JOHN PIPER was one of the most diverse and best-loved of English Modern artists. In retrospect, he can be regarded in many ways as a bundle of contradictions, being simultaneously an old-fashioned romantic and an antiquarian with a penchant for the Ballets Russes and avant-garde French painting. The fact that he was able to meld his diverse tastes and interests into a single, albeit multi-faceted, aesthetic is a lasting tribute to his energy and vision and places him as one of the great British polymaths of the 20th century.
As a direct result of his eldest brother being killed in the second battle of Ypres in 1915, Piper was obliged, despite his wish to go to art school, to fill his brother’s place and join the family law firm. This was a career for which he was singularly unsuited and his failure to pass the Law Society’s examination created an impasse that was only resolved by his father’s death in March 1927. Once released from the office, he applied to the Royal College of Art, but was diverted to Richmond School of Art for a year to improve his life-drawing skills, before he could be admitted.
Having finally achieved entry to the Royal College, he only remained for four terms, as his insistence on marrying Eileen Holding, a fellow student from Richmond, was in contravention of its rules. Thus, in his late twenties and without formal qualifications, he launched on his professional career, supplementing his income with journalism, a practice he kept up throughout his life.
Esta historia es de la edición April 08, 2020 de Country Life UK.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 8500 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición April 08, 2020 de Country Life UK.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 8500 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
Put some graphite in your pencil
Once used for daubing sheep, graphite went on to become as valuable as gold and wrote Keswick's place in history. Harry Pearson inhales that freshly sharpened-pencil smell
Dulce et decorum est
Michael Sandle is the Wilfred Owen of art, with his deeply felt sense of the futility of violence. John McEwen traces the career of this extraordinary artist ahead of his 88th birthday
Heaven is a place on earth
For the women of the Bloomsbury group, their country gardens were places of refuge, reflection and inspiration, as well as a means of keeping loved ones close by, discovers Deborah Nicholls-Lee
It's the plants, stupid
I WON my first prize for gardening when I was nine years old at prep school. My grandmother was delighted-it was she who had sent me the seeds of godetia, eschscholtzia and Virginia stock that secured my victory.
Pretty as a picture
The proliferation of honey-coloured stone cottages is part of what makes the Cotswolds so beguiling. Here, we pick some of our favourites currently on the market
How golden was my valley
These four magnificent Cotswold properties enjoy splendid views of hill and dale
The fire within
An occasionally deadly dinner-party addition, this perennial plant would become the first condiment produced by Heinz
Sweet chamomile, good times never seemed so good
Its dainty white flowers add sunshine to the garden and countryside; it will withstand drought and create a sweet-scented lawn that never needs mowing. What's not to love about chamomile
All I need is the air that I breathe
As the 250th anniversary of 'a new pure air' approaches, Cathryn Spence reflects on the 'furious free-thinker' and polymath who discovered oxygen
My art is in the garden
Monet and Turner supplied the colours, Canaletto the structure and Klimt the patterns for the Boodles National Gallery garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.