John BRATBY
Three self-portraits
1957
- Medium
- oil on composition board
- Measurements
- 203.0 × 244.0 cm
- Inscription
- inscribed in white paint l.c.l.: BRATBY / 1957
- Accession Number
- 3773-4
- Department
- International Painting
- Credit Line
- National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Felton Bequest, 1958
© the Artist's Estate. All Rights Reserved / Bridgeman Images
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of Digitisation Champion Ms Carol Grigor through Metal Manufactures Limited - Gallery location
- Not on display
- Subjects (general)
- Portraits
- Subjects (specific)
- artists (visual artists) Bratby, John men (male humans) painterliness painters (artists) record players self-portraits smoking (activity)
- Provenance
- With the Beaux-Arts Gallery (dealer), London, 1957; from where purchased, on the advice of A. J. L. McDonnell, for the Felton Bequest 1957.
Essay
As a student at London’s Royal College of Art for three years from 1951 to 1954, John Bratby had access to remarkable teachers such as Carel Weight, Rodrigo Moynihan, Ruskin Spear and John Minton, but he rebelled against the school’s reverence for the muted palette of British painter Walter Sickert. Even as a student, Bratby had already developed his own method of applying thick skeins of paint in high-keyed colours with an expressionistic enthusiasm that revealed his indebtedness to Van Gogh, providing a colour shock that he recalled was ‘an absolute anathema at the Royal College at the time’.1John Bratby, quoted in Maurice Yacowar, The Great Bratby. A Portrait of John Bratby R. A., Middlesex University Press, London, 2008, pp. 19–20. The dramatic scale and brilliant coloration of Bratby’s work during his Royal College years put him at odds with both teachers and fellow pupils:
It was to do with the aftermath of the war, and the climate of the aftermath of the war. People got used to austerity — the opposite of extravagance. Colour of khaki, restricted foods, ration cards, all contributed to the zeitgeist … The scale was important. This was all an obsession. Paintings had to be large. It was one of those strange things that happened. A reaction against the small picture.2Yacowar, p. 20.
The enormous scale of Bratby’s paintings was counterbalanced by their close narrative focus – foodstuffs piled on the kitchen bench or, more prosaically, his wooden-seated toilet. This sort of subject matter caused him to be linked with fellow artists Edward Middleditch, Derrick Greaves and Jack Smith, whom the art critic David Sylvester dubbed Kitchen Sink painters. Looking back on Bratby’s work in 1961, art writer Alan Clutton-Brock observed:
We have been constantly able to observe life with the Bratbys, almost the only subject he cares to paint. It has continued year after year, like a serial story which is all middle and no beginning or end, or like catching glimpses of what the next-door neighbours, at once familiar and enigmatic, are doing over the garden wall. Not the slightest attempt is made to arrange things for our inspection; nothing is put away tidily but everything and everybody is always all over the place.3 Alan Clutton-Brock, Painters of Today. John Bratby A. R. A., Studio Books, London, 1961, p. 12.
A preoccupation with gritty domestic subject matter also led to artists like Bratby being dubbed Social Realists. At the time, however, Bratby stated that his art should be depoliticised by considering it under the aegis of New Realism, although the Times disagreed vehemently, writing of the paintings of Bratby and like-minded artists Smith, Greaves and Middleditch:
There is a recurrent emphasis in their work on the shoddy character of domestic life as most of us in this country are compelled to live it, and their pictures are redolent of the variety of functions now inappropriately performed in the kitchens of those who are lucky enough to have one. According to Mr Bratby, they simply paint their environment, with no social criticism; but their environment being what it is, the mere choice of the subject matter contains a germ of protest.4 ‘Degrees of realism in painting’, The Times, 17 Jul. 1956, p. 5.
Conversely, although not surprisingly, for a Marxist critic concerned by ‘the disastrous relation between art and property’, John Berger attacked the abundance of objects in Bratby’s paintings on suspicion of wanton consumerism in a now perhaps too-prosperous post-war Britain, feeling that ‘his girls are drawn like fashion plates and his scooters like advertisements in a trade paper’.5John Berger, Permanent Red. Essays in Seeing, Writers and Readers, London, 1979, pp. 9, 82.
Shortly after the National Gallery of Victoria’s acquisition of Three self-portraits, 1957, curator Brian Finemore argued that Bratby’s
detailing of everyday life, the packet of breakfast food, the studio litter, the stiff-backed chair, and the ugly record-player, have misled those critics who count him as a realist. His art is expressionist, and therefore inevitably romantic. Expressionism makes the work of art an emotionally charged symbol for the artist’s subjective feelings … Thus, with ruthless distortion of perspective, arbitrary tone and vibrant strokes and swirls of paint, Bratby forces us to look anew at the commonplace.6Brian Finemore, ‘John Bratby: Three self-portraits’, Annual Bulletin of the National Gallery of Victoria, vol. 1, 1959, p. 25.
