Frank Rutter
Encyclopedia
Francis Vane Phipson Rutter (17 February 1876 – 18 April 1937) was a British art critic
, curator
and activist.
In 1903, he became art critic for The Sunday Times
, a position which he held for the rest of his life. He was an early champion in England of modern art
, founding the French Impressionist Fund in 1905 to buy work for the national collection, and in 1908 starting the Allied Artists Association
to show "progressive" art, as well as publishing its journal, Art News, the "First Art Newspaper in the United Kingdom". In 1910, he began to actively support women's suffrage
, chairing meetings, and giving sanctuary to suffragettes released from prison under the Cat and Mouse Act
—helping some to leave the country.
From 1912 to 1917, he was the curator of Leeds City Art Gallery. In 1917, he edited the cultural journal, Arts and Letters, with Herbert Read
. In his writing after World War I
, Rutter observed that advertising
imagery was seen by far more people than work in art galleries; he noted a new realism
after the period of "abstract experiment"; and he praised the work of Dod Proctor as a "complete presentation of twentieth century vision".
, London
, the youngest son of Emmeline Claridge Phipson and Henry Rutter (died 1896). His grandfather, John, and his father were both prosperous solicitors with chambers in Cliffords Inn, Holborn, and both had acted for John Ruskin
, John assisting on Ruskin's marriage nullification with Euphemia (Effie) Gray; Henry severed the connection with Ruskin, after the latter rejected his counsel on a property transaction.
From 1889, Frank Rutter was educated at Merchant Taylors’ School
, at that time in Aldersgate
, where he specialised in Hebrew (under the influence of his father whose hobby was Biblical archaeology) and where pupils were expected to gain Oxbridge scholarships or exhibitions in classics: Rutter, aged seventeen tried but failed to gain a scholarship in history at Exeter College
, Oxford, but was successful in the Queens' College, Cambridge
, examination for a scholarship in Hebrew, going to university in 1896 and gaining the Semitic Language Tripos
(degree) in 1899.
Whilst still at school, Rutter, along with a fellow sixth form student, Edgar D., explored London nightlife, visiting music hall
s, eating out in Gatti's Restaurant and joining nightclubs, which were then an adjunct to the more formal London's gentleman's club, providing a dining room, ballroom, writing room, and female membership, which was not taken up by respectable women in society, although the male membership was mostly respectable; Rutter's father happily financed these activities.
When at Cambridge, Rutter gained popularity through his banjo
-playing, and, thanks to the good train service available, extended his social pursuits to Paris, first visiting in 1898, speaking French fluently and often staying for a month at a time in the city, where he made friends in the Latin Quarter
.
After university, spent a few months as an itinerant tutor, then began as a freelance writer in London with a newly acquired typewriter. One of his successful interviews was with Bernard Shaw
on the subject of housing problems—the text of which was entirely provided by Shaw himself; The Times
printed an interview with the American scout, Major Burnham
, on his return from South Africa
.
He obtained posts as assistant editor of To-day and the Sunday Special, both part of the same publishing group. In February 1901, he became sub-editor of the Daily Mail
, and began to write art criticism, mostly for The Financial Times and The Sunday Times
. In 1902, he went back to To-day as editor for two years, and for a short time brought it back into profit, until it succumbed to cheaper competition and was merged with London Opinion. In 1903, Leonard Rees appointed him art critic
of The Sunday Times, a post he held for the rest of his life, 34 years in all. Rutter honed his skills whilst doing the job, and also made the acquaintance of leading artists in Paris through frequenting the cafés.
initiated many years of frustration for Rutter, who believed it would siphon off available money from his own aims. He was a strong supporter of Impressionist
and Expressionist
Modernism
. He considered "perfectly dreadful" the lack of such work in the national collections, pointing out in 1905 that the only example of the modern French school was Edgar Degas
' The Ballet from Robert the Devil (1876) in the Victoria and Albert Museum
.
Raging with indignation, he wrote articles on this omission, gave lectures, and, galvanised by the opening of the Impressionist exhibition staged by Durand-Ruel at the Grafton Galleries in London in 1905, he persuaded the editor and proprietors of The Sunday Times to allow space for a public subscription, the French Impressionist Fund. Sargent and Wertheimer each sent ten guineas; Blanche Marchesi staged a fund-raising concert; Rutter, although "extremely nervous" gave his first lecture at the Grafton Galleries. Sir Claude Phillips and D.S. MacColl joined him on the executive committee of the fund, and contributions slowly mounted up to £160, sufficient at that time to buy a top class Impressionist painting.
Rutter's choice was Monet
's Vétheuil: Sunshine and Snow (since retitled Lavacourt under Snow), which MacColl was in favour of and Durand-Ruel had promised to sell for the amount collected, but Phillips pointed out that National Gallery did not accept work by living artists; discreet enquiries revealed that the gallery trustees also found too "advanced" Manet
, Sisley
and Pissarro
: "They were certainly dead—but they had not been dead long enough for England", wrote Rutter, adding "I nearly wept with disappointment."
MacColl ascertained that the trustees would accept Eugène Boudin
, who Rutter protested was not an Impressionist but whom he accepted out of necessity, mollified by MacColl's argument that "he's the beginning of Impressionism and we can make a start with him." To avoid any accusations of logrolling
Durand-Ruel's exhibition, they agreed that Rutter would travel to Van der Veldt, a private collector in Le Havre
, to choose a Boudin painting. He brought back as personal luggage Boudin's 1888 painting, Entre les jetées, Trouville (The Entrance to Trouville Harbour), and wrote to MacColl on 11 October 1905 to inform him of the work he had selected, which Van der Veldt had accepted £120 for provided it would go to a national collection and which was waiting at the Goupil Gallery for MacColl to see.
It was shown privately at the Goupil Gallery for the subscribers, and presented in January 1906 to the National Gallery through the National Art Collections Fund, which Rutter said was keen to act as a channel for the prestigious presentation, but had not given "the slightest help or encouragement when I needed it most." It made Rutter "boil with rage" to contrast this with the Fund's spending of thousands of pounds on older paintings; he said, "the Fund's inertia and snobbish ineptitude are entirely characteristic of the art-officialdom in England."
exposure for progressive artists with the Allied Artists Association
(AAA), founded the following year and based on the model of the French Salon des Indépendants with the principle of non-juried shows of international artists, who could subscribe and choose which works they wished to enter (initially five pieces, later three).
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Rutter was a supporter of the Fitzroy Street Group, which had been founded in 1907, and succeeded in gaining the support of key members, Walter Sickert
, Spencer Gore
and Harold Gilman
, for the AAA. Rutter was a natural organiser and, with the help of Lucien Pissarro
attracted 80 members. Rutter was keen to mount a foreign section in the first show, and liaised over this with Jan de Holewinski (1871–1927), who was in London to arrange a Russian art and craft show. The first AAA show in July 1908 was in the Royal Albert Hall
and had over 3,000 works on display.
