. academically professed in Glasgow and in California, his own works were predominantly in watercolour based on the most meticulous craftsmanship.   His love of Jersey where he settled first on Gorey Pier just after the last war, is evident from his paintings of Mont Orgueil Castle in particular.  

            There is a beautiful stained glass window executed by him in a church in Scotland.   Details show his delight for the simple things of nature – the butterfly, the snowdrop at the foot of Christ a Jersey calf lies with a baby donkey, the face of his Madonna is that of a Breton worker seen in a Jersey field.   When funds ran out for the execution of this work he completed it from his own pocket.  

            Book illustration and posters were among his early work.   He was one of the few original contemporary painters, among them McKnight Kaufer, commissioned for the London Passenger Transport Board before the war whose posters on the Underground played so positive a part in the unconscious education of recent generations of art.

            During the last two years in his studio at La Guerdainerie, he was working on a study of sky and tide at the Ecréhous which was to be a sublimation of his technique of dynamic synthesis.   Inspiration was not visual alone – music provided the discipline for his composition.   The counter-currents at the turn of the tide about the rocks, the very structure of the skyscape, both were portrayed over a synthesis of geometric construction of infinite variation based upon the recurrent relationships of the Bach fugue.

            To be his friend was an experience of depth;  for the few, his passing leaves a sore lack which can only be compensated by the love of God.   For the many, his art survives, although he eschewed exhibition and publicity during his life.

A Correspondent

Jersey Evening Post 10th July 1967

This window was dedicated on the 90^th Anniversary of Queen’s Park High Parish Church, Queen’s Drive, Glasgow, on Sunday 22^nd December 1957.               

The window was made by Guthrie & Wells.

The inscription across the bottom of the panels reads:    AD 1953 This window is dedicated to the glory of God and for the adornment of His house    AD 1957 Immanuel                       

Description of the window in the Order of Service:  The window depicts the Adoration of the Infant Christ by Shepherds and Wise Men.

First Light:   The venerable figure of Joseph is distinguished by a halo.   The two shepherds, one standing, the other kneeling, are still wearing their thick outer garments with hoods over their heads.

Second Light:   The Infant Christ, with right hand upheld in blessing, is seated upon the lap of Mary, His Mother.   The artist’s inspiration for this beautiful Madonna was a French peasant girl seen working in the fields of Brittany.   The traditional ox and ass are represented by a donkey and a Jersey calf.

Third Light:   A shepherd stands with his gift of a lamb.   Reverently kneeling, a dark-skinned King is presenting his gift.

Fourth Light:   The King, who is standing, is resplendent in armour, with a purple cloak over his shoulder and a jeweled crown on his head.   The King, who is kneeling, has removed the cover from his gift, so that the fragrance of the frankincense is scenting the air.

Although this window depicts the joy of our Lord’s Nativity with wreaths of holly, ivy, and mistletoe, there is also a foreshadowing of Calvary.   In the apex of the 1st light we see the Golden Crown of Glory.   “Mild he lays His glory by.”   In the apex of the 4th light there are the Crown of Thorns and other reminders of our Lord’s Passion – the 30 pieces of silver, the sponge, Pilate’s pen, and the ear of Malchus.   In the apexes of the two central lights are found the Star of Bethlehem and the Cup of Sacrifice.

The deep colours of the traceries with their stars and white birds in flight suggest the darkness of the night.   But the new moon above the head of Joseph indicates the beginning of the new era inaugurated by the birth of our Saviour.

Again and again, in the window, are seen snowdrops, the most significant being held by the Infant Jesus.   The snowdrop symbolises the revival of hope and the promise of new life in the dark days of winter.   That promise and that hope shine through the whole window.

Additional notes:

            The face of the right hand upper king in the 4th light is that of  Denis Carlton Walmsley (1895-1959), a retired paper manufacturer and Freeman of the Borough of Preston, who lived at The Moorings Hotel on Gorey Pier in Jersey.   He was a friend of Paine and left him in his will a chalk drawing by Clausen, of a boy sowing corn by hand, that was a study for a larger work. The black king, lower in 3rd light, is modeled on a Balinese wooden mask (below).

The Virgin Mary is a Bretonne girl who Paine saw feeding her baby in a field.       The window has no red in it as Paine didn’t like red glass.   When funds ran out he paid for the window to be completed out of his own pocket.

            Subsequently the church was converted into flats.   The present whereabouts of the window is unknown.

Pencil studies for the fourth and third lights:

Balinese mask drawn by the blog author.

Owned by Charles Paine. Inscribed top right corner. First published 1947.

cf. Royal School of needlework October 23rd. 2018

This undated (c.1964) photograph shows Paine holding two tankards outside the Moorings Hotel on Gorey Pier. He has drawn a caricature of himself on the reverse.` The tankards are probably the two that hung over the bar of The Moorings inscribed with Paine’s initials and those of his wife Jane.

Like many European artists from the French Impressionists onward, Paine was influenced by Japanese art.     It can be seen in his simplicity of outline and composition and in the use of flat areas of bright colour.   Of his poster for the 1921 boat race, for example, the author of the Modern Printmakers blog says: ‘Boat race 1921 was inconceivable without the example of Hokusai …’ (See POSTERS London Transport) Paine acknowledged his debt to Japanese art in a lecture delivered at the Blackheath School of Art in February 1939 (probable date),one of a series on the theme of ‘The Victorians and After’. He said that [the] change to effective poster art [was] largely the result of the study of the Japanese colour print with its superlatively simplified and telling design. (Blackheath Local Guide)

In 1926, while he was in Santa Barbara, his friend Teuila (Isobel Field) gave him a copy of On the Laws of Japanese Painting by Henry P. Bowie (1911).   It is inscribed ‘To Charles Paine from his admiring, grateful pupil and friend Isobel Field   Serena Aug 10th 1926’

This pocket-sized drawing book belonged to Paine. I have posted below all the pages in order that bear legible images. I do not know at which period of his life the book was in use. My guess is during his later years in Jersey.

The book contains what appear to be preliminary sketches for a water colour painting of a sailing ship but I have no knowledge of any such finished work.

Teri J. Edelstein, Teri J. Edelstein Associates, Museum Strategies

In 1997, a cache of posters was discovered behind a partition at the Art Institute of Chicago. Among the posters were over 300 created for “The Underground” in London. The first 39 posters arrived at the museum in 1919 as a gift of the Underground Electric Railways Company of London, Ltd. (UERL), which was founded in 1902.’

It included posters created for Underground rail trains, buses, and trams run by the company. This donation echoed that offered to the South Kensington Museum [today the Victoria & Albert Museum] on October 24, 1911, when Frank Pick, the creator of the pictorial poster campaign, wrote to the director: “I have the pleasure of sending you a roll containing a selection of posters which we have issued….We shall be pleased to supply further copies…of any posters which we issue in the future if you desire them.”

In fact, the museum did desire them. Not coincidentally, the mission of the Art Institute of Chicago, an institution incorporating a school and a museum, was related to that of the V&A, which was founded as an educational resource.

Pick conceived of the pictorial poster campaign in 1908. When tasked with spreading awareness of a new map of the system and increasing ridership, he hired the popular comic-poster designer John Hassall to create the first work. Thus began the greatest sustained poster campaign in history. The primary purpose of the posters was to boost travel. Their messages encouraged journeys during off-peak hours—weekdays between 10 and 4, as well as weekends and holidays. They also promoted leisure travel to and residence in locales on the edges of London that were now served by the company’s new train lines, busses, and trams. The campaign had the added benefit of creating goodwill.   

Pick first visited Chicago in 1919, the year of the initial donation. Further gifts arrived at the museum in 1920 and continued, at irregular intervals, until 1939, when Pick left the company. Pick’s visit to Chicago, his continued gifts to the V&A, the date when the Art Institute gift ended, and his own extensive involvement with art education in the United Kingdom all suggest that Pick himself was the engine behind these donations.

Celebrating the centenary of the original gift by featuring 100 posters from the collection, Everyone’s Art Gallery: Posters of the London Underground was on view in the Prints and Drawings Galleries at the Art Institute from 25 May – 5 September 2019, curated by Teri J. Edelstein.

A chronological selection of posters from 1914 – 1939 were featured at the beginning of the exhibition. Highlights included MacDonald Gill’s By Paying Us Your Pennies (1914), a tour de force of cartography, calligraphy, puns, and allusions, that features a discontented giraffe at the Zoo who is “fed up,” acrobats at Piccadilly Circus, and a swan in search of its pen. Mary Koop was just one of numerous female artists in the exhibition, exemplifying an important aspect of the poster campaign. In her poster, a riot of brightly colored umbrellas surge towards the entrance to the Underground, hardly needing the type announcing Summer Sales Quickly Reached by Underground (1925).

UERL employed only the finest printers for these chromolithographed posters, occasionally drawn on the stones by the artists themselves, as in Barnett Freedman’s Theatre by Underground (1936). Harold Sandys Williamson’s poster of 1939 bravely trumpets Shop Between 10 and 4, as it displays landmarks of London beneath a sky filled with barrage balloons as protection for London monuments from Nazi bombing raids.

Other galleries of the exhibition highlighted five themes and monographic sections on three artists. The Zoo was one of the most popular subjects, and Dorothy Burroughes’ work is often mentioned by contemporaries, specifically because of her inspiration from Japanese art. Hampton Court was a logical destination to promote because the company’s trams reached it on the very edge of the city; a long ride meant a higher fare. Charles Paine attracted riders with a riff on history: Henry VIII is depicted as a gardener, his wives as topiary bushes, one of whom has already had her head lopped off.   Some of Paine’s other eye-catching posters, with their large blocks of color and strong designs, merited their own section of the exhibition, including Trooping the Colour (1922) where Guardsmen stand against an abstracted Union Jack.

Another artist given his own gallery was Frederick Herrick. Pick submitted his posters, executed by The Baynard Press where Herrick was Head of Studio, to the 1925 World’s Fair of Paris where both the artist and the Press were awarded gold medals. The power and inventiveness of Herrick’s designs, like London’s Umbrella (1925), which shows travelers flocking to the shelter of a gigantic brolly covering Trafalgar Square, surely helped earn the prize. Typical of Herrick’s wit, the clasp of the umbrella is the roundel sign of the Underground. 

Herrick’s work also appeared in a gallery dedicated to Holidays and Events. His posters and others were in the Double Royal size (25 x 40 inches), typically displayed on the outside of Underground Stations and usually printed in runs of 1,000. The company normally printed 1,500 of the slightly smaller (20 x 30 inches) Double Crown posters, which hung on the outside of buses and trams. But most holidays and events lasting a single day—like Derby Day—or others that lasted a few weeks—like the Wimbledon Tennis Championships— were promoted with very small posters in a variety of sizes. These were displayed on the inside of buses, trams, and Underground cars and therefore had much larger print runs. The small format often inspired artists to great creativity, such as the poster promoting the First Test Match at Lord’s on June 24, 26, 27 of 1939, by Clifford and Rosemary Ellis. It is in the most common size (10 x 12 inches) and had a print run of 7,500 copies.

As the most prolific artist who worked for The Underground and one of the greatest poster artists of the 20th century, Edward McKnight Kauffer deserved his own prominent section. In fact, Kauffer studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and might possibly have encouraged this ongoing gift of posters from the UERL to the Art Institute. Beginning with his first posters created for The Underground, including Reigate (1915), in the exhibition his work for the company ended with the atmospheric By the RushyFringed Bank (1932). Museums inspired some of the greatest creations, many of them by Kauffer, whose protean style is apparent in the childlike forms of the Woolly Mammoth from the Museum of Natural History, fittingly seen against the brilliant colors of a setting sun. To promote the same museum, Austin Cooper created a magisterial butterfly.

Among the prominent artists also included in the exhibition were Dora Batty, Edward Bawden, Alfred de Breanski, F. Gregory Brown, Aldo Cosomati, Elijah Albert Cox, J. H. Dowd, Irene Fawkes, Clive Gardiner, Paul Nash, Frank Newbould, Paul Rieth, and Fred Taylor. Sadly, constraints of space meant that other important artists in the collection, including Alma Faulkner, Fougasse, Eric Fraser, Laura Knight, Alfred Leete, Freda Lingstrom, Tom Eckersley, Eric Lombers, John Mansbridge, André Marty, C.W.R. Nevinson, Gerald Spencer Pryse, and Walter Spradberry were not featured. Of course, the London Transport Museum holds the entire archive of posters created for the company.

This poster campaign not only succeeded in promoting The Underground, it gave us some of the greatest achievements in poster design, providing an enduring legacy of timeless travel posters.

Teri J. Edelstein, Teri J. Edelstein Associates, Museum Strategies, Chicago

Article published in Vintage Poster Issue 3 2020, a publication of the Vintage Poster Dealers Association, and posted here by kind permission of Teri Edlestein and of the editor, Kirill Kalinin, President of the IVPDA / AntikBar, London, UK.

Everyone’s Art Gallery:  Posters of the London Underground

25th May – 5th September 2019

In 1919, 39 posters came to the Art Institute of Chicago, courtesy of the Underground Electric Railways London.   The posters, full of brilliant colors and innovative designs, were part of an effort to encourage Londoners to use this commercial transportation system: to visit the city’s cultural attractions, go shopping, attend sporting events, and even venture into the countryside—all by taking Underground trains and buses, of course.   Installed outside Underground stations on public streets and on the front of buses that traversed the city, these posters formed a vibrant civic art presence—a public gallery available to all.

Over the next 20 years more posters arrived at the museum, coming at irregular intervals and eventually forming a collection of almost 350 artworks—an extraordinary sample from the golden age of this remarkable poster campaign, one that continues to this day. Until now, however, the story of how and why these posters came to Chicago has not been known. The architect of the poster campaign, from its inception in 1908 until 1939, was Frank Pick, an executive with London’s Underground. Pick’s enthusiasm for art education led him to commission poster designs from many young artists. Indeed, it is likely that the close relationship between the Art Institute of Chicago and the School of the Art Institute was one reason that Pick chose the museum as the eventual keeper of this poster archive.

This exhibition, the first at the museum to showcase this unique collection, begins with a chronological sampling of the posters. Thematic sections feature popular subjects, such as the zoo, museums, and Hampton Court, the royal palace southwest of London on the Thames, while focused displays are devoted to three of the greatest artists who worked for the Underground: Charles Paine, Frederick Herrick, and one of the most illustrious poster artists of the 20th century, Edward McKnight Kauffer, who studied briefly at the School of the Art Institute on his way to Europe.

Among the show’s highlights is Charles Paine’s clever take on King Henry the VIII, depicting him with large shears trimming the heads off his topiary queens in Hampton Court by Tram (1922). Others include Mary Koop’s Summer Sales(1925), which invites viewers to follow a riot of brightly colored umbrellas toward their shopping destination; a modernist depiction of time by Clive Gardiner from 1928 urging riders to buy a season Underground ticket; and Harold Sandys Williamson’s Cheap Tickets to Town, Shop between 10 and 4(1939), an almost surrealistic view of the London cityscape, its sky a sea of floating barrage balloons as protection from German bombs.

A century after the initial posters arrived at the museum, this exhibition features 100 posters—a celebration of the gift, Frank Pick’s inventive campaign, and the beautiful artworks it produced.                                                                             Teri J. Edelstein (Curator)

Teri J. Edelstein Associates
Museum Strategies
1648 E. 50th Street
Chicago, IL 60615-3204

Teri Edelstein will be giving two gallery talks as well as a Member’s Lecture.

(Her Members’ Lecture requires advanced registration.)

On Thursday 20th June Neil Harris, professor emeritus of history and art history at the University of Chicago, will give a lecture entitled:

Chicago-London-Chicago—Posters, Politics, and Public Transit

in conjunction with the exhibition for which advanced registration is needed – the required information is on the website.

The lecture explores the links between Chicago and London’s mass transit and the connections between our city and the London Underground poster campaign.

The text of this post is taken, by kind permission, from the Art Institute website:

https://www.artic.edu/exhibitions/8932/everyone-s-art-gallery-posters-of-the-london-underground

Teri Edelstein edited Art For All – British Posters for Transport pub. 2010 Yale University Press

The Craft of Stained Glass

by Charles Paine

            Stained glass is more usually associated with ecclesiastical architecture than with domestic architecture.

            The field of domestic architecture has yet to be explored.

            In this enlightened age the control of warm and cold light in our homes is worthy of more thought and consideration.

            Much thought has been given to artificial lighting, but little to the control of day lighting.   A hot light can be made cool, a cold light warm and inviting, gloom dispelled and brilliancy made restful.

            An elementary understanding of the possibilities and limitations of the craft may help to an appreciation of its qualities.

            A stained glass window is composed of pieces of plain and coloured glass held together by strips of lead; the distinctive and especial attributes of stained glass are peculiar to the craft and should not be confused with paintings.

            The light shines through and not on the window.   Glass is made by being blown into a bubble, which is then opened at the ends, and while hot, manipulated into a cylinder;  it is then cut down one side and opened out upon a flattening stone into a sheet.   It is this stone which gives the glass its texture.   There are two kinds of glass, Potmetal: glass where the colour goes all through; as in the case of a rare jewel, and flashed glass.

            In the latter, a bubble is blown, mainly composed of white glass;  but before blowing, it is dipped into glass of another colour and both are blown together and fused as one.

            The effect of brilliance is largely due to the use of glass that varies in thickness, and to imagine the effect of light from sun-up to sun-down shining through glass such as I have ventured to describe at once dispels the gloom usually associated with the craft.