This accords with Bratby’s own recollections concerning the creation of Three self-portraits, which was painted at the same time as Three self-portraits with a white wall, 1957 (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool), a similarly sized work depicting the artist reflected in three vertical mirrors. The NGV’s painting was ‘a sister to it & coeval’, the artist stated:
My first wife [Jean E. Cooke] had an old wardrobe with glass in it & I tore off the door, & painted myself in it, doing this 3 times, same door, 3 different images. It was painted in the long room of 42 Dartmouth Row, Blackheath, London SE3. I remember I searched for truth, not a flattering image.7John Bratby, letter to Annette Dixon, former Curator, National Gallery of Victoria, 1987, artist file, National Gallery of Victoria.
Bratby and Cooke were sharing Cooke’s father’s house at this time, an arrangement that was not without its tensions. The record player at the bottom right of Three self-portraits brings physical noise to the visual cacophony of Bratby’s obsessively busy composition, which creates a ‘hall of mirrors’ effect through multiple reflections and ambitious spatial recessions and obtrusions. This hints at discord in the Cooke-Bratby household, where Bratby’s behaviour at this time was characterised by self-centredness, selfishness and lack of consideration for his wife and father-in-law.8For Bratby’s inappropriate behaviour in this ménage, see Yacowar, pp. 22–6.
Ted Gott, Senior Curator, International Art, National Gallery of Victoria
Notes
John Bratby, quoted in Maurice Yacowar, The Great Bratby. A Portrait of John Bratby R. A., Middlesex University Press, London, 2008, pp. 19–20.
Yacowar, p. 20.
Alan Clutton-Brock, Painters of Today. John Bratby A. R. A., Studio Books, London, 1961, p. 12.
‘Degrees of realism in painting’, The Times, 17 Jul. 1956, p. 5.
John Berger, Permanent Red. Essays in Seeing, Writers and Readers, London, 1979, pp. 9, 82.
Brian Finemore, ‘John Bratby: Three self-portraits’, Annual Bulletin of the National Gallery of Victoria, vol. 1, 1959, p. 25.
John Bratby, letter to Annette Dixon, former Curator, National Gallery of Victoria, 1987, artist file, National Gallery of Victoria.
For Bratby’s inappropriate behaviour in this ménage, see Yacowar, pp. 22–6.
Further reading
Clutton-Brock, Alan, Painters of Today. John Bratby A. R. A., Studio Books, London, 1961.
Finemore, Brian, ‘John Bratby: Three self-portraits’, Annual Bulletin of the National Gallery of Victoria, vol. 1, 1959, p. 25.
Healy, Monica, entry on John Bratby’s Three self-portraits in Ted Gott et al., Modern Britain 1900-1960, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2007, p. 287.
Yacowar, Maurice, The Great Bratby. A Portrait of John Bratby R. A., Middlesex University Press, London, 2008.
Conservation
John Bratby’s paintings of the 1950s are insightful depictions of the artist’s painting method. Among his early domestic interiors are numerous self-portraits that show the artist at work, paintbrush in hand and among the clutter of everyday objects. Bratby gave a simple reason for painting himself: ‘I was the most pliable and obedient model. All one needed was a mirror’.1John Bratby, quoted in Peter Davies, Bratby, Old Bakehouse Books, Abertillery, 2002, p. 54. Three self-portraits, 1957, demonstrates Bratby’s resourceful use of a mirror, with its depiction of the artist’s reflection in a full-length mirrored door, rendered from three different angles.
The painting supportThe physical substrate of an artwork onto which paint is applied. Various materials can be used, including canvas, wood panel, artists’ boards, paper, metal and stone. is composition boardAlso called hardboard. A board or sheet formed of closely packed cellulose fibres or particles derived from wood or other sources. It used principally as a building material. Masonite is a well-known commercial brand of composition board. (also called hardboard or masonite); two roughly cut pieces joined vertically in the centre. At the time, Bratby’s dealer, Helen Lessore, warned that such joins were undesirable for potential buyers: ‘Hardboard is made eight feet long, so it should be unnecessary’.2Helen Lessore, quoted in Maurice Yacowar, The Great Bratby. A Portrait of John Bratby R. A., Middlesex University Press, London, 2008, pp. 50–1. However, Bratby continued to recycle material including supports from unsold works. The two boards that form Three self-portraits, 1957, are held together with a six-member timber strainer,An auxiliary support framework (usually wooden) with fixed corners, over which a canvas is typically stretched. The framework can also be mounted to the back of a rigid support. adhered to the back of the painting and secured extensively with metal brackets and screws (see below). Several screws protrude through to the front of the painting, suggesting an improvised approach to its overall construction.
