FRA HENRY NEWBERY R.W.A., A.R.C.A. (SCOTTISH 1855-1946)
BRIDPORT WEAVING
Estimate: £4,000 - £6,000
Auction: 26 September 2024 From 18:00 BST
Description
Signed, oil on canvas
Dimensions
82cm x 152.5cm (32.5in x 60in)
Provenance
Presented by W. Lang, Esq., 1928.
Footnote
Exhibited:
Glasgow School of Art, Fra Newbery, Artist and Art Educationist, August 1996, p.33, no.43.
Literature:
Rawson, George Mansell. Francis Henry Newbery and the Glasgow School of Art. PhD thesis, Glasgow School of Art, 1996, pp.278-279;
Rawson, George. Fra Newbery, Artist and Art Educationalist, 1855-1946. The Fouilis Press of Glasgow School of Art, 1996. p.33, cat.no. 43, where titled ‘An Old Bridport Weaving Shop’.
Francis Newbery, or 'Fra' as he was known by his students, was central to the avant-garde movement which occurred in Glasgow between 1880 and 1920 at the Glasgow School of Art (GSA). Born in Devon, Newbery studied at Bridport and the National Art Training School in London. In 1885, aged 30, he was offered the position of Headmaster and Director of the Glasgow School of Art. Under his guidance, the art school was transformed from being a moderately successful institution to one of international reputation at the forefront of the modern movement.
The dynamic new headmaster brought an enlightened, energetic leadership which resulted in significant change, including the construction of the new Charles Rennie Mackintosh-designed GSA building which Newbery oversaw and supported. Within the school, he equally encouraged male and female students. This meant that in 1905 Glasgow became the first school in Britain to admit women to its architectural program. Newbery also promoted increased interaction with the Continent, employing tutors from Europe, such as the Belgian Symbolist Jean Delville, at a time when few others in Britain would dare to do so. He also chose to involve his students with important exhibitions abroad.
Much of his success at GSA was led by the acclaim surrounding the work of artists such as Mackintosh, Margaret and Francis Macdonald, and Jessie M. King in the 1890's. As a painter, Newbery was closely associated to, and exhibited with, the Glasgow Boys, a group of artists who were part of the European avant-garde in the early 1890s. In particular, he had close ties to Lavery, Guthrie, E.A. Walton, and enjoyed a close relationship throughout his life with Mackintosh.
Bridport Weaving dates to the mid-1920s. It relates to a mural he created for Bridport Town Hall in 1924. The mural comprised four scenes illustrating local traditional industry, including sailcloth weaving, twine spinning, yarn bleaching and net braiding, with the allegorical figure ‘The Spirit of Bridport’ represented by a young woman in a fifth central panel.
The oil on canvas offered here for sale is a fine example of the sophisticated compositional arrangements Newbery was capable of achieving. In his 1996 PhD thesis, Dr. George Rawson records that Bridport Weaving was ‘a reconstruction of one which Newbery had known and had as the workers' foreman a Scot, William Rathbone, who Newbery remembered had been one of the last handloom weavers in Bridport.’ A complex interior of criss-crossing beams and loom equipment serves as a device to lead the viewer’s eye back and forth across the composition, resting finally on Rathbone’s face. As Rawson notes, ‘[the] scene is one of hard concentrated work and contains a strong sense of movement. Three of the four figures are seen straining over their machinery. Immersed in their labour they offer no personal contact with, or acknowledgement of, the spectator’.
