Redheaded Venus of the Week 3: Venus binding her hair by John William Godward

Venus binding her hair (1897)

This week's redheaded Venus is a rare nude by the last great Victorian Classicist, John William Godward (1861-1922). Many of Godward's pictures are instantly recognisable as they are now popular as prints and postcards but, like most Nineteenth Century Classical artists, he was ignored through much of the Twentieth Century. Godward's obscurity was compounded by the fact that he was rather reclusive, did not write or make declamations about himself and was seen, at best, as an imitator of "better" painters like Lord Leighton or Alma-Tadema. Even now, very little is known about his life and there is only one known photograph of him, as an infant.

The artist (right) with his mother, Sarah, and brother and sister Alfred and Mary.

Godward was born at home in Battersea on 9th August, 1861. His father worked in life insurance and Godward followed him into that profession. When Godward was young the family moved to Wimbledon (where Agent Triple P lived for a time as well-only about 500 yards from the Godwards' home!) and that was where he went to school. Living not far away was the architect William Hoff Wontner (1814-1881) and it seems that when Godward failed to take to life insurance his family felt that perhaps architecture might be a suitable profession instead. Whilst staying on at the insurance company Godward probably studied rendering and graining under Wontener between 1879 and 1881. Certainly this training would account for Godward's later amazing facility to paint marble, for which he would often use a feather rather than a brush. The earliest known painting by Godward, a portrait of his grandmother, appears about this time.

Godward's family probably never envisaged that he would want to become a painter but when Wontner died in 1881 his eldest son William Clarke Wontner, who was becoming a successful portrait painter at this time, may have taken over teaching Godward. Godward may well have then sudied at an art school in his free evenings: possibly The Clapham School of Art. When Wontner moved to a studio in St John's Wood, however, Godward would have come into very close proximity to the likes of JW Waterhouse, Sir Frank Dicksee and Edward Poynter; all well known Classical painters. Certainly his first exhibited work, The Yellow Turban (now lost), which appeared at the Royal Academy Summer exhibition in 1887 suggests an Orientalist theme, which was certainly an interest of Wontner's. However by this time he was already starting to do the Classically themed pictures for which he would become famous.

Unlike many other Classical painters, Godward's women actually look like they were born in the Mediterranean (the Venus, above, is a rare exception) and don't have the "English rose in a toga" look of so many of his contemporaries. One influence on the look of the women in his subsequent paintings was an introduction, through Whistler, of the famous artists' models, the Pettigrew sisters: Harriet, Lilian and Rose. They were gypsy girls from the West Country and were the most famous models in London at the time; sitting for Whistler, Poynter, Millais and Sargent.

Godward joined an artists studio in Gilston Road named the Bolton Studios where he was probably influenced by Henry Ryland who, when he left the Bolton studios, then shared a studio with Classical painter Herbert Draper. Unusually, nearly 40% of the artists at the Bolton Studios were women painters. The studio, as a result, developed a somewhat racy reputation; with rumours that some of the lady painters were earning a living in ways that weren't relating to their painting!

1 St Leonard's Studio is the low building on the right. We had our first Chinese on the roof terrace!

By this time Godward was becoming a reasonably well-known artist and established his own studio, for the first time, in 1889. This was at 1 St Leonard's Studio, Smith Street in Chelsea, where he painted many of his great early Classical pictures including The Betrothed; the first of his pictures to be put into a permanent collection. It was donated to the Guildhall Art Museum in 1916 where it reamins to this day. Agent Triple P has a meeting nearby tomorrow so may go along to have a look at it.

The Betrothed (1892) Another redhead

Agent Triple P actually went to a Fouth of July party at 1 St Leonard's Studio over twenty years ago and ended up with a rather luscious Chinese-American lady. Oddly, although we did talk about art, Triple P had no idea of the Godward connection at that point! The sleeping area was on a gallery overlooking the studio itself, an idea we have always quite fancied.