The large scale of his works during this time were also a concern for Lessore, who tried to encourage Bratby to use canvas rather than hardboard as a way to reduce transport costs.3ibid. p. 51. Yet, from 1957–59, Bratby was immersed in what he described as his ‘large-scale period’, stating that: ‘I had an obsessive urge to work on a large scale during that period’.4 John Bratby, quoted in Mary Chamot et al., The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, Oldbourne Press, London, 1964, p. 75. This was in part due to the size of his studio: a large room (12 foot square) in his father-in-law’s house at Dartmouth Row, Greenwich.5Davies, p. 71. It was a stark contrast from the small bedsit and attic recess that Bratby lived in during his first year as a student at the Royal College of the Arts, London.6ibid. pp. 45–6. At Greenwich, Bratby had removed a mirrored door from his wife’s wardrobe and utilised it in numerous large-scale works, including Three self-portraits and companion piece, Three self-portraits with a white wall, also made in 1957. Small details in these paintings reveal the studio arrangement, such as the rope used to secure upright the mirrored door, propped on a chair or stair railing.
Three self-portraits shows minimal preparation prior to the application of the paint layers. A cream coloured ground layer was irregularly applied while the support laid horizontally, evident by numerous paint drips along the edges. The extent of the irregularity is best observed under raking light,Illumination from an oblique angle used to highlight fine morphological features of the object surface. which immediately accentuates an area at the centre where a pool of paint formed and attempts made to level out the paint (see below). The groundA layer(s) of opaque paint applied to a support to provide suitable colour, texture and absorbency on which to paint. Also called priming. layer is likely a commercial house paint, based on the presence of common paint fillers (kaolin and calcium carbonate) found during material analysis, using two scientific techniques, Fourier transform infra-red spectroscopy (FTIR)An analytical technique used to identify organic and some inorganic components present in a material, including pigments, binders and fillers. It is non-destructive to the small sample of material that is normally removed. and X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF).An analytical technique used to identify elements present in a material, which for paintings can be suggestive of the pigments or other inorganic materials used. It is non-destructive, meaning it does not require taking a sample. Lead was also detected in many of the paint colours, including the ground. It was not long after this painting was made that more comprehensive restrictions on the use of lead-based paint were introduced in the United Kingdom.
Bratby’s paintings have a distinctive impasto appearance, resulting from a technique coined by the artist called ‘tubism’. It describes the process of squeezing paint directly from the tube and applying it directly to the painting support. Documentary sources, such as studio photographs held in the National Portrait Gallery, London, frequently show the artist at an easel with a pile of squeezed paint tubes. Bratby developed this approach as a student at the Royal College of the Arts and had once remarked how it distinguishes him from other painters: ‘I use thicker paint than the others, and my work has a plum pudding effect … for it is crowded with forms, and colours, and blobs and slabs of paint’.7Maurice Yacowar, The Great Bratby. A Portrait of John Bratby R. A., Middlesex University Press, London, 2008, p. 20. The ‘tubism’ technique also meant less mixing of paint colours, resulting in a more vivid and bright appearance – another aspect of Bratby’s technique that distinguished him from his peers.
The paint layer for Three self-portraits varies considerably from thin washes to areas of thick and heavy impasto, achieved with Bratby’s ‘tubism’ technique (see below). The impasto, primarily in white and yellow colours, appear as highlights on the figures and chair in the foreground. There may have been an economic reason behind his selective use of ‘tubism’ for this large work, since artist-quality paints in tubes were generally more expensive than commercial house paints in tins. Bratby was known to use Winsor and Newton artist-quality paints, however, in the early 1960s, he quarrelled with the British manufacturer about their products, and by the 1970s switched to using Cryla acrylic artist paints.8ibid. p. 110. Overall, the varied brushwork and layering of paint, applied mostly wet-in-wet,Also called wet-into-wet. A painting technique where paint is applied over paint that is still wet. This can result in blending of the paint on the support. The presence of this technique indicates little time has passed between the application of each layer. indicate an effortless ease and speed in Bratby’s painting style.
Raymonda Rajkowski, Conservator of Paintings, National Gallery of Victoria