            In painting, coloured pigments are not used, but the features of a face, the folds of drapery, all forms, in short, are traced in a monochrome (chiefly oxide of iron) on the various coloured glasses.   Yellow stain is the only thing in the nature of a coloured pigment permissible, and this is used with discretion on the back of the glass before firing in the kiln.

            It can be seen, therefore, that a thorough knowledge of the possibilities and limitations of the materials is essential to the designer of stained glass.

            The possibilities of invention are inexhaustible;  roughly, the procedure is as follows:

           A sketch is made to scale,  and from this a full-sized working drawing is developed on the lines of the leading, which are not an afterthought around a drawing but, on the contrary, are the structure of the design.

            There must be no doubt as to the intention of the artist in this working drawing, for from this drawing a tracing is made of the lead lines only, and from this tracing patterns are made for every piece of glass in the window.

            The artist then selects the glass that will not only express his ideas but control the particular lighting required.   The glass is now cut to the various patterns with the wheel or diamond.   Each piece of glass that needs painting is placed over the working drawing and the form traced through.   By gradual stages the painting is developed on a glass easel up to the strength of the working drawing.

            It is not unusual (owing to the different natures of the glass) to work over the window two or three times until one arrives at the required strength, otherwise the whole or parts of the scheme would fade away in the kiln.   The artist, of course, translates his drawing onto the glass and does not leave it to other hands to carry out.

            Apparently, we have now to fit together a glorious jigsaw puzzle.   (It is surprising how soon one comes to know the different members of this large and joyous family.)

            In between each piece of glass the lead must be constructively guided.   The joints are then soldered back and front and the window is cemented, likewise back and front.   Certain effects are produced by placing one glass behind another in the same lead;  such pieces must be sealed with putty before cementing, otherwise the cement would mark in between the glasses.

            Time will mellow and further enrich the permanent qualities of the materials used in a stained glass window, but they must accumulate age only with the passing years.

A copy of the original article with illustrations was posted under ‘Stained Glass’ October 20, 2017

The Craft of Stained Glass was published in The Studio, vol 105, May 1933.

London Zoo features on more Underground posters than any other subject and Paine’s Zoo poster (1921) is one of the most popular.

In 2013 the penguins poster inspired the making of an animation film Penguins Calling directed by Anastasia Psaltou who wrote, ‘The retro feel and the simplicity of the colours in Charles Paine’s poster made it irresistible to me.   It gave me great inspiration for creating a fun and colourful animation’.  The film was made to mark the 150th anniversary of the London Underground. It can be viewed (2024) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzBOraAoTcA

Paine probably made the acquaintance of Dr. Douglas Strachan (1875-1950) at Edinburgh College of Art where he  was appointed Director of Design in 1908.    Strachan  is  widely considered  to  have  been   ‘the most significant and prolific stained glass artist’ (Gazetteer for Scotland) of the first half of the twentieth century.   A letter (below) to Paine from Strachan in October 1937 reveals that he submitted designs for a Scottish Mark and that these were rejected.   It is clear from his letters that Strachan much admired Paine’s work.   Of the Mark designs he wrote, ‘Your admirable Mark designs – just exactly what was wanted a pattern … , and distinction, and yet the story as plain as a pikestaff: and then to read that they had been turned down – in favour of footling things’.

It seems that Paine wrote to Strachan in the autumn of 1937 about the Empire Exhibition being planned for the following year in Glasgow.   The policy was to employ only British Artists and that ‘nothing from foreign sources may be shown’.   How this squares with displaying art from imperial possessions is not clear.   It can be surmised from Strachan’s letter (below) in November 1937 that Paine had written concerning foreign influences on British art, evidently referring to Frank Pick’s acceptance of the influence of continental art movements on the design of Underground posters.   Strachan wrote to a friend (unnamed) who was closely associated with the Exhibition and reported his reply:  ‘He thinks Mr. Paine has misunderstood Mr. Pick’s views, and does not agree that Mr. Pick endorses design of continental origin: he states that one of the main points which the Council has made is that industry is dependent to far too great an extent on foreign sources – which is of course begging the question though I am sure he does not see this.’

It may be that Paine was also seeking Strachan’s support for the submission of a stained glass design to the Exhibition.   According to Strachan, the organisers were convinced that there were plenty of Glasgow artists of high calibre and that they had no need to look further.   He wrote, ‘… how maddening that you can’t get your glass set in some church where it could be seen.   What about the Glasgow Exhib. in that connection?   It is, I read somewhere, to have 2 chapels: one Presbyt. tother Pisky (Episcopalian):  and they’ll surely want windows.’    He concludes, ‘… if you would care to make and exhibit a window there I’ll write Bilsland (Sir Alexander Steven Bilsland 1892-1970, member of the executive committee of the Empire Exhibition) about it if you wish and think it worth your while.’

I do not know if Paine exhibited stained glass at the exhibition.

23rd September 1937

Pittendriech, Lasswad

My Dear Paine,

            What a great pleasure to see your beautiful handwriting again, and to get news of you and your thoughts and doings.

            The contents of your letter and the chance hour of its arrival lead me to the philosophical reflection (reached by many before me) that Life is a quaint sort of affair.

            To explain just why your letter and another which reached me 2 or 3 hours earlier have led me into this highly original train of thought, I ought perhaps to begin by saying that one of the first resolutions I made at the beginning of my adult activities was never under any circumstances to allow myself to be drawn into committee work.   I have always loathed Art Politics, and regarded committee activities (doubtless too sweepingly) as utterly futile: as in fact a mere form of sport for the type known as committee-man.   To this resolution I held rigidly throughout:-  at times incurring censure as one selfishly indifferent to the interests nominally concerned:- to which I replied nowt.

            Some four years ago, however, I broke my resolution by accepting an invitation to become a member of the “Royal Commission for Art in Scotland” because the fact that this body is purely Advisory placed it in a different category:- and I may say here and now that work on it has been a pleasure from the start, and remains so, – because it works: because instead of wasting time drawing up high-falutin manifestoes and reports for publication we in a sense do nothing: it is the other fellows – promoters of public undertakings whether governmental or municipal who Do:  and if their designs seem to us artistically bad they are promptly torpedoed and sunk: and this may happen over and over again before an acceptable design is submitted and approved.   Being purely Advisory, the Commission has of course no powers to enforce its ruling: but in the 4 years period that has come under my observation an adverse judgement has never been ignored.   We are in the fortunate position too, of not being concerned with costs.   Occasionally when designs for a big scheme have been rejected twice, irate officials have attended to demand if we realise that we are holding up a £quarter million of works: but these our Chairman blandly silences by saying that such matters are not in order, our terms of reference being purely aesthetic in character: and that’s that.   But within a year of my appointment to the Fine Art Comm. a letter arrived from the president of the Board of Trade inviting me to become a member of the “Council for Art and Industry” about to be formed.   This I promptly declined: but as a bare refusal seemed curt and unmannerly I gave a reason – viz that while fully alive to the importance and urgency of the problem which the Council was meant to solve, the first qualification for a seat on that Council was obviously an extensive practical experience of the Designer-Manufacturer problem:  and of that (by reason of the self-contained nature of my work from the beginning) I had absolutely none.   Which was true, though perhaps lacking in complete candour, since my friends and interests had kept me in close touch with the question all along.   What I ought to have said was that the first requirement was belief in the power of any such Council to solve the problem:  and that of that I had little.   But I didn’t: and back came a very nice letter from Runciman saying that this fact (of my industrial inexperience) was already fully known before the invitation was sent to me: but that the problem contained of course a purely aesthetic element, in which I would etc. etc.: and that he hoped I would reconsider my decision and accept appointment: to which I said Damn (to myself) and very well I accept (to him).   It meant attending a monthly meeting at the B. of Trade, London: but Runciman said it would not demand much of my time, and that the Scottish Committee would soon be formed.   This I read as meaning that the meetings I would have to attend would then take place in Edinbg.: which was not quite so bad: but when the Scottish Comm. was started some three months later I learnt that I had to attend the Council meetings in London and the Scottish Comm. meetings in Edin. as a member of the Council!   So that here after a blameless life I suddenly found myself within the space of twelve months

a member of a Commission                                                                                                                a member of a Council                                                                                                                           and a member of a Committee.

Something had to be done about it: so I promptly tabled a motion that Scottish members of Council should be held to fulfil their whole duty if they attended every second meeting of Council.   And this was agreed to.   But, oh my God: the dreariness, the utter boredom to me of these Council and Committee meetings: and as witness succeeded witness, the obvious hopelessness of making any headway with manufacturers who said they could not afford “expensive” designs because the designs produced for the firm by such designers would immediately be stolen by rivals who had no designer to pay:- chiefly foreign rivals, who would flood the market with the new designs at as early a date as the original firm could – and at lower cost.   The question of whether it was or ever would be possible for the designer of a large firm to attain a position of Management which would enable him to determine the design-policy of the firm was treated by witnesses as a sort of feeble joke.   Then there was the question of Volume of Trade: of Overturn constantly cropping up.   This I maintained over and over again simply confused the issue.   Granted that the Council and Committee had been created by the Board of Trade and that the only concern of such a Board is, properly, increase of the volume of trade: yet the Board created the Council, not to do the Board’s work but to advise it on one element in the problem outside its competence – the aesthetic element: and that that alone was our job.   This view was not actually opposed;  it was just listened to and allowed to pass:- presumably as something irrelevant.   Our appointment was for two years, and as the termination of that period approached I gave notice that I didn’t wish to be re-elected.   I was then told that the “2 year” appointment was a mere form and had no real meaning, and was told in kindly fashion not to be a dam fool – that is, not to resign.   But I got hold of the Chairman of the Scottish Committee and repeated that I wanted to resign: and after lunch in his club we discussed the matter in leisurely fashion over coffee and cigarettes in the Smoking Room.   To cut a long story short I agreed to try it for another year: but before the end of that third year last year I gave notice that I would definitely go out with 1936: and did so.   So I have had no connection with either Council (in London) nor Scottish Committee in Edinbg for Art and Industry since this year began.   My influence therefore is nil: but I have consulted a friend closely both with Council and Committee and also, as it happens, with the forthcoming Glasgow Exhibit.   I wrote him a resume of your letter to me: and it is because I have been waiting for his reply that this letter has been delayed in posting.   His reply arrived today: but I don’t know that it amounts to very much.   The man himself I like: but like all prominent public figures, he seems to us artists to be too dam politic and cautious of utterance.   He thinks Mr. Paine has misunderstood Mr. Pick’s (Frank Pick, London Transport Ed.) views, and does not agree that Mr. Pick endorses design of continental origin: he states that one of the main points which the Council has made is that industry is dependent to far too great an extent on foreign sources – which is of course begging the question though I am sure he does not see this.

            He adds regarding Glasgow Exhib. that every effort is being made to employ British Artists: and that one of the conditions of Exhibition is that nothing from foreign sources may be shown.   – which again misses what I take to be your point:- foreign influences rather than foreign designs and designers.   He adds also that if Mr. Paine is ever in Edinburgh Mr. Brown the Secty of the Commission, will be very much interested to have a talk with him at his office 71 George Street or to have any communications from him.

            71 George Street is an office established by the Scott. Comm. for Art and Industry: and Mr. Brown a nice rather solemnly quiet young man whom you would find very pleasant.   Bye the bye one of the last things I did in 71 George as a member of Committee was to recommend you as designer for a Scottish national Mark.   I trust for Scotland’s sake that they get you.

With kindest regards

Yours sincerely

Douglas Strachan

11th October 1937

Pittendriech, Lasswade, Midlothian.

My Dear Paine,

            Just a hasty line to catch the evening mail.   Your admirable Mark designs (national Mark for Scotland Ed.) – just exactly what was wanted – a pattern … , and distinction, and yet the story as plain as a pikestaff: and then to read that they had been turned down.   For what?   I should like to know, and shall make a point of finding out.   Why the devil did I not think of holding on as a member until this was settled.   The footling things that had been already submitted before I knew anything about it – maps of Scotland with all the Western Isles!   : makes you sick.   I said what I thought about them the moment I learned of their existence:  and then a sub-committee was formed to deal with the matter: and I was on that:- and as I say, its one meeting was my last: that is, I had ceased to be a member before, or if, another meeting was called.   What I said was wanted was a big fat mark like a rubber stamp or stencil: a thing that should arrest attention as a shape yet at the same time be legible as words:- an extremely difficult thing to do with such limited space and subject matter.

            Many thanks for your kind invitation to come and see your glass.   I should greatly like to:- and might have done it early in September as we motored north from London – if I’d known.   But when I shall be in London again I don’t know:  for, like the curate in the old play, “I doant lyke Londun”:  and I hailed escape from the periodically enforced visit to attend the Art and Industry Council, as a boy does the first day of hols:-  though I should add that as big cities go, I prefer it to most: much prefer it to Paris for instance that all good Americans and Artists are expected to adore.   But how maddening that you can’t get your glass set in some church where it could be seen.   What about the Glasgow Exhib*. in that connection?   It is, I read somewhere, to have 2 chapels: one Presbyt. tother Pisky (Episcopalian Ed.):  and they’ll surely want windows.   Glasgow has lately been making rather an ass of itself, directing its fury against me and my kind: shouting that Glasgow is itself simply hotching with s. glass geniuses of the first rank, and that the city gates should be shut against all others.   But the Glasgow citizen and donor goes on his way unperturbed: and I shouldn’t think the Exhib. authority would be influenced by any dam (sic) nonsense of that sort.   Anyway if you would care to make and exhibit a window there I’ll write Bilsland (Sir Alexander Steven Bilsland 1892-1970, member of the executive committee of the Empire Exhibition Ed.) about it if you wish and think it worth your while.

Ever Yrs

Douglas Strachan

*The Exhibition referred to is the Empire Exhibition May to October 1938, ‘the last public showcase of the British Empire’.   The Exhibition showcased British industry generally although the industries of Glasgow and the West of Scotland were in the forefront.

1 January 1939

Pittenriech. Lasswade, Midlothian.

My dear Paine,

            Just a line to say how deeply your kind remembrance of us was valued: though I cannot better or equal the neatness of your wish that we might have all we would wish for ourselves, I can heartily return it: hoping 1939 will bring you satisfaction in your work, and as much material “success” as you may deem to be good.   We all know that financial success (and costly mode of life that results) is a danger to the artist:yet when circumstance leads some of us deeper and deeper into it we acquiesce or at least do nothing to stop it: yet I imagine that even the most pampered of fortune’s pets in this respect continues to live as rigorously behind the scenes as any of us: knowing in his very bones that overpayment brings no satisfaction at all to him: his one unchanging ambition and hope being that despite the fact that to him his past seems to consist mainly of failures to “get through”, he may yet rpoduce something that will satisfy him, and stand (i.e. the work) unashamed before his fellow artists.   The funny aspect of the matter is that while Reason makes it quite clear that one will never achieve this, the conviction that it may happen remains: unabashed: undaunted.

            Pardon this platitudinous page.   It is New Year’s Day: the dreariest, most characterless of all days: a dies non: a beast: a thing without flesh blood or breath or any existence or place in life – or thought: hence platitudes: for one has somehow to exist through it: a patch of time that might puzzle even J. W. Dunne to explain.   if it was only a question of one day per year one might manage somehow{ but even in this heathen land of Scotland, Christmas gives one a jolt: a reminder that the Awful Day approaches: so that between them these two precious festivals poison a week, leaving one with only 51 to enjoy oneself: and that’s not enough.

            But I must stop this drivel.  Even N.Y. Day can hardly excuse it.

Ever yours

Douglas Strachan

Following his return to England from California in 1930 Paine corresponded with Teuila.   17 of her letters, written between November 1936 and October 1948, are held by the National Library of Scotland.    Some letters are undated as to the year.   I have assigned a date to these by reference to the content.

13 November 1936                                                                                                                    Serena,                                                                                                                                                            Carpinteria,                                                                                                                                              California

My dear Charles and Jim*,

            Won’t  you please write to me?   Strange that a letter from Pond Hill from Jimmie fell out of my old portfolio – Then I remembered a letter from Charles – with another and others written later.   I looked it up.   Remember I’m getting oldish and forgetful – so forgive me – but I will always remember you both – and the long day you came and spent in the garden.    Your letters are so sketchy – and tell so little – when my interest is as great as ever.   You will see by this little edge (black) to my letter that sorrow has come to me.   My dear Ned – after twenty-two happy years – left me – so suddenly I am still staggering from the blow.   He threw himself  down for a Sunday siesta – and never woke again.   He was in such good spirits and seemingly in the best of health – a long way to go.   But oh my dears: That was on Sep 20th last – it seems so long ago.

            My autobiography “This Life I’ve Loved” has been accepted by the English publishers Longmans Green and Co.   The editor wrote ‘May I congratulate you on a delightful book?’   It will be a three dollar book with illustrations.   I cried my eyes out when I got the letter that Ned was not here to rejoice with me.   So you see I need a loving word from my old friends.

Affectionately yours

Teuila                                                 Mrs. Salisbury Field                                                              (aged 86 October 1944)

*cf. post 10 March 2018

13 December (1936)

My dear dear Charles,

            You would be surprised to know how often I have thought of you these years since you left Santa Barbara – whenever I see something beautiful – like a single flower – that you taught me to examine and appreciate and find out its secrets ‘like Sherlock Holmes’ – Or the branches of a tree in a pattern against the light – ‘study the pattern of the light as well as the silhouette of the tree’ – You opened new doors for me on new delights.   The other day I was shown some wonderful photographs taken by a man whose new hobby it is to magnify infinitesimal things – like a tiny insect’s wing – a feather – a cockle burr – a bit of dried weeds – and enlarging them and photographing them.   I thought of you at once “How interested Charles would be – he would use some of these marvellous designs in his decorative work” – and I wished you were with us –  to tell the photographer – and point out to him the beauty of the strange patterns.   He appreciated them but you could have shown him much more than his eyes could see.   I do hope and pray that you will wake up to enthusiasm in your work again.