We will return to Godward in another post but to return to the redhead in question she was Godward's entry for the 1897 Royal Academy Summer exhibition; so ten year after his first exhibit there. She was one of Godward's largest paintings to date (90"x44") and an obvious attempt to emulate the grand Classical painters of the time. In truth, like most of Godward's nudes, she is not as successful as his clothed figures but she was given the place of honour in gallery VII at the exhibition.

Several of Godward's Summer Exhibition paintings at this time are generally agreed to have been unsuccesful. His previous year's entry was a similarly epic sized nude: Campaspe (1896) (Alexander the Great's mistress) which, whilst popular at the time has beenn heavily criticised since. Yet Godward persisted with these often clumsy epic paintings as he was desperate to become a Royal Academician, which would have offset the doubts as to the suitability of painting as a career to his disapproving father. These large Academic, in every sense of the word, paintings were intended to be Godward's key to being accepted at Burlington House. Unfortunately, Godward's withdrawn manner and lack of social skills meant, however, that he never got enough support in the Academy to achieve this.

Godward is one of Triple P's favourite artists but is still under-rated, even at a time whem Alma-Tadema and Leighton have been largely rehabilitated. Godward eventually came to a tragic end
which we will explore the next time we look at some of his more succesful female figures.

Pastel Venus: Reclining Nude by Thomas Wilmer Dewing

Reclining Nude (c. 1891) by Thomas Wilmer Dewing

Almost exactly a year ago, Agent Triple P was wandering around the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington DC accompanied by the lovely M. They came across this small pastel, tucked a way in a rather dark corner. Triple P grabbed a quick photograph so he could research the picture later. Fortunately, unlike the UK, Americans do not seem to have a problem with you taking photographs in their museums. Understandably, with some exhibits, they do not want the use of flash but you always get the feeling in British museums that the ban on photography is more to do with potential lost postcard revenue than protecting the art works.

The picture in situ

Thomas Wilmer Dewing was born in Newton Lower Falls, Massachusetts in 1851. He studied at the Académie Julian in Paris, and later moved to New York. In 1897 he was one of the Ten American Painters who resigned from the Society of American Artists in protest at what they considered increasing commercialisation of that group's exhibitions. Ironically, the Society had itself broken away from the National Academey of Design twenty years previously. The group, who became just known as simply The Ten, painted their impressionist pictures for twenty years before the deaths of the members broke it up.

Thomas Wilmer Dewing

Dewing was very much a tonalist, an American movement whose most well known exponent was Whistler, who used the characteristic limited palette and misty style on figures, usually female, in cool interiors. He died in 1938.

Augustus Saint-Gauden's Diana (second version)

This nude is unusual in Dewing's catalogue in that it wasn't a study but was commisioned by architect and art collector Stanford White. After the unveiling of Augustus Saint-Gauden's Diana, which was designed as a weather vane for the White designed Madison Square Garden, people complained that it might corrupt passers by. It provoked yet another discussion in America about the nude and art. Possibly the cause of the ruckus was the sheer size of Saint-Gauden's original which stood over eighteen feet high. He and White later decided that it was too big for the building and so he designed a smaller (13 feet) version which replaced the first version. The large version was destroyed in a fire, after it had been moved to Chicago, but the smaller version is now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art (it was taken down when White's building was demolished in 1925) where Triple P saw it last year.

Too big a nude for New York (1st version)

Faced with the controversy over the Diana weathervane White, who was a friend of both Saint-Gauden and Dewing started to assemble a collection of all the nudes he could find in order to "shock all the straight laced persons in town" and it was at this point (probably 1891 when the statue was finished) that he commissioned the picture from Dewing.

A more conventional nude by Dewing

The soft and sensuous treatment of the figure is obviously designed for a private collection as it would have been far too shocking for American taste at the time. The girl's sinuous body catches the light on a completely abstracted background and is delicately rendered but her face, in shadow, is merely suggested. If White wanted a picture that was all about the body then Dewing certainly delivered!

Redheaded Venus of the Week 2: After the Bath by Pierre-Auguste Renoir

After the Bath (1888) 65x54cm

This is Agent Triple P's favourite Renoir (1814-1919) and, quite possibly, his favourite picture of all time. This image is a scan from a book that belonged to Agent Triple P's father: The Female Nude in European Painting (1957) by French art historian Jean-Louis Vaudoyer. It was one of only eight colour plates in the book, which may have something to do with Triple P's reaction to it when he was younger.