In 1909, at the second show in the Royal Albert Hall
, over 1,000 works were shown, mainly by British artists, but also the first works (two paintings and twelve woodcuts) exhibited in London by Wassily Kandinsky
. Rutter's friends in Leeds, Michael Sadler
and his son, Michael Sadleir
(who had modified the spelling of his surname) developed a relationship with Kandinsky, who assigned English translation rights for Concerning the Spiritual in Art to Sadleir.
Rutter was secretary of the AAA and organised it for four years. It was artistically accomplished, but not so financially. Through the AAA, Rutter helped many artists, such as Charles Ginner
, who, although not achieving outstanding success, was able to gain an audience and develop a loyal following for his work. The AAA exhibited also for the first time in London Constantin Brâncuşi
, Jacob Epstein
, Robert Bevan and Walter Bayes.
From October 1909 to 1912, Rutter also published and edited the weekly, cheaply-printed Art News (sold for 2d a week), the journal of the AAA, like which it had an open-door policy on contributors, featuring the lectures given to the Royal Academy Schools
by Sir William Blake Richmond, as well as Sickert's attack on the Royal Academy, "Straws from Cumberland Market", his column on topical issues being the main attraction. It was promoted as the "First Art Newspaper in the United Kingdom".
On 30 August 1909 Rutter married Thirz Sarah (Trixie, born 1887/8), whose father, James Henry Tiernan, was a member of the New Zealand Police
. With the encouragement of George Bernard Shaw
, Rutter became a member of the Fabian Society
.
On 12 January 1910, at the Eustace Miles Restaurant, Rutter chaired the meeting of a group which developed into the Men's Political Union for Women's Enfranchisement, of which he was the honorary treasurer. Four months later he was the speaker representing the Press at the John Stuart Mill Celebrations, which were staged by the Women's Freedom League.
In 1910, Roger Fry
occupied the limelight of avant-garde
campaigning for art, when he outraged the public with an exhibition Manet and the post-impressionists at the Grafton Galleries, showcasing work by Van Gogh
, Gauguin
and Cézanne
. Rutter had put the term Post-Impressionist in print in Art News of 15 October 1910, three weeks before Fry's show, during a review of the Salon d'Automne
, where he described Othon Friesz
as a "post-impressionist leader"; there was also an advert in the journal for the show The Post-Impressionists of France.
Rutter quickly supported Fry's venture with a small book Revolution in Art (enlarged in 1926 as Evolution in Modern Art), its title derived from Gauguin's statement that "in art there are only revolutionists or plagiarists." Rutter wrote in the dedication: "To Rebels of either sex all the world over who in any way are fighting for freedom of any kind I dedicate this study of their painter-comrades."
On 25 March 1911, Rutter chaired a meeting of the Men's Political Union at Caxton Hall
, Westminster
, and reported that a recent court case at Leeds, in which Alfred Hawkings had been awarded £100 damages for being ejected from a meeting, was "a distinct victory for the suffragist cause." Rutter roused cheers from his listeners upon exhorting them that they needed to prove to their opponents that "the reign of bullying, tyranny, and savagery must come to an end."
Rutter's Art News reported on the AAA show of July 1911 and also printed the Futurist Painters Manifesto (first printed as the Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting in February 1909 in Le Figaro
). In April 1912, because of financial difficulties, Rutter resigned as secretary of the AAA, which had been strongly supported by Lucien Pissarro
, Walter Sickert
and others, but which he felt was nevertheless dwindling away due to what he condemned as "the incurable snobbishness of the English artist". That year he relocated from London to Leeds
for the next five years, having been appointed curator of the Leeds City Art Gallery at a salary of £300 per annum. He continued to advocate new ventures in art through his column "Round the galleries" in The Sunday Times.
He used his house at 7 Westfield Terrace, Chapel Allerton
, Leeds, to provide accommodation for suffragette
s released from prison under the Cat and Mouse Act
and recovering from hunger strike
. In 1913, he provided a character reference so that a job could be obtained in Europe by a "mouse", Elsie Duval; another, Lilian Lenton
, a suffragette arson
ist also escaped via his home to France in June that year with the aid of his wife. Elizabeth Crawford, author of The Women's Suffrage Movement, suggests that other similar events must have taken place, but were kept quiet at the time out of necessity and, later, due to Rutter's taciturnity. He wrote in an epilogue to his autobiography:
He did not agree with the later, more extreme tactics of the WSPU leaders, who nevertheless still commanded his respect and admiration. He encouraged the artist, Emily Susan Ford (1850–1930), Vice-Chairman of the Artists' Suffrage League and exhibited her work in the Leeds gallery.
Rutter initially had plans to create a modern art collection at the Leeds gallery, but had been frustrated in this aim by "boorish" local councillors; his association with the escape of Lilian Lenton had further damaged his standing. Before he left the city, he co-founded the Leeds Art Collections Fund with Michael Sadler, who was the vice-chancellor of Leeds University and a collector of work by Kandinsky and Gauguin
. The Fund helped with acquisitions and shows, among them the first major John Constable
show and another in June 1913 of Post-Impressionism
held at the Leeds Arts Club
, which had been started by Holbrook Jackson and A. R. Orage, editor of The New Age
, and was galvanised by the new activity. The discussions there about contemporary art had a significant influence on the thinking of Herbert Read
(1893–1968), who was introduced to modern art by Rutter. Rutter's plan for a literary version of the AAA had a strong appeal for Read.
in the West End
to curate the Post-Impressionist and Futurist Exhibition, which displayed the story of those movements from Camille Pissarro
to Vorticist
Wyndham Lewis
(who was no longer on good terms with Fry). Rutter's choice of Pissarro as a starting point was in contradistinction to the stance of Fry and the Bloomsbury Group
, who saw Cézanne as the beginning of modern art.
Rutter made a link between the British artists he supported and the French intimiste painters, as well as featuring artworks by Severini
and Boccioni
of the Italian Futurism
movement—which had been shown in London first by the Sackville Gallery—and by Brâncuşi
, Epstein
, Delaunay
and Signac
. Rutter's consummate curation and catalogue foreword were a testament to his deep knowledge of the subject. He praised Nevinson's The Departure of the Train De Luxe as "the first English Futurist
picture".
Fry told Rutter that Fredrick Etchells from his Omega Workshops
had nothing ready to show, and failed to forward a letter from Rutter to Wyndham Lewis
, who nevertheless showed the large Kermesse, which, together with Delaunay's similarly-sized Cardiff Football Team, made a centerpiece for the show.