            Do not be afraid to write frankly and freely to me.   You were so careful – so reticent that I was mystified.   I cannot understand.   I will read your letter once again – for the third time and then tear it up.   But there is no-one near me who would ever read it even if I left it open on my desk.   Do tell me please – as I understand it you could not get a divorce – what an unforgivable thing to send that …..  to your father!   Have you and Jim parted for ever?   Is your home with Anna?   Thank God for her care of you.

            I listened to the King’s abdication speech – and the tears rolled down my cheeks.   How well you can sympathise with him.   You too are denied what was denied him.   Surely all this publicity should have some effect on the obsolete divorce laws of England.

             It is not death that frightens me – what I mourn for is the companionship of twenty-two years – our foolish jokes and laughter – all the love and consideration that has surrounded me all these years.   Ned even bought my hats.   In New York he went into a millinery shop and said “I’d like to try on that hat” – and sitting before a mirror solemnly put it on his head.   Then seeing the amazed expression of the sales lady he explained “My head is the same size as my wife’s – and I think this would just suit her.   I’ll send her in to try it on” – I did and it was charming.

            Strangely enough he chose a black dress for me when we were in NY.   The modiste explained this – owing to the death of King George V black was the fashionable colour.   I have never had on a black dress as Ned liked me in colors – but he agreed this I must be stylish – picked out the heavy silk crepe – came to superintend the fittings and my dear that was the dress I wore for mourning.

            My book will be published in February – I’ll send you a copy.   It is an autobiography and I’ve called it “This Life I’ve Loved” – Ned was so interested (in it) and when I received the letter saying Longmans Green had accepted it – it nearly broke my heart that he wasn’t with me.   That’s what I mean – I miss him every minute.   Something funny happens – or something interesting – and he isn’t here to laugh with me or exclaim or “celebrate” as he would have done over my book.

            I have had a little shelf put up just outside my studio window where I put little dishes of seeds – and now as I write a bird is having a good breakfast.   I can sit here and make drawings of the birds as they come for meals.   They are getting quite tame.

            Our last little cocker spaniel Susie died of old age some time ago – and the house was very lonely without a bark in it.   The other day driving home from Los Angeles we passed a place where daschund puppies were for sale.   I bought a “miniature” one – a female three months old.   It’s amazing what a lot of charm and laughter one little puppy can bring into a sad and lonely house.   What breed is your little dog?  Oh Charles dear you have such a great and glorious talent – not only to create beauty but to inspire others.   I am so glad that you are beginning to “want to draw” – with a home and peace and love you should be able to spit on your hands and go to work with enthusiasm.   God bless you.

Your friend always

Teuila

15 January 1937

Oh my dear Charles,

            I got your cable this morning – no yesterday afternoon – and I’m so sorry to tell you there isn’t a chance.*   The poor old Community Arts is all shot to pieces.   The rich people who supported it were so disgusted with Mr. McLellan** they have all retired from it.   The Carnegie Ins. doesn’t give it any more help and how it manages to survive is a mystery to me.   I have always regretted that you did not stay on in California for times are picking up and you might be running the San Francisco School of Arts by now.

            I’m writing this as fast as I can to catch the air-mail.   I don’t like to cable NO – If the answer were yes I’d gladly do it.

            I’ll write more later.

Yrs always affectionately

Teuila

* I presume that Paine asked Teuila if there was an opening for him to return to the Community Arts in Santa Barbara.

** ‘MacLellan first shows up in the Santa Barbara City Directory in 1927, the same year he’s listed on the Board of Directors for the School of the Arts.    His title is listed as Secretary and Manager, and he is also Manager of the Music Branch of the school.    He remained on the Board of Directors through 1934.   He held a number of other positions in Santa Barbara including a short stint on the City Council, and ended up as an insurance broker and real estate agent.   He disappeared from Santa Barbara records after 1967 and died in Los Angeles on 17th November 1969.   I found nothing more than the School of Arts to connect this MacLellan to Paine or Fletcher.   We have nothing here to suggest any arguments Fletcher may have had with the Board of Directors, other than the hint given in the letter to the Rosenwald fund.   It is possible that the School’s archives, housed at UCSB, may provide some information.’   (Roy Regester, Santa Barbara Independent archive)

24 January 1937

My dear Anna,

            Thank you for your nice friendly letter.   Now will you be still kinder and tell me a coherent story of what has happened?   Charles refers to tragedy and hell – and yet seems to be happy now – and I’m really bewildered.   It’s not idle curiosity for I really love and admire Charles for the great artist he is.   When he came back here and we went to see him at the Fletchers I remember saying – on the way home – “I wish I could get him away from everybody.   He’s too sensitive to be tangled up in other people’s emotions.   None of them are considering his interests” – The Fletchers involved him in their quarrel – which was none of his.   And though Jim loved him madly she wanted to get him back to England where she wanted to live.   None of them realised that he had a great chance here – and none of them helped him – in fact they did everything in their power to hinder him.

            Please tell me why he and Jim parted – or could you?   Nobody here that I know knows any of you – though on all sides I still hear regrets that the greatest artist that ever came to California was allowed to leave – was really driven away by one assertive bumptious creature* who finally got control of the Community Arts and ran it into the ground.   There is nothing left.   The man who is now at the head of it has great difficulty getting the little money offered him – and has a hard time to get on.   He’s no painter – in fact there are none now in the Community Arts.   How it manages to stumble along is a mystery.   I never hear of it any more – and nobody is interested.   The rich people who supported it lost interest long ago – and the Carnegie Foundation withdrew their allowance.

            I hated having to send that discouraging letter to Charles – but a cable with the word NO would have been worse.

            Tell me something about yourself.   Are you too an artist – in colours and stained glass?   Russian or English?   I want to get acquainted with so good a friend of Charles.

Yours cordially

Teuila

*Probably MacLellan

10 February 1937

Serena

My dear Charles,

            Forgive this paper but it is much easier to write on than the other – where I always forget and run over the edge.   The other day I read in the morning paper a glowing account of a(n) exhibition of Santa Barbara artists at the Faulkner Gallery.   So I went down to see it.   Oh my dear – you never saw such a pitiful lot of daubs.   It was a(n) insult to the public to put such things in frames and lure people in by flattering comments.   Young Julian* was as good as any of the others and better than many – but his work is hard and he has no idea of values.   It is a pity he can not have lessons from a real painter as he is a hard worker and his mother is ambitious for him.   Admiring friends hurt him a lot I’m sure.   Truly there was not one picture in that whole exhibition that I would have in my house.   I long to see some good modern paintings.

            Will you ask Anna to do me a favor?   I want a catalogue with prices of Sheffield steel — dinner knives-pocket knives — pruning knives – that sort of thing that I can send for myself – and choose from the catalogue.   Can this be done without too much trouble?

            I’ve just come back from town – while there I went into Osborn’s book store where I was told they had bought a hundred and fifty copies of my book and had sold half of them already.   I was asked if I would come in and autograph them – and I said yes but what would I do if I sat at a desk pen in hand and nobody came?    I’ll send you a copy of the American edition when it comes out – but if you want the English edition you’ll have to get it for yourself.   It seems funny to me to have two editions.   I saw the jacket of my book – with the big Teuila flower – the sweet scented ginger – as the decoration.   It is charming – I’m so pleased with it.

            Do write and tell me how you are getting on – and don’t leave out any of the details.   With best wishes always.

Yours affectionately

Teuila

* Paul Julian (1914-1995), aged 21 in 1937.    He was born in Illinois on June 23, 1914.   Raised in an artistic home, Paul was the son of artist Esther Julian.   By 1922 he and his family had moved to Santa Barbara. His mother was his first painting teacher; she was both a student and a teacher at the SBSA.   He later studied with Lawrence Murphy, Millard Sheets, Belmore Brown, Charles Paine and at Chouinard Art Institute.   He worked on animations at Warner Bros. (where, among other things, he was the voice of the Roadrunner [“Beep, beep!”]).   He also worked at UPA Studios.   He continued living in Santa Barbara during the Depression and in the 1940s.   In 1937 Julian, under the auspices of the Federal Art Project, painted a large mural at the County Hospital, “Picnic on the Cliff” which shows some young families enjoying a picnic on a famous Santa Barbara locale.  “”The cliff was real…” he said.  “My brother and I had wandered all over the Mesa in the late Twenties before there were houses on it.”  That same year he had an exhibit in Santa Barbara, in the gallery of the Art and Frame Shop “…where he exhibited not only the marine scenes for which he had previously received acclaim, but paintings of figures in which he experimented with more complex composition, similar to that found in the hospital mural.”  The painting of this exhibit may be the one which Teuila’s letter refers to (though this exhibit was apparently held in the summer of 1937).  {“Noticias” Vol. XLI, No. 3, pp. 56-58 – a journal devoted to the study of the history of Santa Barbara County)   He was an employee of the Federal Art Project.   He was active in the Los Angeles art scene into the 1950s.   He died in Van Nuys, CA on September 5, 1995.

1 April 1937

(Americans move quick ???)                                                                                                                 Serena

My dear Charles,

            Please forgive a typewriter but I have it all set up and it will be much easier for you to read.   Your long letter interested me very much.   Oh my dear – I wonder if there ever was an artist – a real one whose life was smooth and easy.   Think of writing a screen story the best you ever did – and then find it badly cast because the studio had actors under salary — or worse still to find another person’s name on it with yours — one who livened up the story with some “Gag” – that are revolting.   Then in play writing my son wrote the best play of his life with Lafayette as the hero — and it was all ready for production — fine actors engaged – when it was all called off because the French repudiated their war debt and a Frenchman would be an unpopular hero.   I could tell you millions of heart-breaking stories like that.   What a grand idea the Japanese used to have – to give an artist a lovely house – plenty of money and let him work along his own line. My book will come out in America on March 17 — I haven’t heard yet about the English edition that will be published by Michael Joseph.

            I sent twenty or more photographs and sketches to Longmans and they chose eight – now Mr. Joseph has sent for them all as he wants more illustrations.   It will be funny having two editions.  I’ll send you one of Longmans books.   They have used my portrait by Herter for the frontispiece.

            How happy I would have been if I could have cabled “Come at once”.   I’d like you to see my murals — that you instructed me about by long distance.   I was able to criticise a mural Lilia Tuckerman was doing with something like intelligence.   No perspectives – and the cut-out as important as the design – other teachings of yours which she had never heard of and was much impressed.

            The papers are full of horrible stories of floods and strikes but life at Serena flows smoothly on.   A little dog – a daschund is a great help to cheerfulness – and Minnie (a real fat darkie momma C/) is of course the same rock of strength.   She just came in to say “I’m going mit the dog out”

With love dear Charles

from

Teuila

P.S. Reading this letter over it sounds very unsympathetic – Other people’s troubles don’t make yours any easier.   Believe me I do feel for you and it exasperates me that cheap work should be preferred to yours.   I’m hoping and praying that something good is coming your way – as a great and joyful surprise – and when it does nobody would rejoice more sincerely than your friend.    Teuila

May 25th [1937]

Dear Charles and Anna,

            I like beautiful people – I said once to Ned that strangely enough my best friends had always been beautiful – he rather spoilt that by declaring “When you like people you think they are beautiful.”   Well anyway I loved Anna’s portrait – and as for you Charles I always thought you were beautiful.   Anna’s face is so lovely – it’s no easy thing to write this letter.   Austin comes in to ask where the key is to the chest of tools – the wood-carving tools you got for me years ago.   I left off to search frantically.   Now I think I remember the key is on the ring that I put in my safe deposit box at the bank.   Discussion – not very complimentary about the care of keys — Now they are off – I hear the car door slam – and I can go on in peace.

            You do such nice things – I loved the gay little book marker with the crown on it – and I am reminded of you so often as I pick up my book and find my place.   Then yesterday the stamps came – of the king and Queen.   I kept the inside one and gave the one on the envelope to Mary, my daughter-in-law.   We sat up all night to listen to the Coronation ceremonies – isn’t that amazing – and were thrilled by the drama of it all and wept a little from sheer sentiment.   Austin and Mary have motored about England and love it and have many friends there.   When the prince – I forget his name – married the Italian Princess Mary was in Nantucket.   She got up at four in the morning – and wrapped in a rug she sat and listened to the wedding ceremony.   Her description of that was delightful.

                   So many people are telling me to write more of my life – bring it up to date – now you ask the same.   You don’t realise that the only excuse I had for publishing an autobiography (“Who does she think she is?”) is the fact that I was related to R.L.S.   Now if I go on it will be all ME.   Of course Ned Field and Austin and Lloyd too – but though they are well known they are not internationally famous as Louis was – and is.   One thing I like very much is so many write to me that they are re-reading Stevenson again.

            Hollywood friends on vacation in Honolulu told me they went over my tracks there.   From my cottage on Nuvan(w) Avi out to Waikiki stopping at the Palace – even going around the back colonade where I sat while the King had breakfast – then they took a boat and went to Maui to see the old plantation Ulapalakua.   While in Honolulu they sent me a box filled with Hawaiian delicacies – guava jelly – Papaia jam – kona coffee and the like with a golden lei on top!

            Damn the Royal Academy – Don’t they know a good thing when they see it?   Oh you – I sent you a pack of my cards for Anna.   I can’t tell them for her myself as she has to shuffle them and make a wish – but she can easily tell her own – and yours – and may your dearest wish come true.

           I am re-reading your letter.   Strangely enough the rare and lovely face of Anna doesn’t suggest a class at all.   I think I would like her very much – indeed I do already for your introduction with the background of her family was charming.

            I am in a dilemma – whether to mention or not the fact that the same mail that brought me the book-mark also brought a long letter from Katherine (Miss Jim) – I couldn’t help him thinking of your (?)   Shelley or Keats – (I rank you with the immortals) how valuable that letter would be to future historians.   As it is it only embarrasses me.   However I’ve lost it – or mislaid it – so I won’t have to answer it – and yes it seems discourteous not to.   So many people live their lives with a constant fear of “What will people say” – that I’m thrilled to know people who don’t care – at least I hope you don’t care – and I wish you happiness and peace and prosperity.

With love from

Teuila

23 August 1937

Serena

My very dear Charles,

            I do hope you are better by now – if you were only nearer I could run in and see you – and bring you a dish of my own Tamales – I’m making a batch of them today – real chicken – tamales – all wrapped in corn-husks and steamed – as different from the bought things as home-made pie and the kind you’d get at the grocers.   Did you learn to like them when you were in Santa Barbara?

            Last night I saw the most beautiful thing – I thought of you – and what a glorious picture you could make of it.   There is a new out-door theatre here – a place cut out of the hills.   A semi-circle of seats rising one above the other.   Across a wide space is the stage – behind that the mountain rises and there is a road along the summit.   Looking from the benches of the amphitheatre is like this [a rough sketch Ed.].   Along the top of the mt – at night by moonlight there came a procession of white Arabian horses and their riders – The mountain was softly lighted and along the summit came the lovely horses winding down to the corral.   they were like spirit horses descending from Heaven.   A lovely moon helped the scene – and as there was no light on the stage one did not see it – Only the horses – It was breath-takingly beautiful.

            We have had a three-day fiesta with booths – parades – stage-coaches – cow-boys and forest rangers – dancing in the streets and the pageant in the ‘bowl’ with the horses.

            My son and his wife are with me and they were delighted with it all.   Now we are pretty tired and willing to rest a bit.   It seems strange that Santa Barbara should have such a happy peaceful frolic when such terrible things are happening in the world.   In the midst of the parade an air-plane soared over – head the lights showing against the sky.   A beautiful sight but I thought of the horror air-planes are making in Spain and China!   How I wish you were here in this peaceful spot.   Europe is getting very dangerous.   We read the papers anxiously but the news is so confusing and contradictory it is hard to understand.

            My scrap book of reviews of my book is filled to the brim and there isn’t a bad one among them!   I’m getting a little shy of the word ‘naive’ – also when I tried on last year’s hat and found it too small for my head you can imagine the comments made by my family.

            When we were visiting in Hollywood a maid at the house told our hostess it was so nice to ‘see a mother and son so congealed’ – and added that most of the sons she knew were ‘nit for nothings’ – when I told that story to a friend she said a lady describing a fancy dress ball said her son went ‘in the garbage of a bishop’ –

            I have a little shelf outside my studio window where I scatter seeds.   The birds come and are so close I can draw them – just now a mocking bird is sitting on the rose bush trying to make up its mind and to come and get something to eat.

            I’ve looked everywhere for your last letter for I know there are things in it I’d like to answer but I put it away so carefully I can’t find it!   Anyway this brings you my best wishes for your health and your success – Give Anna a kiss from me and tell her to take the best of care of my dear Charles.

Affectionately

Teuila

25 September 1937

Serena

My dear Charles,

            It is a lovely sunny afternoon and I’ve just read your long and friendly letter when you were getting well enough to walk again.   I was so glad to hear from you but oh why did you use such a terrible faint pencil so that I could hardly read your letter – even with the aid of a magnifying glass.   You – who live in England where they have the finest pencils in the world.   I remember you gave me one once that I kept and used until it wasn’t an inch long.   Talking of that – I’ve kept everything you ever gave me.   Austin was turning out an old chest in my studio looking for some photographs and came across the sketch of a bird.   It is in colour chalk – so gay and perfect you expected the little thing to burst into song at once.

