Sir Roland Penrose CBE | |
|---|---|
 Penrose, circa 1940 | |
| Born | Roland Algernon Penrose (1900-10-14)14 October 1900 London, England |
| Died | 23 April 1984(1984-04-23) (aged 83) Chiddingly, East Sussex, England |
| Education | Architecture |
| Alma mater | Queens' College, Cambridge |
| Movement | Surrealism |
| Spouses | |
| Children | Antony Penrose |
| Father | James Doyle Penrose |
| Relatives | Roger Penrose (nephew) Jonathan Penrose (nephew) |
| Military career | |
| Allegiance |  United Kingdom |
| Service |  British Army |
| Years of service | 1943–1945 |
| Rank | Captain |
| Unit | Royal Engineers |
Sir Roland Algernon PenroseCBE (14 October 1900 – 23 April 1984) was anEnglish artist, historian and poet. He was a major promoter and collector of modern art and an associate of thesurrealists in the United Kingdom.[1] During the Second World War he put his artistic skills to practical use as a teacher ofcamouflage.
Penrose married the poetValentine Boué and then the photographerLee Miller.
Penrose was the son ofJames Doyle Penrose (1862–1932),[2] a successful portrait painter, and Elizabeth Josephine Peckover, the daughter ofLord Peckover, a wealthy Quaker banker. He was the third of four brothers; his older brother was the medical geneticistLionel Penrose.[3]
Roland grew up in a strictQuaker family inWatford and attendedThe Downs School,Colwall,Herefordshire, and thenLeighton Park School,Reading, Berkshire. In August 1918, as aconscientious objector, he joined theFriends' Ambulance Unit, serving from September 1918 with theBritish Red Cross in Italy. After studying architecture atQueens' College, Cambridge, Penrose switched to painting and moved to France, where he lived from 1922 and where in 1925 he married his first wife the poetValentine Boué.[4]
During this period he became friends with the artistsPablo Picasso,Wolfgang Paalen andMax Ernst, who would have the strongest influence on his work and most of the leading Surrealists.
Penrose returned to London in 1936 and was one of the organisers of theLondon International Surrealist Exhibition, which led to the establishment of the English surrealist movement.[6] Penrose settled inHampstead, north London, where he was the centre of the community of avant-garde British artists and emigres who had settled there.[7] With the Belgian surrealistE. L. T. Mesens, he opened the London Gallery onCork Street,[8] where he promoted the Surrealists as well as the sculptorHenry Moore, to whom he was first introduced by his close friendWolfgang Paalen, as well as the painterBen Nicholson, and the sculptorsBarbara Hepworth andNaum Gabo.
Busy with other duties, he made a small number of paintings[6] such as the 1938Le Grand Jour, which he described as "a collage painting although nothing but paint has been applied to the canvas. The images are unrelated to each other but by coming together like images in dreams they produce new associations which can be interpreted in whatever way the spectator may feel inclined." The image, he wrote "seemed to indicate an atmosphere of excitement and exhilaration centred round the distillation of a dance hall and a sunset in an alembic".[5]
Penrose commissioned a sculpture from Moore for his Hampstead house; the work became the focus of a press campaign againstabstract art. Penrose and Boué's marriage had broken down in 1934, and they divorced in 1937. Penrose came to Cornwall in June 1937, staying in his brother's home at Lambe Creek on theTruro River. He was accompanied by a group of surrealist artists; his new loverLeonora Carrington, Max Ernst,Eileen Agar,Lee Miller,Man Ray,Edouard Mesens,Paul Eluard, andJoseph Bard. Photographs of their stay can be seen atFalmouth Art Gallery.[9]
In 1938, Penrose organised a tour of Picasso'sGuernica that raised funds for the Republican Government in Spain. In the same year he had an affair withPeggy Guggenheim, when she met him at her galleryGuggenheim Jeune to try and sell him a painting by French Surrealist artistYves Tanguy. Penrose told Guggenheim he loved an American woman in Egypt, and in her autobiography Guggenheim reports that she told him to "go to Egypt to get his ladylove".[10]
By 1939, Penrose had begun a relationship with the model and photographer Lee Miller. He also had an affair with the art conservator and botanistGigi Crompton between 1945 and 1947.[11] Penrose married Miller in 1947. They lived at 21 Downshire Hill, Hampstead, London, which now bears ablue plaque.[12]
As a Quaker, Penrose had been apacifist, but after the outbreak of theSecond World War he volunteered as anair raid warden and then taughtmilitary camouflage at theHome Guard training centre atOsterley Park.[13][14] This led to Penrose's commission as acaptain in theRoyal Engineers.