The Cabyard, Night, the only painting by Robert Bevan
acquired for a public collection during the artist's lifetime, was bought by the Contemporary Art Society on Rutter's recommendation that they should obtain it for the nation before a more discerning collector bought it.
and Charles Ginner
had planned the launch of a journal, Art and Letters, for Spring 1914, but this was delayed by the outbreak of war
. It began publication in July 1917 as an illustrated quarterly, co-edited by Rutter and Herbert Read
, whose aesthetic and critical ideas dominated. It was a modernist magazine of visual and literary art, which fused the artistic and the political.
The contents page of the first issue carried a policy of remuneration for contributors, based on "co-operative lines" that after the cost of production and 5% on capital, half of the profits would go to editorial and publishing staff and the other half would be split equally between contributors. Underneath an 1894 woodcut by Lucien Pissarro
, page one carried an editorial explaining the delayed publication due to the outbreak of war and justifying the use of scarce materials, compared to other periodicals "which give vulgar and illiterate expression to the most vile and debasing sentiments." It was also stated that some of the contributors were serving at the front and that educated men in the army were keen to see such a publication: "Engaged, as their duty bids, on harrowing work of destruction, they exhort their elders at home never to lose sight of the supreme importance of creative art."
Sickert's "Thérèse Lassore" was printed in 1918, after which the journal ceased publication for a year. It resumed again with Osbert Sitwell
as Rutter's co-editor—and T. S. Eliot
's theories predominating editorially—but folded in 1920.
From 1915 to 1919, Rutter returned to the Allied Artists' Association in the guiding role of chairman. In 1917, he resigned his job at the Leeds City Art Gallery, and he worked for the Admiralty as an administrative officer (AAO) until 1919.
and David Bomberg
. Finding this a restriction on his "liberty and leisure" he returned to writing and completed in the region of 20 books, as well as a considerable number of contributions to The Burlington Magazine
, Apollo
, Studio Magazine
, The Financial Times and The Times
.
In his writings he emphasised both the spiritual and social role of art. He also commented on the visual power to be found in the London Underground
: "The whole nation is much less affected by what pictures are shown in the Royal Academy than by what posters are put up on the hoardings. A few thousand see the first, but the second are seen by millions. The art galleries of the People are not in Bond Street but are to be found in every railway station."
On 28 March 1920 in The Sunday Times
, Rutter reviewed the short-lived Group X (a reforming of the Vorticists
), "the real tendency of the exhibition is towards a new sort of realism, evolved by artists who have passed through a phase of abstract experiment.".
He divorced his wife around this time, and on 29 March 1920 married Ethel Dorothy (born 1894/5), the second daughter of William Robert Bunce, a coal merchant.
In 1927, he said of Newlyn
artist Dod Proctor's painting, Morning, exhibited in the Royal Academy
that it was "a new vision of the human figure which amounts to the invention of a twentieth century style in portraiture" and "She has achieved apparently with consummate ease that complete presentation of twentieth century vision in terms of plastic design after which Derain
and other much praised French painters have been groping for years past."
1928–1931, Rutter was European Editor of International Studio, New York. He was also the London Correspondent for the Association Française d’Expansion et d’Echanges Artistiques. In 1932, he praised advances in the Tate Gallery
's attitude towards art since its foundation (although others, notably Douglas Cooper, considered it "hopelessly insular").
He suffered from a bronchial complaint for a number of years, as a result of which he periodically sojourned on the South Coast
, visiting London exhibitions when he felt in good enough health to do so. In April 1937, he had an attack of bronchitis
and died, aged 61, a fortnight later on 18 April in his home at 5 Litchfield Way, Golders Green
, London
; the funeral service was at 12.30 p.m. on 21 April at Golders Green Crematorium. He wrote his Sunday Times article up to a week before his death. He left his estate, which included around 80 paintings by the likes of Gilman, Ginner, Gore and Lucien Pissarro, to his wife. He had no children.
Art critic
An art critic is a person who specializes in evaluating art. Their written critiques, or reviews, are published in newspapers, magazines, books and on web sites...
, curator
Curator
A curator is a manager or overseer. Traditionally, a curator or keeper of a cultural heritage institution is a content specialist responsible for an institution's collections and involved with the interpretation of heritage material...
and activist.
In 1903, he became art critic for The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
, a position which he held for the rest of his life. He was an early champion in England of modern art
Modern art
Modern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...
, founding the French Impressionist Fund in 1905 to buy work for the national collection, and in 1908 starting the Allied Artists Association
Allied Artists Association
The Allied Artists Association was an art exhibiting society based in London in the early 20th century.-History:The Allied Artists Association was founded by Frank Rutter, art critic of The Sunday Times newspaper, in 1908....
to show "progressive" art, as well as publishing its journal, Art News, the "First Art Newspaper in the United Kingdom". In 1910, he began to actively support women's suffrage
Suffragette
"Suffragette" is a term coined by the Daily Mail newspaper as a derogatory label for members of the late 19th and early 20th century movement for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, in particular members of the Women's Social and Political Union...
, chairing meetings, and giving sanctuary to suffragettes released from prison under the Cat and Mouse Act
Cat and Mouse Act
The Prisoners Act 1913 was an Act of Parliament passed in Britain under Herbert Henry Asquith's Liberal government in 1913...
—helping some to leave the country.
From 1912 to 1917, he was the curator of Leeds City Art Gallery. In 1917, he edited the cultural journal, Arts and Letters, with Herbert Read
Herbert Read
Sir Herbert Edward Read, DSO, MC was an English anarchist, poet, and critic of literature and art. He was one of the earliest English writers to take notice of existentialism, and was strongly influenced by proto-existentialist thinker Max Stirner....
. In his writing after World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, Rutter observed that advertising
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
imagery was seen by far more people than work in art galleries; he noted a new realism
Realism (arts)
Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
after the period of "abstract experiment"; and he praised the work of Dod Proctor as a "complete presentation of twentieth century vision".
Early life
Frank Rutter was born at 4 The Cedars, PutneyPutney
Putney is a district in south-west London, England, located in the London Borough of Wandsworth. It is situated south-west of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London....
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, the youngest son of Emmeline Claridge Phipson and Henry Rutter (died 1896). His grandfather, John, and his father were both prosperous solicitors with chambers in Cliffords Inn, Holborn, and both had acted for John Ruskin
John Ruskin
John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...
, John assisting on Ruskin's marriage nullification with Euphemia (Effie) Gray; Henry severed the connection with Ruskin, after the latter rejected his counsel on a property transaction.
Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood
Merchant Taylors' School is a British independent day school for boys, originally located in the City of London. Since 1933 it has been located at Sandy Lodge in the Three Rivers district of Hertfordshire ....
, at that time in Aldersgate
Aldersgate
Aldersgate was a gate in the London Wall in the City of London, which has given its name to a ward and Aldersgate Street, a road leading north from the site of the gate, towards Clerkenwell in the London Borough of Islington.-History:...