            I can’t understand why you haven’t a crowded class – there never lived anyone who could teach so well – for you some way arouse enthusiasm not only in those who want to draw – but in the pupils who are sent to your class by their parents and arrive perfectly dull and unresponsive.   I’ve seen them after three lessons eagerly calling out ‘Come and see what I’ve done!   Tomorrow I’m going to do …’   that sort of thing.   I know you made me want to try my hand at every form of art from stained glass windows to iron grille.

            I wish I knew how these Englishmen who come over here to lecture get their jobs.   I know one who was paid 4000 dollars for three months at a College to give lectures on Shakespeare!   He lived at the College and had his meals there so he must have left with his $3000 intact.   How I wish you could get a job like that – and what you could teach would do a lot more good than a knowledge of Shakespeare.   Anna asked me if I thought you could paint – What a question!   My dears I never knew anyone who could do it better – not only painting but drawing and wood carving and stained glass window work and any mortal thing you turned your clever hands to.   In the old days when genius was recognised you’d have been given a Cathedral and told to go ahead and decorate it – and what fun you’d have had.

            Have you ever heard of San Simeon?*   It is Mr. Hearst’s estate on the coast – the most magnificent place my eyes ever beheld.   He has bought the insides of Cathedrals and palaces in Italy and elsewhere – and built them inside his grand houses.   When Ned and I visited him I saw Italian workmen very busy.   Where the mosaic didn’t fit or a carved ceiling was too small they had to fill in with replicas which they were making themselves – and they were having a grand time doing it.

            When I visited the big moving-picture studios in Hollywood the people I envied and admired the most were the artisans – the men who built the miniature cities and ships – and designed scenery villages – wandering through a sort of warehouse I saw a lovely old door of carved wood – and looking closer I saw it was made of papier-mâché or I was told it was.   The Chief Artisan said to me ‘We have more fun than the actors – We are told what is wanted – but no-one shows us how to do it’ – ‘What do they want?’ I asked – and he laughed ‘Anything from a fleet of miniature men-of-war to a castle on a rock with mountains behind it’ – Never the same twice.   You’d love that kind of work – and golly how you could do it!

            The little dog that runs this house is a daschund – that isn’t the way to spell it but you know what I mean.   Her name is Mitzi and a little while ago I went out to see what she was whining about – and learned that she wanted a string bean.   One was given to her and she ate it greedily – raw.   I never knew such a dog.   She’s healthy and lively so the diet must agree with her.

            I can’t remember if I sent you an interview in the News Press – if I did throw this one away.   I thought it might amuse you.   The other day I got a review of my book from Hobart Tasmania.

            With love to you both and all my good wishes for better luck.

Affectionately

Teuila

* Home of William Randolph Hearst.   Xanadu in Citizen Kane

Undated   [1937]

Mrs. Salisbury Field                                                                                                                                Serena                                                                                                                Carpintaria                                                                                                                             California

My dear Charles,

            The pruning knife has not come yet but it will probably appear when I’ve sent off this letter.   I sent you a cent – for it would be a tragedy if anything could come between us —–

‘If you love me as I love you                                                                                                                  No knife can cut our love in two’

            I have received catalogues, of courtesy from England and America thanks to you.   A friend of mine and her husband (an Englishman) are on their way to London for the coronation – and I gave them several of the catalogues with a description of what I want and they will get them for me.   I know they will because I expressed a wish for an Edward VIII mug and now I have one on my mantelpiece.   Oh dear I had one with Queen Victoria’s picture on it – a relic of the Diamond Jubilee – but it got lost.

            I hope you have received my book by now – the American edition.   I wonder what the English publisher will do with it?   I’m sure of one thing he can’t make it any more attractive – on the outside I mean.

            The reviews have all been so good my head is fairly turned – and it is now the second edition – before the month is out (It was on sale March 17th).

            I do hope Anna is out of the hospital and much better in health.   I think the worst suffering there is – and I have gone through several kinds – is to see one you care for in pain and be unable to help.

            It is a glorious California day.   The little shelf outside my studio window – that was your idea wasn’t it? – is full of little birds coming for the grain I scatter there every morning.   With the window shut I can get close enough to them to make very careful drawings.

            My son* and his wife bought a Ford car and are motoring across the continent singing ‘California here I come’ – And am I agitated?   it has taken the form of house cleaning – and I’m putting things away so neatly I’m sure I’ll never find them again.   I’m a little nervous about my daughter-in-law spending the summer with me.   I love her – but she is a neat Yankee house-keeper and her house is spotless.   Minnie and I are not in her class.

            We  have a little dog – Mitzi six months old.   We’ve had her since Christmas as I gave her to Minnie as a present.   A daschund is as different from a spaniel as possible.   She is lively gay mischievous full of the devil – but has none of that endearing charm of the spaniel – but of course we are getting more and more devoted to her.   Minnie spends a lot of time ‘going mit the dog out’ –

            Do tell me if you got your picture into the Exhibition?   I can’t tell you how much I value the stained glass window you made for me.   It is much admired and throws a light on St. Gaudens plaque of 1219? – hung across the narrow entry.   Below on each side are narrow book-cases where I keep RLS first editions.   When you were here last did you see the new additions we have put on the house?   The library upstairs and the studio?   Oh dear I wish you weren’t so far away there is so much to talk about.

With love to you both

Affectionately

Teuila

* Austin Strong (1881-1952), son of Teuila’s first marriage to the artist Joe Strong.   He wrote successful Broadway plays, The Drums of Oude and Seventh Heaven, among others.    He died 17 September 1952, pre-deceasing his mother then aged 95 who died June 26 1953.

Undated [1937]

Mrs. Salisbury Field                                                                                                                                Serena                                                                                                                                                        Carpinteria                                                                                                                                               California

Dear Charles,

            The knife has come!   And a fine stout one it is.   I wanted to go out at once and prune everything in sight.   The postman brought the package – nothing to pay – no customs dues – it might have come from Los Angeles.

            I’m so eager to hear about the works of art you sent to the exhibition.   I hope they have the sense to accept them and give them a good place on the line.   I remember how the artists in Paris used to yowl when their pictures were ‘skied’.

            My son and his wife will be here soon.   How I wish you were here.   he would love your work – with real appreciation for he’s a born craftsman himself.   I wish you could see the sets he designs for his plays – all in miniature with every detail worked on.   One I remember was a room in a NY flat.   The radiator – the view of the housetops from the window.   Pictures on the wall and even the man’s pipe and newspaper on a table with a comfortable chair beside it.   All in bad taste and real comfort if you know what I mean.   He would follow you about and want to try his hand at everything you were doing.   He’s had a year of horribly hard work with a cruel disappointment at the end.   Cast all engaged play ready for rehearsals and his leading lady who was to come from California was taken ill – All put off and delayed till the autumn.   He came near to a nervous breakdown and says he yearns for the peace and rest at Serena.   Even the name is soothing.   They are motoring out taking their time – stopping by the way – visiting historical places.   Taking time off to stay with friends.   He telephoned me from Virginia that he was already much better – well in fact and would arrive all rested to spend the summer with me.

            Anna said nothing about her health so I’m hoping she’s all right again.

            Now my dear – I’ve just lit a taper before Ko Ung – asking her to bring you luck.   What I see is a turn of the road –

‘Not by appointment do we meet Delight and Joy –                                                                 They heed not our expectancy –                                                                                                           But round some corner of the street of Life                                                                                      They on a sudden greet us with a smile.’

              I don’t know who wrote that but it has been my comfort in many a dark hour.   And it’s True – as I’ve discovered.   I did that so badly I’ll copy it out for you on a card.

My love to you both

Always yours affectionately

Teuila

10 December 1937

Mrs. Salisbury Field                                                                                                                                Serena

My dear Charles,

            If I wrote to you as often as I think of you you’d get a lot of letters – but I’ve never been so busy in my life as during the last few months.

            Think of me – ME – talking before clubs in Monterey – Sacramento – San Francisco – Los Angeles – Santa Barbara and Hollywood:  Also yapping over the radio and spending afternoons in bookshops autographing copies of my book:  Then I have been getting shoals of fan letters that I feel I really should answer when people are kind enough to write telling me how much they like my book.   But it takes a lot of time – all this is explanatory and dull.

            I meant to have written you long ago after meeting Mr. & Mrs. Lockwood de Forest.   Your ears should have burned we talked about you so enthusiastically.   They are both devoted to you – and as I am too we all felt very friendly.   Strangely enough it was the first time I ever met them and I remembered that you had asked after them in your last letter.   They were so pleased to be remembered.   We praised you and damned – double-damned Mr. McClellan – which reminds me that you (have) another friend and admirer here in Mrs. Curtis Cate.   I was glad to hear that everyone who upheld Mr. McClellan when he was riding roughshod over the Community Arts are – is – bitterly opposed to him now – even Mrs. Raymond and Mrs. Gould.   Mrs. Cate declared that the only time she was tempted to use bad language was when she spoke of Mr. McC and what he did to the Community Arts.   She admired your work tremendously – so you see you are not forgotten.

            In your last letter you said you were getting better in health.   I wish you could have some of our sunshine – we are now having the first rain in seven months – and it’s a soft warm rain at that.

            This is wishing you and your Anna a Merry Christmas and a really prosperous New Year.   I hope this old year will see the last of your many troubles – it’s time Lady Luck looked your way – more than once I’ve lit a taper before Ko Ung begging her to do you a good turn.   I hope she has – and will.

               Do write again soon – and ask Anna to write – women have a way of filling in the details.   My love to you both.

Always yours faithfully

Teuila

P.S.  Austin and his wife are still with me and this year we are preparing a good old-fashioned Christmas with turkey and plum pudding – a tree and presents.   My nephew and his wife and my favourite cousin Col. Orr are coming for it.   We will drink to ‘absent friends’ and I’ll think of you.

31 December [1937]

Mrs. Salisbury Field                                                                                                                                Serena

My dears,

            How sweet of you to send me a cable on Christmas Day.   It brought you both so near.

            I wish I were twins.   One of me could write another book and the other one could draw paint and make wood cuts.   I have a careful line drawing of one of our Christmas trees set up in the studio window with packages piled up around it.   In a block print one could put in the coloured papers and fancy bows and gilt and silver.   I want to do it for next Christmas.   Then my publisher and friends keep pestering me to write another book which I could do before this one is forgotten.  (In 1951 A Bit of My Life was published).   But it’s hard to throw my mind back over the past when the present is so interesting.

            We’ve had glorious weather these last few months – the kind of sunny days sunsets and moonlight nights that make California famous.   Not enough rain yet so we won’t mind when we get a real downpour.

            Some of my Christmas presents were bulbs – big boxes of them – and there isn’t anything so promising.

            I had a lovely Christmas with my son and his wife with me and I reveled in doing ‘matriarch’ with relations gathered about the Christmas tree – my nephew and his wife and my favourite cousin.

            It is the last day of the old year.   1938 doesn’t look so very bright with wars and strikes and stock-market slumps.   I’m glad I’m not young for the future doesn’t appeal to me.   If only the English-speaking peoples could join together without jealousy or discord they could do wonders – Perhaps they will.

            My love to you both and my best wishes for a Happy Healthy and Prosperous new Year.

Affectionately

Teuila

22nd June 1939

 Serena,                                                                                                                                                      California

Dear Charles,

            How sweet of you to send me that delightful poster.   I didn’t have to look at the signature to know who did it.   I think I’d know one of your birds anywhere.

            It’s been so long since I heard from you.   You never did explain how it was that you gave up the plan of a round trip to New York.   I was so excited about it, and sent radio messages out to the ship, not getting your letter until later.

            Judging by the dash and splendour of the poster, I imagine you are well again, and I hope you have plenty of work ahead.

            I get so worried about you and Anna when I read about gas masks and armaments and horrors.   I was relieved, though, when the King and Queen left for their American visit, for I was pretty sure they wouldn’t go away from England if the island was in any danger.   They made a tremendous success here,  and my son and his wife had the honour of — seeing them.   They were penned up behind a rope — invited guests — for four hours, and had the privilege of seeing the royal couple pass by.   Austin, whose boyhood was spent in Vailima, under the British flag and who went to college in Wellington (a military college [in New Zealand] where he wore the British uniform, with a little pillbox cap strapped under his chin), would have waited four hours more for the privilege of seeing British royalty.

Do write me, my dears, and believe me, always,

Yours affectionately,

Teuila

7th November 1939

Serena,                                                                                                                                                      California

My dear Charles,

            I enclose some cuttings that may interest you.   if this thing turns out to be any good, I will try to interest Mrs. Schott in you, though I think it’d pretty difficult when you’re so far away, and getting here would be so difficult.    How I wished you had stayed on when you had that offer in San Francisco.

            Do you remember a young man who was studying at the Community Arts – Dick Kelsey?*   Well, he went down to Hollywood, got a job with Disney, and is doing very well indeed.   His salary has been raised several times, and he has even bought land; he and his wife are making plans for building a house.   That was the opportunity I wanted for you – something in Hollywood, where the real money is.   To be sure, they work you to death, but Dick loves it, and says they have a night school free for the artists, where he is learning more than he ever could in any other place.

            Do write and tell me how you are getting on.   I am so worried about you, and so sorry I couldn’t send you an encouraging cable.

My best wishes to you both,

Always yours affectionately,

Teuila

P.S.  If I should have to send you a cable, haven’t you a shorter address that would reach you?   Every word counts, as you know, and your address is a terribly long one.

* Dick Kelsey, by given name of Richmond Kelsey, was an important early animation art director and pioneer theme park designer and illustrator of chidren’s books.   His career spanned several of the most beloved Disney films in the 1940s – 1950s, after which he assisted in the design of Disneyland in 1955.   Translating the screen arts to real building, Kelsey was hired by the Marco Rngineering firm of Cornelius Vanderbilt Wood to be a lead art director to design Magic Mountain theme park at Golden, Colorado in 1957.   Later Kelsey became mentor to another prominent Disney artisan, Ron Dias, whose films include Sleeping Beuaty.   In time, Kelsey returned to Disney work, including Bedknobs and Broomsticks and illustrating children’s books of Disney films.   (Wikipedia)

24th September 1948  

(A post card)

[In 1947 Mrs. Field left Serena and moved into the luxurious El Mirasol Hotel, demolished in the 1960’s]

Mrs. Salisbury Field,                                                                                                                           El Mirasol Hotel,                                                                                                                                      Santa Barbara,                                                                                                                                         California

Dear Charles and Anna,

            I’ve just had a 90th birthday – and I’ve had to write so many ‘thank you’ cards I can hardly hold a pen – I received two cheques from royalties of ‘Twin Beds’ and ‘Wedding Bells’ – my dear Ned’s plays – and they came like birthday gifts.   My avalanch (sic) of birthday cards were, many of them, from strangers – showing how much I owe RLS – I’ll write you a real letter when I get my breath.   My love to you both.   How I wish I could see your water colours of Ireland!

Teuila

Addressed to:                                                                                                                                            Charles Paine Esq.,                                                                                                                                  43 Longcroft Lane,                                                                                                                                  Welwyn Garden City,                                                                                                                              Herts.                                                                                                                                                           England

31st October 1948

Mrs. Salisbury Field,                                                                                                                               El Mirasol Hotel                                                                                                                                       Santa Barbara,                                                                                                                                         California

Dear Charles and Anna,

            This little book* has been treasured by me all these years.   When you wrote that you were teaching a class in drawing I thought you might like to have it.   I had a copy made some years ago – what fun I had doing those murals for my studio!   When I sold Serena I hated to leave them there – for with your help and advice I did some pretty good work.   I wish now I’d had photographs made of them.   They were all scenes from Haiti the Negro republic in the West Indies.   I sketched all the time I was there – two months – and hated to leave.   Every way you looked you saw picturesque subjects – the houses old French architecture – Negro huts – wonderful grill work over gateways – but it would take pages to describe that country.   When I was in Hollywood I joined a class that was modelling and now I have two figurines I did from some Haiti sketches.   A week ago I sent you a CARE** parcel which I hope arrived safely.   My love to you both – and I hope Wendy is still with you.   The years of a dog’s life are too few – while my own two cats lived for twenty years.

Aloha from Teuila

* This is Teuila’s ‘Precious Book’, her art class notebook of ‘What I learned from Mr. Paine’.   It is now held by the National Library of Scotland along with her letters.

** CARE was founded in 1945, when 22 American organizations came together to rush lifesaving CARE Packages to survivors of World War II.   Thousands of Americans, including President Harry S. Truman, contributed to the effort.)   In 1945, the newly formed CARE (then the Co-operative for American Remittances to Europe) initiated a programme to send food relief to Europe, where large numbers of people were at risk of starvation.   The organisation obtained permission from the U.S, government to send U.S. Army surplus ’10-in-1′ food parcels to Europe.   The parcels had been prepared for an invasion of Japan, which never transpired.   Americans were given the opportunity to purchase a CARE Package for 10 dollars to send to friends and relatives in Europe.   Packages were guaranteed to arrive within four months.   Even when a donor did not know an address of a beneficiary, CARE would find that person using the last address known.   the CARE package thus became a ‘missing person’ service in the chaos following World War II.   (Wikipedia)

Whenever circumstances permitted Paine kept a dog.

Paine with Jenny at 43 Longcroft Lane, Welwyn.

‘This is Jenny my true friend.   Sometimes we sits and thinks.   Sometimes we just sits.’

Jenny’s studio portrait.

Paine with Lisa at La Guerdainerie Cottage, Trinity, Jersey c.1965.

Paine painted these shapes for use as teaching aids.

Cow studies.   Undated.