Renoir painted over 6,000 pictures but we would venture that this is one of his best and, in our opinion, his best nude. She is a perfect voyeur's subject; caught seemingly lost in the process of drying her perfectly plump, pink body. The raised arm and the hand holding the towel just draw attention to her perfectly shaped breast.

Renoir, it is said, never really liked women; not as people anyway. His friend Georges Riviere noted that although " he gave women a beguiling appearance in his paintings...he generally took no pleasure in their conversation...he only liked women if they were susceptible to becoming models". Renoir himself said that he wanted to paint figures "like beautiful fruit" hoping that the viewer would respond to his paintings in such a way that they would want "to stroke a breast or a back". We can't help feeling that he totally succeeded in his aims with this marvellous figure.

This particular painting was sold in the mid-nineties to a Japanese collector for over £6million. A bargain!

Venus on wheels: Nicole Begg

It'll be tricky getting your shorts on now...

One of the biggest frustrations for female sports stars is when a less successful but more attractive competitor gets all the attention and sponsorsip.

The classic example being the attractive (at least as far as tennis players went at the time) but not quite at the top, Anna Kournikova. Her huge sponsorship deals annoyed her fellow players. "Aesthetics and charisma are seen as more important than sporting performance and it won't change as long as the box office puts Kournikova ahead of Lindsay Davenport just because she is prettier," moaned, successful but less well known French player, Natalie Tauziat in 2000. At this point Kournikova was earning £7.5 million a year but less than £500,000 of that was from tennis winnings.

How frustrating then, to be a double world champion and attractive and still not get the sponsorship deals. This was the plight facing nineteen year old New Zealand in-line skater Nicole Begg a couple of years ago. Beggs solution was simple: pose for some pictures wearing her in-line skates and nothing else.

She had done them for a local skating magazine (encouraged, rather creepily, by her coach father Bill) and must have been delighted when the rather modest shots went into orbit and were picked up all around the world, including by Playboy. Begg told her local paper that she had stripped off to lift her international profile and that of her sport: "Lots of sports stars, both male and female, have done this sort of thing before."

Well it certainly worked, and she has a raft of sponsors now, including Kia cars. However, no doubt, as with Victoria Pendleton the cyclist, the "wimmin" in the sport will be bemoaning the fact that this is what it took to get her backing.

She now has five world titles, just missing out in the last World championships in China in October but still winning three bronzes following an injury plagued season.

In fact, looking at some pictures of in-line racing there seen to be quite a few attractive girls in the field. Maybe its something we should see at the Olympics as it seems to be a combination of normal speed skating and road cycling.

So well done Nicole for delivering on your master plan. In truth, she is cute rather than beautiful and her figure isn't exactly world class (unlike her skating) but it just goes to show that the male dominated world of sports sponsoship has such low expectations of the looks of female athletes that someone reasonably attractive can still make an impact based on a few slighly saucy pictures.

Redheaded Venus of the Week 1: Paintings by Gil Elvgren

Agent Triple P has always had a fondness for redheaded women. Much derided as the mutants they, of course, are, many have had to deal with all sorts of vilification over the years: from insults provoked by the paleness of their skin to the often erratic texture of their hair.

Male redheads are, of course, an abomination. A BBC3 documentary a couple of years ago, with the rather assertive title Fuck off, I'm ginger!, showed a redheaded male TV presenter talking about the discrimination redheads endured. He tried to persuade a group of girls in a bar that there was nothing wrong with redheads. Despite him being on TV they all universally rejected him because of his hair colour.

A scientist was wheeled on to explain that women were programmed to reject pale skinned redheads as unhealthy looking and therefore bad breeding material. In Britain and Ireland we have a disproportionately large number of redheads of course but that means a higher than normal proportion of redheaded women.

Redheaded women fall into two camps: the vast majority, who tend to have a rather porcine aspect, and the rare but striking minority who will be the subject of our study over the coming months.