, where he specialised in Hebrew (under the influence of his father whose hobby was Biblical archaeology) and where pupils were expected to gain Oxbridge scholarships or exhibitions in classics: Rutter, aged seventeen tried but failed to gain a scholarship in history at Exeter College
Exeter College, Oxford
Exeter College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England and the fourth oldest college of the University. The main entrance is on the east side of Turl Street...
, Oxford, but was successful in the Queens' College, Cambridge
Queens' College, Cambridge
Queens' College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1448 by Margaret of Anjou , and refounded in 1465 by Elizabeth Woodville...
, examination for a scholarship in Hebrew, going to university in 1896 and gaining the Semitic Language Tripos
Tripos
The University of Cambridge, England, divides the different kinds of honours bachelor's degree by Tripos , plural Triposes. The word has an obscure etymology, but may be traced to the three-legged stool candidates once used to sit on when taking oral examinations...
(degree) in 1899.
Whilst still at school, Rutter, along with a fellow sixth form student, Edgar D., explored London nightlife, visiting music hall
Music hall
Music Hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment which was popular between 1850 and 1960. The term can refer to:# A particular form of variety entertainment involving a mixture of popular song, comedy and speciality acts...
s, eating out in Gatti's Restaurant and joining nightclubs, which were then an adjunct to the more formal London's gentleman's club, providing a dining room, ballroom, writing room, and female membership, which was not taken up by respectable women in society, although the male membership was mostly respectable; Rutter's father happily financed these activities.
When at Cambridge, Rutter gained popularity through his banjo
Banjo
In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...
-playing, and, thanks to the good train service available, extended his social pursuits to Paris, first visiting in 1898, speaking French fluently and often staying for a month at a time in the city, where he made friends in the Latin Quarter
Latin Quarter
Latin Quarter is a part of the 5th arrondissement in Paris.Latin Quarter may also refer to:* Latin Quarter , a British pop/rock band* Latin Quarter , a 1945 British film*Latin Quarter, Aarhus, part of Midtbyen, Aarhus C, Denmark...
.
After university, spent a few months as an itinerant tutor, then began as a freelance writer in London with a newly acquired typewriter. One of his successful interviews was with Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
on the subject of housing problems—the text of which was entirely provided by Shaw himself; The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
printed an interview with the American scout, Major Burnham
Frederick Russell Burnham
Frederick Russell Burnham, DSO was an American scout and world traveling adventurer known for his service to the British Army in colonial Africa and for teaching woodcraft to Robert Baden-Powell, thus becoming one of the inspirations for the founding of the international Scouting Movement.Burnham...
, on his return from South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
.
He obtained posts as assistant editor of To-day and the Sunday Special, both part of the same publishing group. In February 1901, he became sub-editor of the Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
, and began to write art criticism, mostly for The Financial Times and The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
. In 1902, he went back to To-day as editor for two years, and for a short time brought it back into profit, until it succumbed to cheaper competition and was merged with London Opinion. In 1903, Leonard Rees appointed him art critic
Art critic
An art critic is a person who specializes in evaluating art. Their written critiques, or reviews, are published in newspapers, magazines, books and on web sites...
of The Sunday Times, a post he held for the rest of his life, 34 years in all. Rutter honed his skills whilst doing the job, and also made the acquaintance of leading artists in Paris through frequenting the cafés.
The French Impressionist Fund
In 1903 the creation of the National Art Collections FundNational Art Collections Fund
The Art Fund is an independent membership-based British charity, which raises funds to aid the acquisition of artworks for the nation. It gives grants and acts as a channel for many gifts and bequests, as well as lobbying on behalf of museums and galleries and their users...
initiated many years of frustration for Rutter, who believed it would siphon off available money from his own aims. He was a strong supporter of Impressionist
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
and Expressionist
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
Modernism
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
. He considered "perfectly dreadful" the lack of such work in the national collections, pointing out in 1905 that the only example of the modern French school was Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas[p] , born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, was a French artist famous for his work in painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing. He is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism although he rejected the term, and preferred to be called a realist...
' The Ballet from Robert the Devil (1876) in the Victoria and Albert Museum
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...
.
Raging with indignation, he wrote articles on this omission, gave lectures, and, galvanised by the opening of the Impressionist exhibition staged by Durand-Ruel at the Grafton Galleries in London in 1905, he persuaded the editor and proprietors of The Sunday Times to allow space for a public subscription, the French Impressionist Fund. Sargent and Wertheimer each sent ten guineas; Blanche Marchesi staged a fund-raising concert; Rutter, although "extremely nervous" gave his first lecture at the Grafton Galleries. Sir Claude Phillips and D.S. MacColl joined him on the executive committee of the fund, and contributions slowly mounted up to £160, sufficient at that time to buy a top class Impressionist painting.
Rutter's choice was Monet
Claude Monet
Claude Monet was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. . Retrieved 6 January 2007...
's Vétheuil: Sunshine and Snow (since retitled Lavacourt under Snow), which MacColl was in favour of and Durand-Ruel had promised to sell for the amount collected, but Phillips pointed out that National Gallery did not accept work by living artists; discreet enquiries revealed that the gallery trustees also found too "advanced" Manet
Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet was a French painter. One of the first 19th-century artists to approach modern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism....
, Sisley
Alfred Sisley
Alfred Sisley was an Impressionist landscape painter who was born and spent most of his life, in France, but retained British citizenship. He was the most consistent of the Impressionists in his dedication to painting landscape en plein air...
and Pissarro
Camille Pissarro
Camille Pissarro was a French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of St Thomas . His importance resides in his contributions to both Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, as he was the only artist to exhibit in both forms...
: "They were certainly dead—but they had not been dead long enough for England", wrote Rutter, adding "I nearly wept with disappointment."
Eugène Boudin
Eugène Boudin was one of the first French landscape painters to paint outdoors.Boudin was a marine painter, and expert in the rendering of all that goes upon the sea and along its shores...
, who Rutter protested was not an Impressionist but whom he accepted out of necessity, mollified by MacColl's argument that "he's the beginning of Impressionism and we can make a start with him." To avoid any accusations of logrolling
Logrolling
Logrolling is the trading of favors, or quid pro quo, such as vote trading by legislative members to obtain passage of actions of interest to each legislative member...
Durand-Ruel's exhibition, they agreed that Rutter would travel to Van der Veldt, a private collector in Le Havre
Le Havre
Le Havre is a city in the Seine-Maritime department of the Haute-Normandie region in France. It is situated in north-western France, on the right bank of the mouth of the river Seine on the English Channel. Le Havre is the most populous commune in the Haute-Normandie region, although the total...