Dogs playing (?)   Undated.

Plant studies.   Undated.

Turtle copied from ‘Reptiles, Amphibians, Fishes and lower chordata’                            Edited by J.T. Cunningham Methuen 1912

Undated

Paine always carried a notebook and sketched in pen or pencil, whichever was to hand.   All undated.

The Russell Hotel is probably the Hotel Russell on Russell Square, Bloomsbury, London, renamed the Kimpton Fitzroy on 24 October 2018.

Reclining nude dated 18 March 1966.

Paine attended life drawing classes during the year before his death in 1967.

Saint Francis.   Undated.   Signed lower right ‘Charles Paine’.

No doubt the drawing reflects the legend of St. Francis preaching to the birds.   Even the fish are drawn by his holiness.

I don’t know which saints are represented.   Undated.

All undated

Pencil study for Observer Jack Cliff

Observer Jack Cliff, Part B                                                                                                     Passed for Publication 26 Oct 1942 Press and Censorship Bureau

See post March 10, 2018

Studies for baby face

John Duke of Marlborough

Undated

Study for black king in the memorial window Paine designed for Queen’s Park High Parish Church, Queen’s Drive, Glasgow.   (cf. post October 23, 2017)

The following are unnamed and undated

Paine was renowned for his cartoons though he was never, so far as is known, a professional cartoonist.   This cartoon in celebration of the New Year could be a scene from The Wind in the Willows.  It was drawn for John Platt during the 1930s.

‘Should auld acquaintance be forgot . . .’    Blackheath 1930s

(Reproduced by kind permission of the estate of John Platt)

Jocelyn Morton observed that Paine’s ‘whimsical personality’ was as striking as ‘the imaginative quality of his work’.   (Jocelyn Morton Three Generations of a Family Textile Firm: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1971)    He reproduced this letter from Paine to his father, James Morton.

Mrs Hards, Paine’s neighbour at Welwyn, told how these little comments on his neighbours and fellow citizens would appear on her doormat at regular intervals.   She recalled how one of Paine’s ‘caricatures of a Mrs. Stock with “rather protruding teeth” was left accidentally on the seat at a concert she had organised.’   (Charles Paine 1895 -1967 Article by Ambrose Hogan and Sue Kirby, Welwyn Hatfield Museum Service 1992)

Charles Paine and Joan Bolshaw were married at Holy Trinity Church, Horwich, Lancashire, on 18 October 1962.   Paine was 67 and Joan was 48.   They honeymooned for two weeks in London and Tunbridge Wells before returning to Gorey Pier.   Paine commented on events in a series of cartoons.

Don’t forget the ring.

The honeymoon

Married bliss

Joan’s sister, Greta, lived at Horwich in Lancashire and Paine got on very well with her Scottish husband, Mac (Bertie McPherson), a retired railway engineer.   Mac was short and stout, humorous and fond of a dram and Charles was tall and lean and by no means a teetotaler.   Rivington Pike is a summit of Winter Hill and is clearly visible from Horwich.   They would be sent out every day for a walk with the dogs, Joe, a golden retriever, and Mungo, a black labrador.     This birthday card commemorates these events.

Paine as a Scotsman

Paine as a rattlesnake

This was probably drawn one evening at The Moorings Hotel, Gorey, during the early 1960s.

All I know about this baby cartoon is that it makes me smile.

Undated

This is my only record of this watercolour.   The location of the courtyard is unknown though it is probably in Jersey and painted during the 1950s, perhaps in St. Helier.

Paine made a number of preliminary sketches in a notebook which give some indication of colour and show his meticulous preparation and attention to detail.

When Paine returned to London from California in 1931 he ‘resumed private practice and research work’ (Paine’s CV).   In addition he was appointed visiting teacher at the Blackheath School of Art*, where the part-time Principal (1929-39) was his friend, John Platt.   This appointment terminated on the outbreak of war in 1939 when the school was taken over by the Army.

In 1932 Paine was appointed to reorganise the Training School Design and Drawing classes at the Royal School of Needlework, a task completed in 1934.   John Platt, was instrumental in obtaining the appointment.   Paine expressed his gratitude with this cartoon of himself, crowned with triumph, plying a needle at a sewing frame.

* For an excellent account of Paine’s work at the Blackheath School of Art see the BSA historian and archivist’s blog:    http://bowleybear.blogspot.com/

(Reproduced by kind permission of the estate of John Platt.)

I have no further information regarding Paine’s work at the RSN.   The study for the first greetings telegram (cf. posts October 17, 2017;  October 20 2017) indicates that he retained a connection through the 1930s.

Charles Paine was born at 25 Charles Street, at Pendleton in the district of Salford, in Lancashire, on 23 October 1895.   His twin brother, Ernest, died in December 1896.   Another sibling also died.   His sister, Gertrude, was born at Pendleton in 1889.   Paine said that he was so small at birth he would have fitted into a milk jug.      He described himself as a ‘mischievous person’ who enjoyed life and worked hard.    As a boy he was constantly getting into trouble.   He used to walk home from school along a canal and sit on horse-drawn barges and travel many miles from home.   His mother, Fanny Godwin, probably from a farming family at Macclesfield, was born in 1861.   She married Charles Paine Senior at Salford in 1888.   She died at Carshalton in Surrey in 1935.  The 1911 census records her as Head of the household aged 48 while he was ‘out of the country on business’.     

Paine’s father, Charles (1860-1940), was the manager of an India Rubber works though the 1891 census gives his occupation as ‘commercial traveller/manager of rubber works’. According   to  his third wife (Joan Jefferies née Bolshaw), Charles senior was a strict Methodist and a man with no feeling for art.   According to his grandson, Nelson Paine, he was ‘an irascible man who disapproved most strongly at [Paine] becoming an artist’.     He expected his son to go into the rubber business.   Paine’s uncle showed some of his drawings to Gordon Forsyth, art director of Pilkington’s Tile and Pottery Company at Clifton in Greater Manchester and later Director of the Burslem School of Art, who was favourably impressed.   Paine’s uncle went   to see his father, presumably to                 Charles Paine circa 1906/7                 persuade him to allow his son to study art, and was ordered out of the house (so the story goes).                                                                                                              

At 16 Paine enrolled at the Salford School of Art under Messrs. P. J. J. Brooks and B. D. Taylor, where he was apprenticed to the craft of making stained glass.   He also attended evening classes at the Manchester Municipal School  of Art under Richard Glazier.   The 1911 census records him as an ‘art student’.   In 1915 he graduated from Salford to study at the Royal College of Art in London.   At the R.C.A. his ability was recognised and he was awarded a National Scholarship, a precursor of a grants scheme.    In 1916 Paine was living at 11 North View, Brentham, Ealing W.  In that year he first exhibited at the Royal Academy, a design for a stained glass window.  I have not been able to find any record of this.

His father did not cut him off entirely and may have contributed to the cost of his training.   If he did refuse to pay for his training (uncertain) he certainly helped him financially later on when he got married.  (1920)  (Eventually he left all his money to a niece, most probably Gwendoline Worthington, who remained unmarried and died at Lytham St. Annes in 1949.)   After he left home Paine saw little of his father who died in 1940.

Christmas Social 1916 Royal College of Art

(Paine seated 2nd from right.   Others unknown.)

Paine spent a total of six terms at the R.C.A. between October 1915 and 4th July 1919 and graduated with the degree A.R.C.A.   His studies were interrupted by the War when in 1917 he was conscripted into the Admiralty Inspection Section.   He was said to have learned a lot about gun cotton.   One anecdote survives from that time.   When the war ended he was in a car going past the famous ‘Cat & Fiddle’ near Buxton, the second highest pub in England, with ‘a dull admiral’.  The admiral exclaimed, ‘Hurrah!   Hurrah!’ which Paine evidently found very amusing.   He never took himself too seriously and was amused by pomposity in others.

On 1st July 1920 Paine married Marian (‘Marie’) Jane Nelson at St. Stephen’s Green Church in Dublin, an Irishwoman aged 30, a fellow student at the R.C.A.  The Irish conductor and composer Havelock Nelson (1917-1996) was her nephew.   Paine’s mother, Fanny, was a witness.   It seems likely that his father did not attend.   Nelson Paine said that for Paine’s father his son marrying ‘an Irish girl . . . was the last straw!’    His residence is given as Burwin, Accresfield Road, Pendleton Manchester.   They had one child, a son, Charles Nelson Paine, born in 1923.   It was not a happy marriage.   The story was told that while he was out one Sunday Maria’s sister and her husband came to visit.   Paine was painting a portrait and his brother-in-law (cf. post ‘Buoyant Chairs’ December 17, 2017) drew a moustache on it.   This, apparently, was the last straw.   Paine packed up and left (1928).   Marian returned to Ireland in the summer of 1930 with Nelson, then aged 7, and lived at Dunlaogherie.  Thereafter Paine had very little connection with his father.

For a fuller account of these events see ‘Marian, Katherine and Anna’ 22 October 2018.

Following his graduation from the R.C.A. in 1919, aged 24, Paine was appointed Head of the Department of Applied Arts at Edinburgh College of Art with the brief of reorganising the department, the beginning of a distinguished career.

Revised 1925

 AT WAIKIKI, HAWAII

      Front row (left to right):  Ah Foo, the cook, R.L.S., Mrs. R.L.S., Lloyd Osbourne               Standing:  Mrs. M.I. Stevenson, and Isabel Osbourne (Teuila)

‘Teuila’* was the familiar name by which Isobel Osbourne, the step-daughter of Robert Louis Stevenson, was known in Samoa.   Her mother Fanny Osbourne married Stevenson in 1880.   The last years of his life were spent at Vailima in Samoa where he settled in 1890.   Teuila’s luminous autobiography, This Life I’ve Loved (Michael Joseph 1937), describes the rich and exciting life there.   She was Stevenson’s secretary for four years until his death in 1894.

*  ‘Teuila’ is pronounced ‘chewila’ with the emphasis on the first syllable.   It means the flower of the Samoan ginger plant.

Following her mother’s death in 1914 she married the author, poet, playwright and journalist, Edward ‘Ned’ Salisbury Field (1878-1936).   Field was an employee and friend of William Randolph Hearst   He made drawings for Hearst newspapers, signing them ‘Childe Harold’.   As a young news man in his 20’s, Field became the secretary, protégé and possibly lover of Fanny Stevenson (who was 38 years older), after the death of her husband.    After Fanny’s death in 1914, Field married her daughter Isobel Osbourne (‘Teuila’), who was 20 years his senior.  He became  a  successful  Southern  California  real  estate   developer.   In  the  1920’s  oil  was  discovered  on  some of his  property which made them wealthy.

Isabel Osbourne at Monterrey

by Joseph Strong

Allen Herbert’s House 1896

Watercolour by Isobel Osbourne, Honolulu Academy of Arts

Mrs. Field (Isobel ‘Belle’ Osbourne 1858-1953) was an accomplished artist who continued to study the craft throughout her life.   She attended Paine’s popular art classes at the Community Arts in Santa Barbara (cf. post November 26, 2017) during the nineteen-twenties.

Isobel Field 1937

In 1926 the Fields purchased Zaca Lake and surrounding land on Figueroa Mountain near Los Olivos.   Isobel built an artist’s studio at Serena and the Field home became a popular meeting place for writers and actors.   Paine designed a stained glass window for the house which may still be there.   He also helped Mrs. Field to design and execute some murals, giving advice by letter from England.

                                           Mrs Salisbury Field                                                

(From a painting by Alfred Herter)

Mrs. Field was greatly impressed by Paine and evidently thought him a genius.   In a letter dated 25 September 1937 she wrote, ‘I can’t understand why you haven’t a crowded class – there never lived anyone who could teach so well – for you some way arouse enthusiasm not only in those who want to draw – but in the pupils who are sent to your class by their parents and arrive perfectly dull and unresponsive’.

Elsewhere she refers to his ‘great and glorious talent –  not  only   to   create beauty but to inspire others’ (13 December 1936).   And again, ‘In the old days when genius was recognised you’d have been given a Cathedral and told to go ahead and decorate it …’   (25 September 1937)    In 1948 she sent Paine her note-book, her ‘Precious Book’.   She wrote, ‘This little book has been treasured by me all these years’.   The  ‘Precious Book’, inscribed ‘What I learned from Mr. Paine’ is now lodged with the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh together with the seventeen letters she wrote to Paine between 1936 and 1948.   (cf. post 17 November 2018)

Teuila Fortune Telling Cards — 1899/1923

In 1937 Teuila sent Paine a pack of her tarot cards as a present for Anna.   His third wife, used them to tell fortunes, guests frequently being entertained with a ‘cut of cards’.  They are now owned by Joan Paine’s daughter.

The cards were made by the U.S. Playing Card Co. in Cincinnati, Ohio.   The instruction sheet says they are copyright 1897-1904; they were first published in 1899.   There are 45 cards in the deck (not 35 as stated in the advertisement); plus 7 with instructions, including a Life Card and an advertising card for the company that isn’t used as part of a reading (it functions as a joker if you’re using the deck for playing cards; evidently the Life Card would be the other joker).

During her time in Hawaii, Mrs. Field (then married to the artist, Joseph Strong), became a friend of King Kalakaua.   In her autobiography she says, ‘When the Queen gave a garden party at Iolani Palace, often for the benefit of some charity, I was always asked to tell fortunes.   On the backs of my calling cards, I had drawn and painted little symbols – a horseshoe for luck, a bee to signify work, a heart for love, etc.   These cards were the beginning of my Teuila Fortune Telling Cards.’

A number of Paine’s works were issued as post cards during the 1950’s.   The original for ‘Jersey born and bred’ was in acrylic.   The breakwater extending from left to right is a familiar Paine compositional device.   Other examples include ‘Tramore Cove’ and ‘Geoffrey’s Leap’.

The scene is loosely based on St Catherine’s Breakwater, but the background coastline is misleading.   France is 15 miles away, and the rocks in between, the Ecrehous reef, are seven miles off-shore.  The lighthouse looks overlarge for the tiny metal tower that once stood there, long since replaced by something more modern.

The cow is recognizably a Jersey but with exaggerated features.   The tradition was to peg a cow in a field to restrict grazing, as over-rich grass could cause problems.   The animal shown is obviously young with tiny horns and so unlikely to have been pegged out.

One would not see waves rolling in as shown, except in violent storms, and whilst it is a popular place for sailing, there is no beach to run ashore on.   The stylised farm buildings could be shown in pink granite, but that is not the rock used for the breakwater which is made of a grey conglomerate, quarried very locally.   The rock-face on the left represents the cliff from which some of the stone was cut – and which remains alongside the road.  Below it the rows of plants with sticks could be tomatoes which used to be cultivated outdoors – but not alongside this seashore.

The buildings do not exist as shown but are rather a symbolic representation of local architecture of the 19th century as in the arched entrance to the barn.   The very strange chimney is meant to show jutting stones which were traditionally used on chimney stacks to stop rain getting in to a thatched roof.   The technique continued with slates.  The circular structure is a cider apple-crusher, the mill-stone pulled around by a horse, and the pulp transferred to a large press, weighed down with a heavy wooden beam, this second process taking place inside the building.   We may imagine that the artist worked from photographs to create a composite of the various things shown, perhaps tinged with a rose-tinted memory.

(The foregoing description courtesy of the Jersey Historical Society)

    Pencil studies for ‘Jersey born and bred’

This stylised Jersey cow is of unknown date and purpose.   Possibly for an advertisement.

At least five of Paine’s watercolours were included in the post card series.

Gatehouse, Mont Orgueil Castle, Gorey

Queen Elizabeth Gate, Mont Orgueil Castle, Gorey

St. Mary’s Crypt, Mont Orgueil Castle, Gorey

Gorey Pier and Lighthouse

Geoffrey’s Leap and St. Catherine’s Breakwater

In 1948 or shortly before, Paine’s wife, Anna, bought a house in Jersey – No. 7 Gorey Pier. They were to spend the rest of their lives in Jersey.   (cf. ‘Marian, Katherine and Anna’ March 10, 2018)

Mt. Orgueil Castle overlooking Gorey harbour and pier

The house, situated directly below 13th century Mt. Orgueil Castle, was haunted.   The neighbours heard noises in the house when it was empty and thought there were squatters.   One night Paine’s room was filled with blue light.   Another time he was smoking by his bedroom window when he saw a Crusader in chain mail standing just inside the door.   The apparition went out sideways.   He drew it but the sketch seems, appropriately enough, to have disappeared.   A friend staying at the house asked if there was a ghost – not something they advertised in advance.   Paine said he followed the grey shape of a man downstairs into the sitting room where it vanished.   Others heard a door banging at night.   There were footsteps and smells of burning and cooking.   It is easy to be sceptical but the independent testimony of many people suggests that No. 7 was indeed haunted.   This was, no doubt, a factor in Paine’s move to La Guerdainerie Cottage, Trinity, after his third marriage in 1962.   The cottage was attached to The Old Mint where Charles II had produced his own money and nearly ruined the local economy.

Along the pier landwards from No. 7 stands the Moorings Hotel where Paine spent many convivial evenings.   He designed a menu and letter head.

When Anna died in 1960, Paine was very hard hit.   His health deteriorated and in June 1962 he was admitted to the private wing if St. Helier hospital suffering from malnutrition, dehydration and dermatitis.   There he met the sister in charge, Joan Bolshaw.   They were married on the 18th of the following October at Holy Trinity Church, Horwich, near Bolton in Lancashire.

Joan and Charles Paine c.1965  

Shortly afterwards they moved to La Guerdainerie Cottage.   At La Guerdainerie Paine had a studio with a north facing light over the garage.   After five short years of happy marriage he died of bone cancer in 1967.