Today, as we heven't had any artwork on here for a bit, we present some paintings by pin-up artist supreme, Gil Elvgren (1914-1980). Most famous for his calendar work for Brown and Bigelow he produced over 500 oil paintings of women from the mid Thirties through to the mid Seventies.

He had an eye for an attractive redhead and a great ability to render their hair so we present a selection of his output to start our redheads collection.

The picture below sold last year for over $210,000 so there are obviously some rich redhead afficianados out there!

Venus from the rear: photographs by Andrea Seekircher

We recently came across a selection of pictures by German photographer Andrea Seekircher. Born in 1969 she started as a model but switched to photography and now makes her home in Dusseldorf.

Agent Triple P appreciates a finely wrought posterior and so, obviously, does Andrea as these photographs show. Most of her models are amateurs as she offers a glamour shoot package for ordinary women. Agent Triple P thinks he needs to move to Dusseldorf if these are ordinary women there!

Triple P once had a young lady who pointed out that of women's three anatomical points of atrraction: legs, bust and bottom, the latter was the one for the most primitive men. Given how well the aforementioned L looked in tight jeans she may well have just been baiting us, however.

I wonder whether our German friend B would fancy a trip to Dusseldorf? Given the high quality of her own posterior who knows...?

Nice droplets.

You'd have to crawl in those heels; walking would be impossible!

Words fail us!

The end.

Most Popular Items: February 2010

From October 1971 Claire Rambeau does water nymph really well.

Here are the most popular searched items for February (last month's ranking in brackets). Only four new entries this month which shows consistency and staying power for most in the list. The lovely Claire Rambeau has come from nowhere this month to jump in at number six.

1 (2) Elizabeth Ann Roberts. Back on top for junior Playmate from the Fifties.
2 (1) Pubic Wars. Drops to number two, but another new episode last week.
3 (3) Louann Fernald. Holding her third spot from January.
4 (15) Hyapatia Lee. Showing that last month's drop was just a blip.
5 (12) Gloria Root. Back up too for Sixties Playmate.
6 (-) Claire Rambeau. Highest new entry for classically beautiful Playmate from the Seventies.
7 (4) Sue and Louise Elvin. Australian mother and daughter stay in top ten.
8 (5) Lani Todd. Recent Playmate still popular.
9 (9) Alenka Bikar. Holding steady for Slovenian track and field Goddess.
10 (18) Polynesian Girls. Big climb for tropical island tottie.
11 (8) Melodye Prentiss. Always in the top twenty.
12 (13) Ulla Lindstrom. Up one for The Sun's first Page 3 girl.
13 (7) Jennifer Lewis. Cyber girl hangs in there.
14 (10) Evelyn Treacher. First US Penthouse Pet remains popular.
15 (20) Susan Ryder. Up five for Pubic War Penthouse Pet.
16 (14) Lenna Sjööblom. Back to where she was in December for scanners' delight.
17 (11) Veronika Zemanova. The slide continues for impossibly proportioned Czech "model".
18 (-) Tamara Santerra. Surprise new entry for early Seventies Pet.
19 (-) Flaming June. Lord Leighton's masterpiece returns to the top twenty.
20 (-) Maureen O'Hara. Perpetually popular and beating off an awful lot of hot girlies to stay in the top twenty.


The top ten artistic searches were:

1 (2) Flaming June. Back to number one for Victorian orange fantasy.
2 (3) Marie-Louise O'Murphy. Boucher's plump bottomed cutie.
3 (5) Lady Godiva. The Anglo Saxon girl on a horse.
4 (-) La Verite. Jules Joseph Lefebvre's girl with a light.
5 (-) Mario Tauzin. New entry for naughty French etchings artist.
6 (4) David Hamilton. English photographer lives in South of France and takes pictures of naked young women. Sensible.
7 (-) Ariadne asleep on the Island of Naxos by John Vanderlyn. Popular American nude with a very long title.
8 (1) September Morn. Chabas' controversial nymphet loses ground.
9 (8) David Wright. Forties and fifties pin-up artist.
10 (6) Syrinx by Arthur Hacker. Victorian take on pan-pipes legend.