, to choose a Boudin painting. He brought back as personal luggage Boudin's 1888 painting, Entre les jetées, Trouville (The Entrance to Trouville Harbour), and wrote to MacColl on 11 October 1905 to inform him of the work he had selected, which Van der Veldt had accepted £120 for provided it would go to a national collection and which was waiting at the Goupil Gallery for MacColl to see.
It was shown privately at the Goupil Gallery for the subscribers, and presented in January 1906 to the National Gallery through the National Art Collections Fund, which Rutter said was keen to act as a channel for the prestigious presentation, but had not given "the slightest help or encouragement when I needed it most." It made Rutter "boil with rage" to contrast this with the Fund's spending of thousands of pounds on older paintings; he said, "the Fund's inertia and snobbish ineptitude are entirely characteristic of the art-officialdom in England."
Allied Artists' Association
While in Paris in 1907, Rutter had the idea for gaining greaterexposure for progressive artists with the Allied Artists Association
Allied Artists Association
The Allied Artists Association was an art exhibiting society based in London in the early 20th century.-History:The Allied Artists Association was founded by Frank Rutter, art critic of The Sunday Times newspaper, in 1908....
(AAA), founded the following year and based on the model of the French Salon des Indépendants with the principle of non-juried shows of international artists, who could subscribe and choose which works they wished to enter (initially five pieces, later three).
Walter Sickert
Walter Richard Sickert , born in Munich, Germany, was a painter who was a member of the Camden Town Group in London. He was an important influence on distinctively British styles of avant-garde art in the 20th century....
, Spencer Gore
Spencer Gore (artist)
Spencer Frederick Gore was a British painter of landscapes, music-hall scenes and interiors, usually with single figures...
and Harold Gilman
Harold Gilman
The British artist Harold John Wilde Gilman was a painter of interiors, portraits and landscapes, and a founder-member of the Camden Town Group.-Early life and studies:...
, for the AAA. Rutter was a natural organiser and, with the help of Lucien Pissarro
Lucien Pissarro
Lucien Pissarro was a landscape painter, printmaker, wood engraver and designer and printer of fine books. His landscape paintings employ techniques of Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism, but he also exhibited with Les XX. Apart from his landscapes he painted only a few still-lifes and family...
attracted 80 members. Rutter was keen to mount a foreign section in the first show, and liaised over this with Jan de Holewinski (1871–1927), who was in London to arrange a Russian art and craft show. The first AAA show in July 1908 was in the Royal Albert Hall
Royal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....
and had over 3,000 works on display.
Royal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....
, over 1,000 works were shown, mainly by British artists, but also the first works (two paintings and twelve woodcuts) exhibited in London by Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky was an influential Russian painter and art theorist. He is credited with painting the first purely-abstract works. Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics...
. Rutter's friends in Leeds, Michael Sadler
Michael Ernest Sadler
Sir Michael Ernest Sadler KCSI was a British historian, educationalist and university administrator. He worked at the universities of Manchester and Leeds. He was a champion of the public school system.-Early life and education:...
and his son, Michael Sadleir
Michael Sadleir
Michael Sadleir was a British novelist and book collector.-Biography:He was born Michael Sadler, though upon beginning to publish novels he altered the spelling of his name to differentiate himself from his father, Michael Ernest Sadler, a historian and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leeds...
(who had modified the spelling of his surname) developed a relationship with Kandinsky, who assigned English translation rights for Concerning the Spiritual in Art to Sadleir.
Rutter was secretary of the AAA and organised it for four years. It was artistically accomplished, but not so financially. Through the AAA, Rutter helped many artists, such as Charles Ginner
Charles Ginner
Charles Isaac Ginner was a painter of landscape and urban subjects. Born in the south of France at Cannes, of British parents, in 1910 he settled in London, where he was an associate of Spencer Gore and Harold Gilman and a key member of the Camden Town Group.-Early years and studies:Charles Isaac...
, who, although not achieving outstanding success, was able to gain an audience and develop a loyal following for his work. The AAA exhibited also for the first time in London Constantin Brâncuşi
Constantin Brancusi
Constantin Brâncuşi was a Romanian-born sculptor who made his career in France. As a child he displayed an aptitude for carving wooden farm tools. Formal studies took him first to Bucharest, then to Munich, then to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris...
, Jacob Epstein
Jacob Epstein
Sir Jacob Epstein KBE was an American-born British sculptor who helped pioneer modern sculpture. He was born in the United States, and moved to Europe in 1902, becoming a British citizen in 1911. He often produced controversial works which challenged taboos on what was appropriate subject matter...
, Robert Bevan and Walter Bayes.
From October 1909 to 1912, Rutter also published and edited the weekly, cheaply-printed Art News (sold for 2d a week), the journal of the AAA, like which it had an open-door policy on contributors, featuring the lectures given to the Royal Academy Schools
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
by Sir William Blake Richmond, as well as Sickert's attack on the Royal Academy, "Straws from Cumberland Market", his column on topical issues being the main attraction. It was promoted as the "First Art Newspaper in the United Kingdom".
Suffragettes, Post-Impressionism, and Leeds
New Zealand Police
The New Zealand Police is the national police force of New Zealand, responsible for enforcing criminal law, enhancing public safety, maintaining order and keeping the peace throughout New Zealand...
. With the encouragement of George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
, Rutter became a member of the Fabian Society
Fabian Society
The Fabian Society is a British socialist movement, whose purpose is to advance the principles of democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist, rather than revolutionary, means. It is best known for its initial ground-breaking work beginning late in the 19th century and continuing up to World...
.
On 12 January 1910, at the Eustace Miles Restaurant, Rutter chaired the meeting of a group which developed into the Men's Political Union for Women's Enfranchisement, of which he was the honorary treasurer. Four months later he was the speaker representing the Press at the John Stuart Mill Celebrations, which were staged by the Women's Freedom League.
In 1910, Roger Fry
Roger Fry
Roger Eliot Fry was an English artist and art critic, and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Establishing his reputation as a scholar of the Old Masters, he became an advocate of more recent developments in French painting, to which he gave the name Post-Impressionism...
occupied the limelight of avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
campaigning for art, when he outraged the public with an exhibition Manet and the post-impressionists at the Grafton Galleries, showcasing work by Van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...
, Gauguin
Paul Gauguin
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer...
and Cézanne
Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th...
. Rutter had put the term Post-Impressionist in print in Art News of 15 October 1910, three weeks before Fry's show, during a review of the Salon d'Automne
Salon d'Automne
In 1903, the first Salon d'Automne was organized by Georges Rouault, André Derain, Henri Matisse, Angele Delasalle and Albert Marquet as a reaction to the conservative policies of the official Paris Salon...