His friend and neighbour, Desmond Rexworthy wrote of him, ‘Charles Paine . . . was a child of God, a man whose humour and convivial conversation overlay an unusually fine sensibility and sensitivity.   . . .  To be his friend was an experience of depth;  for the few his passing leaves a sore lack which can only be compensated by the love of God.   For the many, his art survives, although he eschewed exhibition and publicity during his life.’   (Jersey Evening Post, 10th July 1967)

Paine employed a method of composition he called ‘applied dynamics’.   Among his papers was a folder titled ‘Applied Dynamics Compositions’ which contained analyses of two paintings:  Adoration de l’Enfant Jésus by Signorelli and Le Crucifiement by Raphael.

I have been unable to find any other reference to ‘applied dynamics’ in relation to art.

The Ecrehous 1965-1967 – gouache on board.

Shortly after Paine’s death in 1967 the Jersey Evening Post published (10th July) a tribute by Paine’s friend and neighbour, Desmond Rexworthy.   He wrote, ‘During the last two years in his studio at La Guerdainerie, he was working on a study of sky and tide at the Ecréhous* which was to be a sublimation of his technique of dynamic synthesis.   Inspiration was not visual alone – music provided the discipline for his composition.   The counter-currents at the turn of the tide about the rocks, the very structure of the skyscape, both were portrayed  over a synthesis of geometric construction of infinite variation based upon the recurrent relationships of the Bach fugue.’

Paine said that even if unfinished the Ecréhous would still be a picture worthy of display.   It is particularly interesting in that it shows the complex geometric underpinning of his work.   He spent a long time trying to make the sea lie flat and said he couldn’t get it right.  When Harold Hards, the son of his neighbours at Welwyn, visited him and saw this work in progress the artist described it to him as ‘the achievement of a lifetime’.

The painting was slightly damaged on the left side during a house move.   It is now in a private collection in France.

* The Écréhous are a group of islands and rocks situated six miles (9.6 km) north-east of Jersey, and eight miles (12.8 km) from France.   They form part of the Bailiwick of Jersey and are administratively part of the Parish of St. Martin. All but the three largest are submerged at high tide. There are no permanent residents on the islands and there is no fresh water there.   Due to erosion, they are now much smaller than they may have been within historic times.   Maîtr’Île, the largest of the islets, is about 300 metres (0.19 mi) long.   There are a small number of fishermen’s huts, some used as holiday residences, on the largest islets, and one official building, a customs house, on La Marmotchiéthe.

Paine produced this image in the 1920s.   The author of the ‘Modern Printmakers’ website tells us that this colliery scene takes the schematic approach of the colour woodcuts of Edward Loxton Knight.   It is a good example of Paine’s versatility, his ability to adapt his style to the requirements of the work in hand.

                             Undated

Undated

    Undated

Undated

Roche in Wartime booklet.

      Undated                                                 1941

      Undated                                                                  Undated

  Undated                                                          After 1948

      Undated

Underneath the last ad. Paine has written, ‘Have advertised every well known quality shoe K, Lotus, Delta, Church’s etc.’

From 1893 Alfred Dunhill ran a company selling motoring accessories, and in 1902 opened a shop in Mayfair.   He developed a pipe designed for motorists in 1904.   He opened a tobacconists in St. James’s in 1907, offering tailored tobacco blends.   Shops were opened in New York and Paris in the 1920’s.   With his international ambitions, Dunhill helped to create the modern luxury goods market.   He retired from business in 1929, and married his mistress in 1945, following the death of his wife.   (Wikipedia)

Paine evidently knew the Dunhills socially as well as professionally and in 1928 received an invitation to a ‘Haymaking Party’.   He designed the invitation card.

These newspaper adverts were produced in the mid 1920s when listening to wireless broadcasts was becoming mainstream.    In the early twenties it was generally considered to be the occupation of hobbyists and a threat to traditional family values and the newspaper industry.   Cosmos profited from a rapidly expanding market.   They ceased trading in 1928.    The initials CP are of the style used by Paine early in his career.

The Church shoe company was founded in 1873 by Thomas Church and his three sons and remained a family business until being taken over by Prada in 1999.   Church’s shoes had a high reputation for excellence which was reflected in their use of the best commercial designers of the day in their advertising.   These twelve roughs were produced sometime during the thirties or forties.   I cannot be any more precise than that.

Undated.   Probably 1943.

Probably 1943.

    Undated.   Probably 1943.

I have no further information about these designs.

                                   APD (undated)                                                    EKD (undated)

Undated

                 Undated

Trade Mark Guthrie & Wells (undated)

While living in Jersey, probably during the 1950s, Paine produced a series of cards using designs from previous work.

I don’t know when or for what purpose Paine produced these national emblems.

It was probably at Edinburgh that Paine made the acquaintance of Dr. Douglas Strachan (1875-1950) who was appointed Director of Design there in 1908.    Strachan  is  widely considered  to  have  been   ‘the most significant and prolific stained glass artist’ (Gazetteer for Scotland) of the first half of the twentieth century.   A letter to Paine from Strachan in October 1937 reveals that he submitted designs for a Scottish Mark and that these were rejected.   It is clear from his letters that Strachan much admired Paine’s work.   Of the Mark designs he wrote, ‘Your admirable Mark designs – just exactly what was wanted a pattern … , and distinction, and yet the story as plain as a pikestaff: and then to read that they had been turned down – in favour of footling things’.

It would seem that Paine wrote to Strachan in the autumn of 1937 about the Empire Exhibition being planned for the following year in Glasgow.   The policy was to employ only British Artists and that ‘nothing from foreign sources may be shown’.   How this squares with displaying art from imperial possessions is not clear.   It can be surmised from Strachan’s letter in November 1937 that Paine had written concerning foreign influences on British art, evidently referring to Frank Pick’s acceptance of the influence of continental art movements on the design of Underground posters.   Strachan wrote to a friend (unnamed) who was closely associated with the Exhibition and reported his reply:  ‘He thinks Mr. Paine has misunderstood Mr. Pick’s views, and does not agree that Mr. Pick endorses design of continental origin: he states that one of the main points which the Council has made is that industry is dependent to far too great an extent on foreign sources – which is of course begging the question though I am sure he does not see this.’

It may be that Paine was also seeking Strachan’s support for the submission of a stained glass design to the Exhibition.   According to Strachan, the organisers were convinced that there were plenty of Glasgow artists of high calibre and that they had no need to look further.   He wrote, ‘… how maddening that you can’t get your glass set in some church where it could be seen.   What about the Glasgow Exhib. in that connection?   It is, I read somewhere, to have 2 chapels: one Presbyt. tother Pisky (Episcopalian):  and they’ll surely want windows.’    He concludes, ‘… if you would care to make and exhibit a window there I’ll write Bilsland (Sir Alexander Steven Bilsland 1892-1970, member of the executive committee of the Empire Exhibition) about it if you wish and think it worth your while.’

I don’t know if Paine had a stained glass design accepted for the Exhibition but he states in his CV that he ‘designed and carried out the Cable Ship Display at the Glasgow Exhibition and other forms of propaganda for the Postmaster General.’

British Textile Designers Today described it as ‘a vigorous architectural display’.                  I know nothing more about this work.

People who knew Paine at Welwyn recalled that he ‘never discussed art or design theory, religion or politics’.   They evidently did not know of his association with the psychiatrist, Eric Graham Howe.   His CV (post 1945) states that ‘Under the Chairmanship of Dr. Howe (1896-1975) [he] demonstrated to ‘The Time Club, “the time factor in relation to colour”, “Form and Colour”, “Morality and Reality” “I and ME” ‘.   The Time Club centred on J. W. Dunne’s theory of time set forth in An Experiment with Time, first published in 1927.   The book was very widely read and discussed in the 1920’s and 30’s.   His theory – that all times, past, present and future, are existent in the eternal Now and that the passage of time is a function of human consciousness (This may not be a fair summary) – influenced a number of writers including J. B. Priestley, Aldous Huxley and T. S. Eliot and was probably the inspiration for The Dark Tower, an unfinished story by C. S. Lewis.  Priestley said of it, ‘One of the most fascinating, the most curious, and perhaps the most important books of this age.   Everybody who has the slightest intellectual curiosity should become acquainted with it … it makes the wildest scientific romance, such as Mr. Wells’ Time Machine, seem merely tame’.  

Howe was a truly remarkable man.   In 1914, aged just seventeen and a half, he lied about his age and enlisted in the Artists’ Rifles.   Commissioned after six months, he was posted to India and by the age  of  twenty  had  reached  the rank of  major.      In 1927, after just four years of medical training at St. Thomas’s hospital he received both his M.B.B.S. and a diploma in psychological medicine – a remarkable feat.   In 1928 he was among the founders of the Tavistock Clinic and was, for a time, one of the U.K.’s most well-known and sought-after psychiatrists.   During the Second World War he delivered on BBC radio ‘a series of four popular but controversial lectures on how to cope with the stresses of the time.   He was an extraordinarily gifted speaker, whose strong but calmly reassuring personal presence enabled him to challenge his listeners in ways that few others were willing to risk’.   (The Druid of Harley Street: The Spiritual Psychology of E. Graham Howe ed. William Stranger pub. 2009 p. 33)   He published more than a dozen books and numerous articles on a broad range of subjects from Schizophrenia to Asian spiritual practices.      He was  attacked by  the ‘scientific’ psychiatry  and psychoanalysis establishment because ‘he took concepts derived from spiritual practice and existential phenomenology and applied  them to an understanding of psychotherapy’.     He avoided the use of psychiatric jargon and wrote in plain, accessible language which did not go down well in some professional quarters.   Although shunned by the mainstream, his ideas had a profound influence on intellectuals such as, Henry Miller,  Alan  Watts and R. D. Laing, the eminent Scottish psychiatrist who called Howe ‘a master psychologist’.  In his introduction to Howe’s Cure or Heal? Laing wrote, ‘What we have here is not a[n] Eric Graham Howe synthesis of different schools,  but  an  original expression in the modern idiom of that which all schools seek to express in more or less rigid and desiccated ways.   But the expression here is supple and fresh.’

It is probable that Paine came to know Dr. Howe in the early thirties or perhaps even before that.   Howe’s first book Morality and Reality: an Essay on the Law of Life was published in 1934 with diagrams drawn by Paine.   He also illustrated I and ME published in 1935.   Evidently, Paine knew Howe very well.   Writing to him from 146 Harley Street, Howe begins, ‘I have been waiting and hoping for your letter for a long time:  and  I  am  delighted that it has come’ and he concludes, ‘Something has been added to my joy in living since your letter came this morning’.   The letter is undated as to the year (July 6).  They seem to have been estranged for some reason and Howe is anxious to renew the friendship.    He writes, ‘I can guess how hard things must have been for you: did I in any way help to make them harder?   If so, I am deeply sorry: the situation was so difficult …’   This might well be a reference to Paine’s parting with Jim.   He invites Paine to ‘come in’ to lunch, perhaps alluding to the journey from Welwyn where Paine was living at least from 1936.

     ‘Morality and Reality’ page 36                              ‘I and Me’ page 115

There is no doubt that Howe was an important influence in Paine’s life.   In 1988 his third wife (1962-67) wrote in a letter, ‘I do know about Eric Graham Howe – I heard about him for five years!   He was a crank in my way of thinking … he was married and had some children – he was always applying a psychological reason for everything they did.’

The demonstrations to the ‘Time Club’ (See note below) continued until 1945 and perhaps beyond.   Alexandra Burns was inspired to write a poem, The Cosmic Law Portrayed, ‘after seeing an abstract portrayal of the Cosmic Law in action on a Drawing Board by Charles Paine’.   She added, ‘Seen and written on  Thursday 11th October 1945.   For Charles Paine the Artist, who has seen God’.

I have been unable to discover anything further about The Time Club.   I would be most grateful for any information.
For an analysis of Howe’s handwriting see:   http://www.britishgraphology.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Harley-Street-Doctor-2.pdf

Unfortunately the above link no longer works (June 2025).

https://www.britishgraphology.org/     An inquiry to the Institute of British Graphology may produce the desired analysis of Howe’s handwriting.

Paine met Marian Jane Nelson (also known as Maria or Marie) when both were students at the Royal College of Art.   She was Irish, and some five years older than Paine.  They married on the 1^st July 1920 at Stephen’s Green Church in Dublin.   His ‘irascible’ father strongly disapproved of him marrying an Irish girl but, nevertheless, lent them the money, which had to be paid back later, to build a house on top of Pinner Hill (No. 73).   Their son, Nelson, was born in Glasgow on 17th April 1923.  (See Chronology)    He said that, as a child, he spent time in America.   Marian and her son accompanied Paine on his first visit to California in 1924-5 when he was appointed Head of the Applied Arts Department of the Community Arts in Santa Barbara, where Frank Morley Fletcher was the Director.   

The marriage did not last.   By 1928 it was definitely failing.   Paine left his family some time in the second half of 1928 (See post ‘Early Life’ 2018/10/22) and in 1929 returned to Santa Barbara, leaving them behind at Pinner Hill.   In the summer of 1930, realising that her husband had deserted her, Marian packed up the furniture and returned to Ireland with Nelson then aged 7 and went into partnership with her unmarried sister Winnie at Dun Laoghaire.   In 1932 she bought a splendid, newly built, 4 bedroom house, “Norval”, Crosthwaite Park,  with quite a large garden backing on to open countryside.    Fortunately, she had a small income from  her father.  

At Pinner Hill Nelson attended a kindergarten.   There Paine ‘took up’ with Anna Luther, one of the teachers.   Her full name was Daisy Kathe Else Nadi (Nadia) Luther, born in 1896 in Estonia.    She was very short, four foot something.   She lived at 65 Oakley Street, Chelsea.   This was in the period 1925-1929 when Paine was in private practice at Pinner Hill before returning to California.   Jane Paine said that Anna attended Paine’s art classes and being very short, sat in the front row.  

The Luther Family Coat of Arms

Paine probably designed this coat of arms for Anna during the 1930s.

On 1st November 1922 Anna, aged 26, left Southampton on the White Star liner Homeric bound for New York.   The reason for this journey is unknown but may have been connected to her estrangement from her family after becoming pregnant by a Cossack.   (See below)   As far as I can ascertain she was not in California with Paine at any time and never met Teuila.   (See post Oct. 21st 2018)  When in 1936 Paine sent her a portrait of Anna, Teuila refers in her reply to Anna’s ‘rare and lovely face’ and says she wants to get to know her.

Anna was artistic and played the violin.   In October 1945 Paine drew a likeness of the violinist Max Rostal, Professor of Music at the Guildhall School of Music and well-known soloist at the Albert Hall and in BBC concerts, which he inscribed: ‘To my friend Mrs. Anna  Paine with best wishes’.   Anna belonged to an aristocratic landed family in Tallinn that claimed descent from Martin Luther.       Her mother, Margareta, (or possibly her grandmother) was an opera singer at the Palace of the Tsar.   When the Russians invaded the Baltic States in 1940 her brother Martin told his relatives to come back home and collect their share of the family wealth.   They escaped from Tallinn all together in a car and were escorted across Europe to the Hook of Holland by the Nazis – so the story goes.*

It is difficult to untangle the events in Paine’s personal life at this time.   Anna had a friend, a ballerina called Katherine but known as ‘Jim’ or ‘Jimmie’, who Paine knew in England before going to California.     It seems that she was the love of his life.   The exact sequence of events is unclear, but the story is that ‘Jim’ followed him to Santa Barbara (1929).   He got a telegram announcing her arrival while he was lecturing and said he ‘fainted’.   Teuila entertained them at Serena on at least one occasion, remembering in a letter (13 November 1936) ‘the long day [they] came and spent in the garden’.   

In 1931 Paine returned to England.   It may be that he wanted to remain in California but was induced to return to England by Katherine.   Teuila certainly thought so.   In a letter to Anna dated 24 January 1937 Teuila wrote, ‘… though Jim loved him madly she wanted to get him back to England where she wanted to live.   . . . on all sides I still hear regrets that the greatest artist that ever came to California was allowed to leave . . .’   He resigned on the same day as Morley Fletcher, the end of the second semester, on 17 May.   This was to be the end of their very successful association  (Box 668, Archives of the SBSA)     He arrived at Southampton on the White Star Liner Majestic on 5 September, listed as ‘Professor aged 34’.   Katherine may have been with him but does not appear on the same passenger list.   Paine was very highly thought of in California and there is a clear implication in another letter that he could have been appointed Director of the School of Arts in San Francisco.

Following his return to England Paine worked in partnership with Anna who was skilled in the making of stained glass.   They called themselves ‘the firm’.   He lived with Jim at Studio House, South View Road, Pinner Hill, Middlesex.   In August 1933, writing to Anna while on holiday with Jim in Norfolk, after referring to Jim affectionately as ‘my little lilybums’, he concludes, ‘Yours as ever  X a wet one’   His third wife wrote of him, ‘… he was a great boy for the women!’