He worked as senior lecturer at the Eastern Command Camouflage School inNorwich, and at the Camouflage Development and Training Centre atFarnham Castle, Surrey. During his lectures, he used to startle his audiences by inserting a colour photograph of his partner Lee Miller, lying on a lawn naked but for a camouflage net; when challenged, he argued that "if camouflage can hide Lee's charms, it can hide anything".[15] Forbes suggests this was a surrealist technique being put into service.[15] His lectures were respected by both trainees and colleagues.[16] In 1941 Penrose wrote theHome Guard Manual of Camouflage, which provided accurate guidance on the use of texture, not only colour, especially for protection from aerial photography, which was monochrome at that time.[16]
Penrose applied for a job at theForeign Office, but was turned down because of a perceived security risk, possibly relating to the investigation of Lee Miller byMI5.[17]
After the war, Penrose co-founded theInstitute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London in 1947.[18] He organised the first two ICA exhibitions:40 Years of Modern Art,[19] which included many key works ofCubism, and40,000 Years of Modern Art, which reflected his interest in African sculpture.[20][21] Penrose was a presence at the ICA for 30 years; he produced books on the works of his friendsPablo Picasso,[22]Max Ernst,Joan Miró,Man Ray andAntoni Tàpies. He was also a trustee of theTate Gallery; he organised a survey of Picasso's work there in 1960 and used his contacts to negotiate purchases of works by Picasso and the Surrealists at discounted prices.
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Penrose and Miller boughtFarley Farm House nearChiddingly, East Sussex, in 1949, where he displayed his valuable collection of modern art, and in particular the Surrealists and works by Picasso. Penrose designed the landscaping around the house as a setting for works of modern sculpture. Farleys House is now a museum and archive open to the public for guided tours on pre-determined days.[23]
Penrose remained close to his first wife, Valentine; they met again in London during the Second World War, and she came to live with Roland and Lee Miller for eighteen months. Valentine died at Farley Farm in 1978.[4] Penrose died on 23 April 1984, his late wife Lee Miller's birthday.
His bold and enigmatic paintings, drawings and objects are some of the most enduring images of the surrealist movement. His postcard collages, examples of which are found in major national collections across Britain. His personal library is housed within the Gabrielle Kieller Library at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.[24] He was awarded theCBE in 1960,[25] and he wasknighted for his services to thevisual arts in 1966.[26] TheUniversity of Sussex awarded him anhonoraryDoctorate of Letters in 1980.
Penrose is the uncle of the physicist andpolymathRoger Penrose, and the chessGrandmasterJonathan Penrose. He and Lee Miller had a son,Antony Penrose, who continues to run Farleys House as a museum and archive.[27]
An interview with Roland Penrose (and Lee Miller) recorded in 1946 can be heard on the audio CDSurrealism Reviewed.[28]
A filmed interview between Penrose and Antoni Tàpies was directed by James Scott in Spain in 1974.[29] The film, not previously completed, was in pre-production in 2018. The footage is available for viewing through theFundació Antoni Tàpies.
Extracts from an interview between Penrose and Max Ernst can be seen in episode 5, "The Threshold of Liberty", ofRobert Hughes's art-historical seriesThe Shock of the New (1980).
{{cite web}}:Missing or empty|url= (help)OPEN SUNDAYS & THURSDAYS APR – OCT
Antoni Tàpies as Director 1974 Documentary (Work in Progress) A film about the Spanish/Catalan artist Antoni Tàpies, which consists of footage shot in Barcelona and interviews between Sir Roland Penrose and the artist.
ODNB article by Richard Cork, 'Penrose, Sir Roland Algernon (1900–1984)', rev.Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2006accessed 27 May 2009
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