, where he described Othon Friesz
Othon Friesz
Achille-Émile Othon Friesz who later called himself just Othon Friesz , a native of Le Havre, was a French artist of the Fauvist movement....
as a "post-impressionist leader"; there was also an advert in the journal for the show The Post-Impressionists of France.
Rutter quickly supported Fry's venture with a small book Revolution in Art (enlarged in 1926 as Evolution in Modern Art), its title derived from Gauguin's statement that "in art there are only revolutionists or plagiarists." Rutter wrote in the dedication: "To Rebels of either sex all the world over who in any way are fighting for freedom of any kind I dedicate this study of their painter-comrades."
On 25 March 1911, Rutter chaired a meeting of the Men's Political Union at Caxton Hall
Caxton Hall
Caxton Hall is a building on the corner of Caxton Street and Palmer Street, in Westminster, London, England. It is a Grade II listed building primarily for its historical associations...
, Westminster
Westminster
Westminster is an area of central London, within the City of Westminster, England. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, southwest of the City of London and southwest of Charing Cross...
, and reported that a recent court case at Leeds, in which Alfred Hawkings had been awarded £100 damages for being ejected from a meeting, was "a distinct victory for the suffragist cause." Rutter roused cheers from his listeners upon exhorting them that they needed to prove to their opponents that "the reign of bullying, tyranny, and savagery must come to an end."
Rutter's Art News reported on the AAA show of July 1911 and also printed the Futurist Painters Manifesto (first printed as the Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting in February 1909 in Le Figaro
Le Figaro
Le Figaro is a French daily newspaper founded in 1826 and published in Paris. It is one of three French newspapers of record, with Le Monde and Libération, and is the oldest newspaper in France. It is also the second-largest national newspaper in France after Le Parisien and before Le Monde, but...
). In April 1912, because of financial difficulties, Rutter resigned as secretary of the AAA, which had been strongly supported by Lucien Pissarro
Lucien Pissarro
Lucien Pissarro was a landscape painter, printmaker, wood engraver and designer and printer of fine books. His landscape paintings employ techniques of Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism, but he also exhibited with Les XX. Apart from his landscapes he painted only a few still-lifes and family...
, Walter Sickert
Walter Sickert
Walter Richard Sickert , born in Munich, Germany, was a painter who was a member of the Camden Town Group in London. He was an important influence on distinctively British styles of avant-garde art in the 20th century....
and others, but which he felt was nevertheless dwindling away due to what he condemned as "the incurable snobbishness of the English artist". That year he relocated from London to Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
for the next five years, having been appointed curator of the Leeds City Art Gallery at a salary of £300 per annum. He continued to advocate new ventures in art through his column "Round the galleries" in The Sunday Times.
Chapel Allerton
Chapel Allerton is an inner suburb of north-east Leeds, from the city centre, West Yorkshire, England. The Chapel Allerton electoral ward includes areas otherwise referred to as Chapeltown and Potternewton - the suburb is generally considered to be only the northern part of this...
, Leeds, to provide accommodation for suffragette
Suffragette
"Suffragette" is a term coined by the Daily Mail newspaper as a derogatory label for members of the late 19th and early 20th century movement for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, in particular members of the Women's Social and Political Union...
s released from prison under the Cat and Mouse Act
Cat and Mouse Act
The Prisoners Act 1913 was an Act of Parliament passed in Britain under Herbert Henry Asquith's Liberal government in 1913...
and recovering from hunger strike
Hunger strike
A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance or pressure in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke feelings of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most hunger strikers will take liquids but not...
. In 1913, he provided a character reference so that a job could be obtained in Europe by a "mouse", Elsie Duval; another, Lilian Lenton
Lilian Lenton
Lilian Ida Lenton was an English dancer, suffragist, arsonist, and winner of a French Red Cross medal for her service as an Orderly in World War I.-Early years:...
, a suffragette arson
Arson
Arson is the crime of intentionally or maliciously setting fire to structures or wildland areas. It may be distinguished from other causes such as spontaneous combustion and natural wildfires...
ist also escaped via his home to France in June that year with the aid of his wife. Elizabeth Crawford, author of The Women's Suffrage Movement, suggests that other similar events must have taken place, but were kept quiet at the time out of necessity and, later, due to Rutter's taciturnity. He wrote in an epilogue to his autobiography:
- the only furiously active part of my life was the few years during which I was connected with the militant suffrage movement and of this I have said nothing, because if I once began I should want to fill a volume with my experiences during this exciting time. It is all over now, the battle has been won, and this is not the place in which to recount the skirmishes in which I had the honour to take part."
He did not agree with the later, more extreme tactics of the WSPU leaders, who nevertheless still commanded his respect and admiration. He encouraged the artist, Emily Susan Ford (1850–1930), Vice-Chairman of the Artists' Suffrage League and exhibited her work in the Leeds gallery.
Rutter initially had plans to create a modern art collection at the Leeds gallery, but had been frustrated in this aim by "boorish" local councillors; his association with the escape of Lilian Lenton had further damaged his standing. Before he left the city, he co-founded the Leeds Art Collections Fund with Michael Sadler, who was the vice-chancellor of Leeds University and a collector of work by Kandinsky and Gauguin
Paul Gauguin
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer...
. The Fund helped with acquisitions and shows, among them the first major John Constable
John Constable
John Constable was an English Romantic painter. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for his landscape paintings of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home—now known as "Constable Country"—which he invested with an intensity of affection...
show and another in June 1913 of Post-Impressionism
Post-Impressionism
Post-Impressionism is the term coined by the British artist and art critic Roger Fry in 1910 to describe the development of French art since Manet. Fry used the term when he organized the 1910 exhibition Manet and Post-Impressionism...
held at the Leeds Arts Club
Leeds Arts Club
The Leeds Arts Club was founded in 1903 by the Leeds school teacher Alfred Orage and Yorkshire textile manufacture Holbrook Jackson, and was probably one of the most advanced centres for modernist thinking in Britain in the pre-First World War period.-History:...
, which had been started by Holbrook Jackson and A. R. Orage, editor of The New Age
The New Age
The New Age was a British literary magazine, noted for its wide influence under the editorship of A. R. Orage from 1907 to 1922. It began life in 1894 as a publication of the Christian Socialist movement; but in 1907 as a radical weekly edited by Joseph Clayton, it was struggling...
, and was galvanised by the new activity. The discussions there about contemporary art had a significant influence on the thinking of Herbert Read
Herbert Read
Sir Herbert Edward Read, DSO, MC was an English anarchist, poet, and critic of literature and art. He was one of the earliest English writers to take notice of existentialism, and was strongly influenced by proto-existentialist thinker Max Stirner....
(1893–1968), who was introduced to modern art by Rutter. Rutter's plan for a literary version of the AAA had a strong appeal for Read.