Although life seems to have gone smoothly for a time, by 1936 Paine was in trouble both personally and professionally.   In a letter to Teuila he speaks of ‘tragedy and hell’.   She refers to his ‘many troubles’.   He was suffering from depression and had lost interest in his work.  Teuila wrote, ‘I am so glad that you are beginning to ‘want to draw’ – with a home and peace and love you should be able to spit on  your  hands  and  go  to work with enthusiasm.’   (13 December 1936)   It is clear that Paine was very deeply attached to Katherine but for some reason they parted.   It may be because he was unable to obtain a divorce from Marian.   In December 1936 Teuila wrote, ‘As I understand it you could not get a divorce . . . have you and Jim parted for ever?   Is your home with Anna?   Thank God for her care of you.   I listened to the King’s abdication speech – and the tears rolled down my cheeks.   How well you can sympathise with him.   You too are denied what was denied him.   Surely all this publicity should have some effect on the obsolete divorce laws of England’.   After the parting with Katherine in 1936, Paine moved to Welwyn Garden City (43 Longcroft Lane) and lived with Anna.   They stayed together until her death in 1960.   In August 1937 Teuila wrote, ‘Give Anna a kiss from me and tell her to take the best care of my dear Charles.’

At this time, in the mid-thirties, Paine and Anna were both in poor health.   In August or September 1937 Anna was in hospital and Paine was ‘getting well enough to walk again’ probably after surgery on an injured foot.**   A submission to the Royal Academy was rejected.  Ever supportive, Teuila wrote,  ‘Damn the Royal Academy – Don’t they know a good thing when they see it?’   (25 May 1937)   It seems likely that he hoped to escape from his unhappy situation by returning to the Community Arts Association and cabled Teuila for advice.   She replied in January 1937 saying, ‘… I’m so sorry to tell you there isn’t a chance.   The poor old Community Arts is all shot to pieces.’  With the coming of the Depression in 1929 and the ending of the Carnegie grant, the SBSA had fallen into serious financial difficulties.   It managed to continue for a few years and was finally dissolved in the mid to late 1930’s.  

In September 1942 Anna married Paine at Marylebone saying ‘it would help with the rations’.  (See marriage certificate below)     She refused to change her name.   It is not known if Paine had eventually obtained a divorce.   Presumably he did as Marian died in January 1962 and he is unlikely to have committed bigamy.   (In October 1962 Paine married his third wife, Jane Bolshaw.)   They continued to live in Welwyn Garden City.

Anna had, for reasons unknown, been ‘thrown out’ by her family which is perhaps why she went to America in 1922 and may have something to do with her having had an illegitimate child by her Cossack lover in Estonia.    The child died, and she was to have no other children.  Eventually she was forgiven and returned to London and received her share of the family fortune.   This was considerable, certainly enough for her and Paine to live on after they moved to the Channel Islands.   In 1948 Anna went to Jersey intending to start a business with a woman friend but was not allowed to buy property for that purpose.   Instead she bought a house, No. 7 Gorey Pier, for about £2,000.   She and Paine moved there in 1949/50.

Anna died of pancreatic cancer at the West London Hospital, Hammersmith, on 5 September 1960 aged 64.   Paine was distraught but that is another story.

* The background to these events is described in The Devil’s Alliance: Hitler’s Pact with Stalin 1939 – 1941 by Roger Moorhouse 2014 p.79 ff

**  While in Santa Barbara, Paine had to cross the border into Mexico at intervals to extend his visa.   On one such trip he was kicked by his donkey, causing him to limp thereafter.

Revised January 2023 in the light of new biographical information in a letter from a member of Paine’s family received in 1996 and subsequently lost and now found among my papers.

Further revisions April 2025 and June 2025.

In 1947 Paine illustrated all five books in the series English Today by Ronald Ridout for which he was paid 400 guineas.   By agreement with Ginn & Coy, copyright in the illustrations remained with Paine and his heirs though Ginn had the right to reproduce them in books and for advertising purposes worldwide.   Each book was divided into three sections for the three terms of the school year with seven chapters in each section.   Each book carried 28 illustrations  –  two  illustrations  at  the  beginning  of  each section, one at the beginning of each chapter and an additional one in the text.  In all Paine produced some 90 designs for this project.   In his Introduction the author said, ‘I should like to thank Mr. Charles Paine, the artist, for his thoughtful and imaginative reinforcement of my work throughout.’

English Today Book 1  First Term

                          The first term begins                             Chp. 1 Discovering language

                Chp. 2  The Wind in the Willows                      Chp.3  Hidden treasure

                    Chp. 4  A misunderstanding                        Chp. 5  Forbidden sweets!

                                   Chp. 6  Test                                              Chp. 7  End of first term

English Today Book 1  Second Term

                      The second term begins                  Chp. 8  People pleasant and unpleasant

                       Chp. 9  An unusual pet                                         Chp. 10  Forest fire

                      Chp. 11  Personal letters                                     Chp. 12  Shipwrecked

                                 Chp. 13  Test                                          Chp. 14  End of second term

English Today Book 1  Third term

                         The third term begins                                           Chp. 15  Spring

                      Chp. 16  Alone at sea                                        Chp. 17  When I was young

                    Chp. 18  A runaway horse                                       Chp. 19  Time-telling

                                  Chp. 20  Test                                           Chp. 21  End of third term

Book 1  End-piece:  The Fox and the Grapes

English Today Book 2  First Term

                      The first term begins                                        Chp. 1 Animal intelligence

                Chp. 2 Human intelligence                                   Chp. 3 Giants and pygmies

                          Chp. 4 Dialogue                                                     Chp. 5 Rhythm

                                  Chp. 6 Test                                                Chp. 7 End of first term

English Today Book 2  Second Term

                 The second term begins                                                Chp. 8 My town

Chp. 9 Portraits                                              Chp. 10 The ideal house

                Chp. 11 Friendly letters                                              Chp. 12 Poetry

                             Chp. 13 Test                                            Chp. 14 End of second term

English Today Book 2  Third Term

                The third term begins                                            Chp. 15 Fainting

               Chp. 16 The glow-worm                                     Chp. 17 A young elephant

                      Chp. 18 Reading                                               Chp. 19 Inchcape Rock

                            Chp. 20 Test                                               Chp. 21 End of third term

English Today Book 3  First Term

                   The first term begins                                               Chp. 1 Revision

                          Chp. 2 Fantasy                                                Chp. 3 Impressions

                            Chp. 4 Test                                        Chp. 5 Figurative language

                 Chp. 6 Reported speech                                                  Chp. 7 Test

              Chp. 8 End of first term                                    The second term begins

               Chp. 9 Word derivations                                 Chp. 10 Personal letters

Chp. 11 Good speech                                                   Chp. 12 Test

Chp. 13 Narrative                                              Chp. 14 Word building

Chp. 15 Test                                       Chp. 16 End of second term

Chp. 17 The third term begins                     Chp. 18 Writing sensationally

                Chp. 19 Business letters                                            Chp. 20 Poetry

Chp. 21 Test                                            Chp. 22 Word portraits

Chp. 23 Paraphrase                                                 Chp. 24 Test

Chp. 25 End of third term

English Today Book 4 First Term

          The (First) Term Begins                                             Chp. 1 On Reading

                         Chp. 2 Libraries                                           Chp. 3 Local Government

                          Chp. 4 Test (1)                                                      Chp. 5 The Press

Chp. 6 The Press (continued)                                         Chp. 7 Test (2)

Chp. 8 End of First Term                                     The (Second) Term Begins

Chp. 9 Drama                                                     Chp. 10 Descriptive

Chp. 11 Meetings                                                       Chp. 12 Test (3)

                          Chp. 13 Citizenship                                                 Chp. 14 Precis

Chp. 15 Test (4)                                        Chp. 16 End of Second Term

English Today Book 4 Third Term

The (Third) Term Begins                                           Chp. 17 Music

Chp. 18 The Cinema                                            Chp. 19 The Radio

Chp. 20 Test (5)                                               Chp. 21 Advertisements

Chp. 22 Literary Criticism                                          Chp. 23 Test (6)

                    Chp. 24 End of Third Term

English Today Book 5 First Term

              The (First) Term Begins                                     Chp. 1  The Gateway to Life

Chp. 2 Comprehension                                       Chp. 3  Modern Design

Chp. 4  Test (1)                                                       Chp. 5  Word Derivation

Chp. 6  A Portrait                                                  Chp. 7  Test (2)

Chp. 8  End of First term

English Today Book 5 Second Term

The (Second) Term Begins                                 Chp. 9 Interior Decoration

Chp. 10  Poetry                                                     Chp. 11  Flat Roofs

Chp. 12  Test (3)                                                 Chp. 13  Causes of War

Chp-. 14 Abundant Life                                       Chp. 15  Test (4)

Chp. 16  End of Second Term

     English Today Book 5 Third Term

The (Third) Term Begins                                  Chp. 17  A Journey in Gargantua

                 Chp. 18  Dialogue                                             Chp. 19  The Press

Chp. 20  The Cinema                                       Chp. 21  Test (5)

Chp. 22  End of Third Term                                     Essential Books

1941   Bernard Noel Langdon-Davies (1876-1952) socialist and pacifist.      

     1941

Booklet by Dr. Herman Rauschning (7 August 1887 – 8 February 1982), a German Conservative Revolutionary who briefly joined the Nazis before breaking with them.   In 1934 he renounced Nazi party membership and in 1936 emigrated from Germany (eventually settling in the United States) and began openly denouncing Nazism. Rauschning is chiefly known for his book Gespräche mit Hitler (Conversations with Hitler), US title Voice of Destruction, UK title Hitler Speaks, in which he claimed to have had many meetings and conversations with Hitler.

Possibly created in 1917 when Paine was conscripted into the Admiralty Inspection Section during his time at the RCA.  

This is one of a series of “Carrying On” pamphlet titled ‘the sentinel of the seas:  the tireless vigil of the British navy’.   The photo-pamphlets were published by Harrison and Jehring to boost British morale, showcasing civilian sacrifice, especially women’s new roles in industry, under the theme of “carrying on” as usual despite the war, a precursor to the famous WWII “Keep Calm and Carry On” slogan, emphasising steadfastness and national unity.

The style of Paine’s initials indicate an early work.   cf. Early Works October 14, 2017

Masks: Four Pieces for Pianoforte (1924)

Published 1945. Paine designed the colourful wrapper and end papers and contributed many line drawings. It is a good example of his versatility in adapting his style to suit a particular job.

Paine designed the cover illustrations for a King Penguin, Fishes of Britain’s Rivers and Lakes, by J. R. Norman Assistant Keeper, British Museum of Natural History, pub 1943.   The plates within were reproduced from Edward Donovan’s Natural History of British Fishes (1802-1808).

Original art work (below) in acrylic

Pencil and crayon studies for King Penguin 1943

During the early nineteen-thirties Paine made a series of experiments for Francis Meynell of the Nonesuch Press (founded 1923)  in the use of  common newspaper screens applied to book illustration.   He provided the ‘decorations’ for Sea Sequel (pub. 1934 Nonesuch Press), described as ‘intended to be a safe cover against weather not so good or companions not so amusing as the traveler for pleasure, business or health may wish!’   This was the sequel to the very popular Weekend Book (pub. 1924), described as ‘an enchanting treasury of off-hours activities from the England of yesteryear’.

These twelve images were for a calendar.   They are undated and I don’t know for whom they were made.   I have attributed a month to each according to the subjects.   Some are obvious such as November but others such as May and June may be incorrect.

January- shooting.

February – sowing

March – winds

April – showers

May – paradise                                                                                                                                This picture recalls the well-known quatrain from Fitzgerald’s translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

Here with a loaf of bread beneath the bough,                                                                                  A flask of wine, a book of verse – and Thou                                                                                       Beside me singing in the wilderness –                                                                                                 And wilderness is paradise enow.

There seems to have been a role reversal as it is the young man who is singing while the young woman holds a bunch of flowers.

June – proposal
He loves me, he loves me not …

July – punting

August – fishing

September – ploughing

October – hunting

November – Guy Fawkes

December – pantomime

In Vol. 11 No. 82 of Commercial Art 1929 Horace Taylor wrote, ‘Although responsible for one of the most famous figures in modern advertising, Mr. Charles Paine is not nearly so well known as he ought to be.   The figure referred to is Kenneth, who was asked to “get out of that chair and let his father sit down”.   Coupled with some of the best advertisement copy that has been written and presented with unusually thoughtful typography, Kenneth has become a landmark.   The Buoyant campaign has introduced a new period in press advertising.   But Mr. Paine has done so much excellent work in many fields that it is perhaps as well that his name is not definitely associated with an early design which represents only one aspect of his talents.’

Kenneth was Paine’s brother-in-law during his first marriage.   He assumed his ultra-relaxed posture on a lazy Sunday afternoon.   It was probably Kenneth who drew a mustache on a portrait that Paine was working on while he was out – so the story goes.   The incident was said to be the last straw that decided Paine to leave his wife.   (See post ‘Early Life’ October 22, 2018)

Paine sold the drawing to Buoyant for £5.   The image was widely known, being on the side of Buoyant vans as well as in the newspapers.

Paine designed eight stylised empire symbols for Morton Sundour, possibly for a wallpaper or textile.  Undated.                                                                                                                          India Elephant

Australia Kangaroo with nervous Joey

New Zealand Kiwi

Canada Maple Leaf

Kenya Lion

South Africa Impala

The Buffalo or Bison is a symbol of the United States and of the native Americans.   It is possible though unlikely that Paine was a die-hard empire loyalist dreaming of the day when the American colonies would resume their allegiance to the British Crown.   The bison also symbolises Canada but we already have the Maple Leaf.

I am unable to identify this plant.   Suggestions welcome.

I am unable to identify this leaf.   Suggestions welcome.

Paine taught for a time at Oaklands School for girls, Lytton Lodge, Codicote, Hitchin.   The school magazine Summer 1946 (Hertfordshire Archives)  includes the following comment:

            ‘The study of art has made great strides under Mr. Paine.   Peals of laughter come from the Verandah, but serious work is being done, including modelling in clay.   Everyone listens when Mr. Paine teaches, and the Staff would like to join the classes too.   ‘His “owl” design has been presented to the  school – and the acorns were mainly his idea.’

The school closed in 1951.

Undated

Undated

This may be a preliminary sketch for the Underground poster ‘Spring by Underground’ 1928.   (See POSTERS: London Transport 27 October 2017)

Welco is a company that supplies storage, racking, partitioning and handling and general office equipment.   There was a Welco benefit society at Welwyn in the 1930s and Paine probably made these designs (gouache) for the Welco bulletin in 1940 or thereabouts.   There was also a ‘Welco Players’ that probably put on performances at the Barn Theatre.

            Cricket                                                                 Netball

            Winter Sport                                                      Tennis

          Rambling                                                       Darts

               Table Tennis                                                              Drama

       The boys are marching.

Dance                                                                   Whist

Welco logo

        Undated

                Undated.   Probably 1946.

The Barn Theatre, Welwyn, opened to the paying public in January 1932 and could seat 150 people.   It was closed during the war after being requisitioned by the army in 1940 and re-opened in November 1946.

Probably post 1947

The Thalians was formed in 1929 from a merger with two other amateur societies, the Barnstormers (drama) and the Operatic Society (music).   After the war, in 1947, the Thalians were back in business with The Gondoliers and continued filling the Welwyn Theatre until 1962 when, after a successful opening performance of Carousel, a fire broke out and the stage was destroyed.   When the Campus West Theatre opened in 1973 the Thalians Society moved in and has been performing there ever since.   (‘Our Welwyn Garden City’ website)

                              Undated

The folder contained a number of loose sheets each giving information about a different aspect of the amenities in Welwyn.   Paine designed an illustration for each.

When Welwyn was begun in the 1920’s the planners intended that all the residents of the garden city would shop in one shop and created the Welwyn Stores, a monopoly which caused some local resentment.  Commercial pressures subsequently ensured much more competition and variety, and in 1984 the Welwyn Stores were taken over by the John Lewis Partnership.

The poster announced the opening of the new Under 25 (shillings) department at the Stores by the film actress, Greta Gynt, on 26 June 1939.

Paine designed the entrance (below) in green, cream and silver.

26 June 1939.                                                                                                                                            Paine is standing third from left.   Greta Gynt holds a bouquet of irises and pink and yellow tulips.

In the nineteen-twenties Paine twice spent time teaching in Santa Barbara, California.   (1924-5; 1929-31)   His work at the Edinburgh College of Art was well known to Morley Fletcher who had just been appointed first Director of the new Santa Barbara School of Arts in charge of the Design Programme where he remained until 1931.   He asked Paine to give a course of lectures ‘Big business and bad design’.   The Santa Barbara Community Arts Association was a non-profit corporation founded on 24 April 1922.  The stated purpose was ‘to afford individuals the opportunity of self-expression, training and education in Music, Drama and the Allied Arts and to aid in the cultural improvement of the people and in the beautification of the City of Santa Barbara.’   The catalogue for the 1924-25 term states that for the Design course ‘The aim … is to train designers for crafts and industries by practice in craftwork and designing’.

The Community Arts aimed to turn Santa Barbara into the most beautiful small city in America and in this they largely succeeded, attracting many wealthy residents.   They rejected the high rise style of LA and aimed to unify the town’s architectural look around a Spanish Colonial style.   The 1920’s was Santa Barbara’s Golden Age and an important element in its cultural flowering was the Lobero Theatre, opened in August 1924.   Paine produced publicity for the theatre and no doubt attended performances.

Undated

As ever Paine worked on private commissions in addition to his teaching duties.

The cover of the Santa Barbara Gardener for 1929 shows a Copa de Oro, the Golden Chalice Vine.   The drawing is acknowledged on page 2:  ‘A Cup of Gold for Christmas! – we can think of no more regal gift and thanks to the genius of Charles Paine we can hand you one upon  the cover (not a platter)!   In a land where the Copa de Oro blooms for Christmas how can we help but be merry!’

                Undated.   Probably 1929.

The Santa Barbara Biltmore opened in 1927 as part of the luxurious Biltmore Hotels chain.   The aircraft on this cover closely resembles those on his Air Line posters.   Paine often re-used successful ideas.