Futurism
In October 1913, Rutter was commissioned by the Doré Gallery at 35 Bond StreetBond Street
Bond Street is a major shopping street in the West End of London that runs north-south through Mayfair between Oxford Street and Piccadilly. It has been a fashionable shopping street since the 18th century and is currently the home of many high price fashion shops...
in the West End
West End of London
The West End of London is an area of central London, containing many of the city's major tourist attractions, shops, businesses, government buildings, and entertainment . Use of the term began in the early 19th century to describe fashionable areas to the west of Charing Cross...
to curate the Post-Impressionist and Futurist Exhibition, which displayed the story of those movements from Camille Pissarro
Camille Pissarro
Camille Pissarro was a French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of St Thomas . His importance resides in his contributions to both Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, as he was the only artist to exhibit in both forms...
to Vorticist
Vorticism
Vorticism, an offshoot of Cubism, was a short-lived modernist movement in British art and poetry of the early 20th century. It was based in London but international in make-up and ambition.-Origins:...
Wyndham Lewis
Wyndham Lewis
Percy Wyndham Lewis was an English painter and author . He was a co-founder of the Vorticist movement in art, and edited the literary magazine of the Vorticists, BLAST...
(who was no longer on good terms with Fry). Rutter's choice of Pissarro as a starting point was in contradistinction to the stance of Fry and the Bloomsbury Group
Bloomsbury Group
The Bloomsbury Group or Bloomsbury Set was a group of writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists who held informal discussions in Bloomsbury throughout the 20th century. This English collective of friends and relatives lived, worked or studied near Bloomsbury in London during the first half...
, who saw Cézanne as the beginning of modern art.
Rutter made a link between the British artists he supported and the French intimiste painters, as well as featuring artworks by Severini
Gino Severini
Gino Severini , was an Italian painter and a leading member of the Futurist movement. For much of his life he divided his time between Paris and Rome. He was associated with neo-classicism and the "return to order" in the decade after the First World War. During his career he worked in a variety of...
and Boccioni
Umberto Boccioni
Umberto Boccioni was an Italian painter and sculptor. Like other Futurists, his work centered on the portrayal of movement , speed, and technology. He was born in Reggio Calabria, Italy.-Biography:...
of the Italian Futurism
Futurism
Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century.Futurism or futurist may refer to:* Afrofuturism, an African-American and African diaspora subculture* Cubo-Futurism* Ego-Futurism...
movement—which had been shown in London first by the Sackville Gallery—and by Brâncuşi
Constantin Brancusi
Constantin Brâncuşi was a Romanian-born sculptor who made his career in France. As a child he displayed an aptitude for carving wooden farm tools. Formal studies took him first to Bucharest, then to Munich, then to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris...
, Epstein
Jacob Epstein
Sir Jacob Epstein KBE was an American-born British sculptor who helped pioneer modern sculpture. He was born in the United States, and moved to Europe in 1902, becoming a British citizen in 1911. He often produced controversial works which challenged taboos on what was appropriate subject matter...
, Delaunay
Robert Delaunay
Robert Delaunay was a French artist who, with his wife Sonia Delaunay and others, cofounded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes. His later works were more abstract, reminiscent of Paul Klee...
and Signac
Paul Signac
Paul Signac was a French neo-impressionist painter who, working with Georges Seurat, helped develop the pointillist style.-Biography:Paul Victor Jules Signac was born in Paris on 11 November 1863...
. Rutter's consummate curation and catalogue foreword were a testament to his deep knowledge of the subject. He praised Nevinson's The Departure of the Train De Luxe as "the first English Futurist
Futurism
Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century.Futurism or futurist may refer to:* Afrofuturism, an African-American and African diaspora subculture* Cubo-Futurism* Ego-Futurism...
picture".
Fry told Rutter that Fredrick Etchells from his Omega Workshops
Omega Workshops
The Omega Workshops was a design enterprise founded by members of the Bloomsbury Group and established in 1913. It was located at 33 Fitzroy Square in London, and was founded with the intention of providing graphic expression to the essence of the Bloomsbury ethos...
had nothing ready to show, and failed to forward a letter from Rutter to Wyndham Lewis
Wyndham Lewis
Percy Wyndham Lewis was an English painter and author . He was a co-founder of the Vorticist movement in art, and edited the literary magazine of the Vorticists, BLAST...
, who nevertheless showed the large Kermesse, which, together with Delaunay's similarly-sized Cardiff Football Team, made a centerpiece for the show.
The Cabyard, Night, the only painting by Robert Bevan
Robert Bevan
Robert Polhill Bevan was an English painter, draughtsman and lithographer. He was a founding member of the Camden Town Group, the London Group, and the Cumberland Market Group.-Early life:...
acquired for a public collection during the artist's lifetime, was bought by the Contemporary Art Society on Rutter's recommendation that they should obtain it for the nation before a more discerning collector bought it.
Art and Letters
Rutter, along with Harold GilmanHarold Gilman
The British artist Harold John Wilde Gilman was a painter of interiors, portraits and landscapes, and a founder-member of the Camden Town Group.-Early life and studies:...
and Charles Ginner
Charles Ginner
Charles Isaac Ginner was a painter of landscape and urban subjects. Born in the south of France at Cannes, of British parents, in 1910 he settled in London, where he was an associate of Spencer Gore and Harold Gilman and a key member of the Camden Town Group.-Early years and studies:Charles Isaac...
had planned the launch of a journal, Art and Letters, for Spring 1914, but this was delayed by the outbreak of war
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. It began publication in July 1917 as an illustrated quarterly, co-edited by Rutter and Herbert Read
Herbert Read
Sir Herbert Edward Read, DSO, MC was an English anarchist, poet, and critic of literature and art. He was one of the earliest English writers to take notice of existentialism, and was strongly influenced by proto-existentialist thinker Max Stirner....
, whose aesthetic and critical ideas dominated. It was a modernist magazine of visual and literary art, which fused the artistic and the political.
The contents page of the first issue carried a policy of remuneration for contributors, based on "co-operative lines" that after the cost of production and 5% on capital, half of the profits would go to editorial and publishing staff and the other half would be split equally between contributors. Underneath an 1894 woodcut by Lucien Pissarro
Lucien Pissarro
Lucien Pissarro was a landscape painter, printmaker, wood engraver and designer and printer of fine books. His landscape paintings employ techniques of Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism, but he also exhibited with Les XX. Apart from his landscapes he painted only a few still-lifes and family...
, page one carried an editorial explaining the delayed publication due to the outbreak of war and justifying the use of scarce materials, compared to other periodicals "which give vulgar and illiterate expression to the most vile and debasing sentiments." It was also stated that some of the contributors were serving at the front and that educated men in the army were keen to see such a publication: "Engaged, as their duty bids, on harrowing work of destruction, they exhort their elders at home never to lose sight of the supreme importance of creative art."