Aquarius.   Cartoon probably for Meridian Studios undated probably 1930.

Gemini.   Cartoon probably for Meridian Studios undated probably 1930.

Paine was highly regarded in California.   There is a clear indication in one of Teuila’s letters to him that he would have been offered the post of Director of the San Francisco School of Arts had he not returned to England.   Among his many admirers was the artist Paul Julian (1914-1995).    In  a  letter  to  Patricia  Clark in December 1993 Julian said, ‘I began night-classes at the old School of the Arts when I was fifteen or sixteen partly because Charles Paine was teaching them.  He was a highly successful commercial designer and advertising artist in London before he headed the design department in S.B. — my mother studied with him and took over the department when he went home — they corresponded at length and she sent work over to him for criticism.       And  I  will  always  remember  his  letters;  he  was one of the greatest teachers I have ever encountered.’

                                                              Charles Paine c.1929

In 1927 Paine illustrated a booklet To Young Weavers by James Morton.   It contains the text of a talk given by Morton to a gathering of young weavers in Lancashire and was printed by the Baynard Press.

Page 1

                   Decorations in To Young Weavers.

Paine explained his choice of the bird motifs for the end paper:  ‘My little dicky bird with the red beating heart says (to the red Peruvian bird), “Go back to your tomb.   I will sing of today.”

Commercial Art of 1 June 1928 said, ‘We have received a number of interesting calendars for 1928.   The best of them, perhaps, are those designed for Sundour Fabrics by Charles Paine.   Each month has a separate device in bright colours.   Mr. Paine has a tendency to elaborate just a trifle too much in some of his designs, but the January in one of the calendars, a simple, bold drawing of a raven, is entirely admirable.’

Paine produced two sets of designs for the 1928 calendars.

     I have only one design for October

Paine takes us cheerfully through the seasons from a sailor sea-sick in a paper boat in January via a feathered choir in June and a boy scrumping in September to a snowman with his pipe in December.   As ever in his art Paine draws on the rich imagery of the natural world and invites us to share his own affection for it.

This is probably a book plate designed by Paine for Alistair Morton, grandson of the firm’s founder, Alexander Morton.      In 1928 Edinburgh Weavers was established as an experimental branch of Morton Sundour Fabrics.   Alistair, was Director from 1931 until his death in 1963.   His aim was to fuse textiles and modern art in which he was largely successful because he combined the latest technical processes with brilliant creative minds.    Illustrious British designers such as Barbara Hepworth, Terence Conran, Paul Nash and Ben Nicholson all created work for the company.   In 1951 the company provided the colourful hangings for the festival of Britain.

Sundour letter heads.                                                                                                                           The initials CP can be found on the stool legs in the left hand image.

James Morton was born under the sign of the Aries the Ram,  a star sign that was well suited to his physical strength and forceful personality.   Very possibly at Paine’s suggestion, he decided to adopt it as his personal device in his private publications as, for example, on the title page of To Young Weavers and asked Paine for a design.

Paine produced one or two outstanding designs for the inexpensive Sundour ‘Eitherway’ prints.   This very ingenious single-colour counter-change pattern is based on a seagull in flight.   It expresses Paine’s ideal of the ‘power of a well-considered repeat [in this case no more than three inches square] to cover a large surface at the same time with no apparent Alpha and Omega’.

Paine designed the dogtooth pattern in tweeds.

In 1923 Ronald Simpson, chief designer at Morton Sundour, having met Paine at Guthrie and Wells, a major customer for Sundour fabrics, introduced him to the head of the firm, James Morton.   They met in May and Morton was ‘immediately taken by Paine’s whimsical personality and the imaginative quality of his work’.   (Three generations in a Family Textile Firm by Jocelyn Morton)   He invited Paine to move to Lancaster to take responsibility for the firm’s advertising and to bring new ideas to the design of both woven and printed textiles.   He was also asked to study the production of fabrics at the works with a view to suggesting ‘new ways and means of approach to existing techniques’.

Paine accepted the job with what seems to have been considerable enthusiasm and took up residence at 5 Laurel Bank.   Morton noted in his diary that Paine was ‘badly wanting a fresh field for his genius’.   Morton Sundour was already well known for the quality of its publicity and Paine was to take that aspect of the business to new heights.   Commercial Art magazine rated Paine as “one of the most highly gifted designers in the country” and especially praised “the richness of textile design” displayed in his posters for Morton Sundour Fabrics (1927).   The majority of his designs were exported to America and were successful.   The founder of the firm, Alexander Morton, was strongly influenced by William Morris and the firm always employed the leading modern designers.

Undated.

Paine worked for Morton from May 1923 to May 1924 when he went to California.   He resumed his association with the firm on his return in 1925.   In 1929 he went back to California for a year.   He stayed in touch with Morton and was the first to congratulate him on his knighthood in 1936.   In a letter dated 2 July 1936 Morton wrote, ‘It is very gratifying to have from so many friends such hearty approval of the inclusion of my name in the King’s first Birthday List of Honours, and your goodwill and good wishes at this time are much appreciated … ‘   A postscript added, ‘Very good of you to rise to greet me so early.   You were the First-footer.   I hope it was after a good sleep and not on your way home from a spree!’

The brand ‘Sundour Unfadeable Fabrics’ was launched in 1921 when the firm took colour advertisements on the back cover of Coming Fashions for four months stating that ‘The colour element in Sundour Unfadeable Fabrics is indestructible, thus ensuring lasting harmony in home furnishings’.

1926 or before.                                                                                                                                         On a high twig a blackbird sings lustily along with the flute and one of the dancers definitely doesn’t like spiders.

In 1923 Morton launched the Standfast campaign to promote the Standfast prints.   In a letter to Morton dated 9 October 1923 Paine presented his idea for a Standfast logo.

                                                                                                1923

Paine produced ‘witty and charming’ illustrations for the Sundour advertisements and W. Haslam Mills, leader-writer and theatre critic of the Manchester Guardian wrote the ‘beautifully composed’ copy.

A typical Sundour advertisement (above) with drawing by Paine and copy by W. Haslam Mills.   Mills was employed as a freelance by Paine’s friend, Charles S. Hobson of Manchester, who Paine introduced to James Morton.   Hobson, according to his Times obituary, probably ‘had the most dramatic influence on British advertising of any single man this century’.   In the late 1920s Hobson was replaced by Fred Phillips of the Baynard Press with which Paine already had strong links.

This poster uses the image from the month of February in the 1928 Sundour calendar.   (See separate post)

The Month of May, described as a ‘mini-poster’ 1927.

                               1928

These advertisements seek to persuade Londoners to take a bus or train to peaceful and interesting places and were probably published in the Evening Standard.

Undated

I don’t know who commissioned this map or for what purpose.    Today 9 Park Place is occupied by two companies.   The area of London shown on the map is to the south and west of Piccadilly Circus, bounded by Green Park and St. James’ Park.

In the top right hand corner Cupid fires an arrow at 9 Park Place.   Perhaps whoever commissioned the map was in love with one of the inhabitants.   To Cupid’s left a stout gentleman congratulates a traditionally attired artist at the Royal Academy.   Further left may be a depiction of the Palm Beach Casino at the Mayfair Hotel.   On the second row left the town crier rings his bell.   In the centre an angel holds St. James’ Church, Piccadilly, in a protective embrace.   The very small panel on the right shows a theatrical performance reminiscent of Top Hat, White Tie and Tails (1935).   The centre of St. James’ Square is an enigma.   Around it going clockwise we see one of the ladies, perhaps, who gave Jermyn Street a doubtful reputation, a policeman in jeopardy from speeding traffic, a hurrying newsboy and lastly a sailor with a parrot on his shoulder drinking with a soldier.   Above The Mall is clubland, cigarettes and whiskey and reading The Times in deep leather armchairs.   In the lower right hand corner a fat bird contemplates the scene.   In the lower left corner of the map stands St. James’ Palace, London residence of the Prince of Wales.    Above, the Plough points to the Pole Star where Cupid’s arrow finds its mark.

‘Mary Caroline Blair lived at 9 Park Place. She was the mistress of the 3rd Duke of Sutherland. This was back in the 1880s. The Duke lived at Stafford House now Lancaster House. The compass points from Stafford House to 9 Park Place.’   (Peter Caddy – see below)   Mary Caroline Blair (nee Mitchell) lived a scandalous life.   Following the death of her husband, Captain Arthur Blair, in a shooting accident in 1883 she married the Duke as his second wife.    When the Duke died she interfered with his will in an attempt to disinherit her step-children and was sent to prison.   An article in the Daily Mail dated 19 November 2020 details how she came to be the model for Disney Cinderella’s wicked step-mother.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-8961933/London-mansion-owned-scandalous-Duchess-goes-sale-16million.html

Power Play: The Life and Times of Mary, Dowager Duchess of Sutherland by Catherine Layton 2018

Probably 1927

Following a suggestion from the author of ‘365posterblog’ I have found the explanation for the RMSP card.   RMSP stands for ‘Royal Mail Steam Packet’.   The RMSP Company, founded in 1839, became the largest shipping group in the world when it took over the White Star Line in 1927.   In that year Cyril Parkinson produced a film, To Constantinople in RMSP ‘Araguaya’ 1927.   (North-west film archive film no. 6909)   It is silent and lasts for 17 minutes and 14 seconds.   The following description is given:

‘The Parkinsons take a cruise on the RMSP Araguaya through the Dardanelles and towards the Black Sea.   Includes footage of the town of Tangier from aboard the ship and various street scenes showing Moroccans along the street and amongst buildings.   A short sequence shows the ships Araguaya and P&O Ranchi docked in Tangier harbour. Passengers aboard the Araguaya participate in a horse racing game and play badminton.  ….. ‘

 A typical Paine touch is the use of a horse shoe as stand in for an apostrophe in ‘they’re’.   His work is full of humorous details that are often overlooked.

Horse racing was a popular pastime for first class passengers aboard the transatlantic liners.   In The Only Way to cross (Macmillan 1972) John Maxtone-Graham, speaking of the Depression years, gives the following description:  ‘Racing wooden horses about an oval track to the roll of the dice had long been an afternoon diversion on the promenade deck.   Now the canvas track was remade in felt and moved indoors as the after-dinner entertainment, the bettors black-tied rather than plus-foured.   The task of moving the horses on British vessels was always assigned to a blue-jacketed seaman, almost the only time that honest apparel ever appeared in the lounge.   Pursers in uniform called the numbers . . .’   (chp. 8 p.213)

Paine worked on other commissions from the RMSP.   In 1929 he designed the front cover for the Royal Mail Line Cruise round Africa folder (below) containing a description of the cruise, photographs of the places visited, and a map.   Commercial Art refers to the ‘delightful colour scheme’ of the cover which shows a stylised map of Africa and Madagascar, decorated with an ancient Egyptian figure, a Bedouin on a camel, a kneeling African, an ostrich and an elephant.

Folder Cover Designed by Charles Paine for the Royal Mail Steam Packet Co., Ltd.

Printed by The Baynard Press

‘The Round Africa Royal Mail Cruise folder … is an example of one idea of an arrangement carried right through a job.   The first opening carries out the delightful colour scheme of the cover, and the centre opening is as satisfactory as the rest of the publication because it is uniform and very practical.   The description of the cruise, photographs of the places visited, and the map are all at view at one time.’   (Commercial Art)

          1924

Paine has used the same design to advertise two different air lines.   ‘He was the first to use the diagonal as a theme for crossing the Channel, an idea that was then taken up by many artists.   No aeroplane on the posters this time but a golf ball.   …   At the time it was the “Bankers’ Route”, Paris-London in 2 hours 15 minutes 200 francs.   Air Union, founded in 1923, was one of the four companies whose merger in 1933 gave birth to Air France.’                                                                                                                                                                 (The First Posters for French Commercial Aviation Collection du Musee Air France) 

I don’t know if this is a poster or a cover.   The aircraft appear to owe more to the artist’s imagination than to that of any aeroplane designer.   It could possibly have been produced in connection with the 1928 play Wings Over Europe by Robert Nichols and Maurice Browne, a drama set in 10 Downing Street and produced on Broadway at a time when Paine was teaching in Santa Barbara.   Austin Strong, son of Paine’s friend Teuila (Isobel Field), was a successful playwright.

1923 or earlier

This splendid show-card was included in a display of Paine’s posters in Milan in 1923.   (Information Art Institute of Chicago)   The design harks back to the days of Beau Nash (1674-1761) Master of Ceremonies at the fashionable spa town of Bath.

As early as 1936 Paine was living at 43 Longcroft Lane, Welwyn, and perhaps in that year was engaged by Welwyn Garden City Ltd. ‘to take responsibility for the creative angle of the organisation’s publicity’.

His first poster, Make Your Home in Welwyn, was designed for display on the London Underground.

Undated

His best known work from this period is the series of four seasons posters, advertising in the Underground houses to rent or buy in Welwyn.

1939

The Spring poster evoked considerable comment in the local paper.   A correspondent wrote, ‘I have just seen the finished painting of Welwyn Garden City’s new spring poster.   It is the work of resident artist, Mr. Charles Paine, of Longcroft Lane.   Mr. Paine is an artist whose work is much admired in this country and in the United States.   He is a pioneer of modern poster art.   His first poster for Welwyn Garden City Ltd., Make Your Home in Welwyn, attracted wide attention, but I think Spring in Welwyn which is being lithographed by the Alcuin Press and will be on the hoardings in about two weeks time, will not only succeed in its job of advertising Welwyn, but will once again proclaim him a master of composition and colour.’   The prediction was fulfilled and the paper later reported, ‘The Garden City’s latest poster Spring in Welwyn is still attracting considerable notice.   The popularity of posters can often be gauged by the number of requests for copies.   The public relations officer tells me that applications for copies have come from all parts of the country, even from as far north as Westmorland.   Among the applications last week was one from a student at Newnham College, Cambridge.’

The posters were displayed in the Occupational Therapy Department of Addenbrooke’s Hospital.   A letter of thanks said, ‘… they are quite the best posters I know and I am sure will be much appreciated by the patients.’   Copies were also requested by ‘architectural decorators’ in Canada.   (British Textile Designers Today 1939)

G.C. was inspired to a poem:

Wicked lamb, who drew thee?                                                                                                             Dost thou know who drew thee                                                                                                           Gave thee shape and bade thee baa                                                                                                    Up and down L.N.E.R.,                                                                                                                            Sheltered thee, in purest paint,                                                                                                            With snowdrop, size of what it aint,                                                                                                   Gave thee such a satyr’s eye                                                                                                                 Set in blameless infancy?                                                                                                                      Wicked lamb who drew thee?                                                                                                              Dost thou know who drew thee?

Wicked lamb who drew thee?                                                                                                              Paine of Welwyn drew thee;                                                                                                                 Fervent, fluid and mathematic,                                                                                                            Drew thee in his Longcroft attic;                                                                                                         Conjured thine endearing lambics                                                                                                      Out of what he calls dynamics,                                                                                                            Half a poem – half a lark                                                                                                                        To fire the wit of Brookman’s Park –                                                                                                   Loopy lamb, we love thee!                                                                                                                    Loopy lamb we love thee!

1939

At the bottom of this image Paine has placed a grasshopper and a bee.   The grasshopper is playing a flute, the notes floating up to join the butterflies.   This refers to the story The Bee and the Grasshopper which is very similar to The Ant and the Grasshopper attributed to Aesop.   The grasshopper plays all summer while the industrious bee gathers food for the winter.   When winter comes the improvident grasshopper dies.

1939

Like the bee and the ant, the squirrel and the mouse lay in food stores for the winter, acorns for the squirrel and beech mast for the mouse.

1940

A constant feature of Paine’s work was the use of animal imagery.   The choice of the four seasons to advertise Welwyn on the Underground emphasised its all-year-round appeal but in his choice of design he avoided the obvious option of picturesque houses set in lovely countryside.   Instead he produced four remarkably modern animal images:  a lamb and snowdrops for spring, insects round what looks like a daffodil for summer, a red squirrel for the autumn and hares in the snow and a chaffinch for winter.   The ideas may lack originality but the execution implies an educated audience.   ‘The appeal is both muted, up-to-date and subtle.’

Study in acrylic for a poster (below) ‘Winter at Welwyn’.   The startled robin is typical of the humorous touches with which Paine enlivened his work.

I have only this b/w photo of the finished poster but no doubt the colours are much the same as in the study.

Study for a poster.

This lamb bears a distinct resemblance to the wicked lamb in the Spring poster.   It looks as if he might be about to lose his periwinkle to a swallow.

        ‘Dame Adrian Bird’   Undated                              Undated

                                                                                   1939    (See also ‘Welwyn Stores’)

Undated

Art work for the Knutsford poster in acrylic.   The stars often appear in Paine’s work.

Pencil study for Knutsford poster.

           Pencil studies for Knutsford poster.

This frame, presumably for a poster, comprises twelve images, eleven depicting men and women who played their part in the defeat of Hitler and one showing St. George slaying the Nazi dragon.   On his left a member of the Home Guard stands with the British bulldog in defiant readiness to defend our country from invasion.   On his right a Fireman douses flames during the blitz in defense of Christian civilization.   These three images hold a message for our own time.   The Christian civilisation of which our country is a product is again in dire need of being defended.

At the top the Land Girls labour in the fields.   Then an Infantryman, an ATS woman, a Pilot, a Driver, a Nurse, an Air Raid Warden, A Munitions Worker and a Sailor.

                                                                           1940

National Savings – Map of Europe poster 1945

National Savings – British Army Map poster 1944