Sickert's "Thérèse Lassore" was printed in 1918, after which the journal ceased publication for a year. It resumed again with Osbert Sitwell
Osbert Sitwell
Sir Francis Osbert Sacheverell Sitwell, 5th Baronet, was an English writer. His elder sister was Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell and his younger brother was Sir Sacheverell Sitwell; like them he devoted his life to art and literature....
as Rutter's co-editor—and T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
's theories predominating editorially—but folded in 1920.
From 1915 to 1919, Rutter returned to the Allied Artists' Association in the guiding role of chairman. In 1917, he resigned his job at the Leeds City Art Gallery, and he worked for the Admiralty as an administrative officer (AAO) until 1919.
1920s and 1930s
After leaving the Admiralty, Rutter opened the Adelphi Gallery to exhibit small pieces by Ginner, Edward WadsworthEdward Wadsworth
Edward Alexander Wadsworth was an English artist, most famous for his close association with Vorticism. He painted, often in tempera, coastal views, abstracts, portraits and still-life...
and David Bomberg
David Bomberg
David Garshen Bomberg was an English painter, and one of the Whitechapel Boys.Bomberg was one of the most audacious of the exceptional generation of artists who studied at the Slade School of Art under Henry Tonks, and which included Mark Gertler, Stanley Spencer, C.R.W. Nevinson and Dora Carrington...
. Finding this a restriction on his "liberty and leisure" he returned to writing and completed in the region of 20 books, as well as a considerable number of contributions to The Burlington Magazine
The Burlington Magazine
The Burlington Magazine is a monthly academic journal that covers the fine and decorative arts. It is the longest running art journal in the English language and it is a charitable organisation since 1986. It was established in 1903 by a group of art historians and connoisseurs which included Roger...
, Apollo
Apollo (magazine)
Apollo is a British fine and decorative arts magazine. Founded in 1925 and based in London, it features a mixture of exhibition reviews, art-world news, profiles of collectors, and articles by scholars....
, Studio Magazine
Studio Magazine
The Studio Magazine was an illustrated fine arts and decorative arts magazine, founded in Britain in 1893, which exerted a major influence on the development of the Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts movements....
, The Financial Times and The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
.
In his writings he emphasised both the spiritual and social role of art. He also commented on the visual power to be found in the London Underground
London Underground
The London Underground is a rapid transit system serving a large part of Greater London and some parts of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex in England...
: "The whole nation is much less affected by what pictures are shown in the Royal Academy than by what posters are put up on the hoardings. A few thousand see the first, but the second are seen by millions. The art galleries of the People are not in Bond Street but are to be found in every railway station."
On 28 March 1920 in The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
, Rutter reviewed the short-lived Group X (a reforming of the Vorticists
Vorticism
Vorticism, an offshoot of Cubism, was a short-lived modernist movement in British art and poetry of the early 20th century. It was based in London but international in make-up and ambition.-Origins:...
), "the real tendency of the exhibition is towards a new sort of realism, evolved by artists who have passed through a phase of abstract experiment.".
He divorced his wife around this time, and on 29 March 1920 married Ethel Dorothy (born 1894/5), the second daughter of William Robert Bunce, a coal merchant.
In 1927, he said of Newlyn
Newlyn
Newlyn is a town and fishing port in southwest Cornwall, England, United Kingdom.Newlyn forms a conurbation with the neighbouring town of Penzance and is part of Penzance civil parish...
artist Dod Proctor's painting, Morning, exhibited in the Royal Academy
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
that it was "a new vision of the human figure which amounts to the invention of a twentieth century style in portraiture" and "She has achieved apparently with consummate ease that complete presentation of twentieth century vision in terms of plastic design after which Derain
André Derain
André Derain was a French artist, painter, sculptor and co-founder of Fauvism with Henri Matisse.-Early years:...
and other much praised French painters have been groping for years past."
1928–1931, Rutter was European Editor of International Studio, New York. He was also the London Correspondent for the Association Française d’Expansion et d’Echanges Artistiques. In 1932, he praised advances in the Tate Gallery
Tate
-Places:*Tate, Georgia, a town in the United States*Tate County, Mississippi, a county in the United States*Táté, the Hungarian name for Totoi village, Sântimbru Commune, Alba County, Romania*Tate, Filipino word for States...
's attitude towards art since its foundation (although others, notably Douglas Cooper, considered it "hopelessly insular").
He suffered from a bronchial complaint for a number of years, as a result of which he periodically sojourned on the South Coast
Southern England
Southern England, the South and the South of England are imprecise terms used to refer to the southern counties of England bordering the English Midlands. It has a number of different interpretations of its geographic extents. The South is considered by many to be a cultural region with a distinct...
, visiting London exhibitions when he felt in good enough health to do so. In April 1937, he had an attack of bronchitis
Bronchitis
Acute bronchitis is an inflammation of the large bronchi in the lungs that is usually caused by viruses or bacteria and may last several days or weeks. Characteristic symptoms include cough, sputum production, and shortness of breath and wheezing related to the obstruction of the inflamed airways...
and died, aged 61, a fortnight later on 18 April in his home at 5 Litchfield Way, Golders Green
Golders Green
Golders Green is an area in the London Borough of Barnet in London, England. Although having some earlier history, it is essentially a 19th century suburban development situated about 5.3 miles north west of Charing Cross and centred on the crossroads of Golders Green Road and Finchley Road.In the...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
; the funeral service was at 12.30 p.m. on 21 April at Golders Green Crematorium. He wrote his Sunday Times article up to a week before his death. He left his estate, which included around 80 paintings by the likes of Gilman, Ginner, Gore and Lucien Pissarro, to his wife. He had no children.
Appearance and character
Rutter was tall with an incisive profile, an enthusiastic character and a strong manner of delivery. He was a supportive friend and good company who injected conversations with humour, for which he adopted an "uncular" manner. He was modest and generous, not motivated by personal ambition, but advancing the interests of art and artists over any profit for himself. His approach was not that of an intellectual applying logic impersonally, but through aesthetic intuition and an empathy for the creative process. His knowledge of art history sufficed for his needs, and he could be critical, but his main feature was the display of personal judgement and a prefence to address the work he could enjoy.Books
- Varsity Types, 1902
- The Path to Paris, 1908
- Rossetti, Painter and Man of Letters, 1909
- Whistler, a Biography and an Estimate, 1910
- Revolution in Art, 1910
- The Wallace Collection, 1913
- Some Contemporary Artists, 1922
- The Poetry of Architecture, 1923
- Richard Wilson and Farington, 1923
- The Old Masters, 1925
- Evolution in Modern Art, 1926
- Theodore Roussel, 1927
- Since I was Twenty-Five, 1928
- El Greco, 1930
- Art in My Time, 1933
- Modern Masterpieces, 1936