James Boswell (artist)
Encyclopedia
James Edward Buchanan Boswell (9 June 1906 – 15 April 1971) was a New Zealand
-born British
painter
and socialist
.
, South Island
, the son of a Scottish born schoolmaster, Edward Blair Buchanan Boswell, and his New Zealand born wife Ida Fair. He was educated at Auckland Grammar School
, Auckland
and the Elam School of Art before coming to London
in 1925 to continue his training at the Royal College of Art
until 1929. Although he was dismissed twice from the RCA painting school over conflicts with its then anti-modern stance, his early works were accepted by the London Group
, with whom he exhibited from 1927 to 1932.
He joined the Communist Party
in 1932, switching from oil painting
to illustration and establishing himself as a left-wing
artist in the 1930s. He was a co-founder of the Marxist
and anti-Fascist
pressure group, the International Organization of Artists for Revolutionary Proletarian Art (later called Artists' International Association
- the AIA), and contributed Hogarthian
satirical prints to the Left Review
, for which he was art editor, and Daily Worker
.
Around 1933 he married the artist Elizabeth (Betty) Soars. In 1936 he joined the publicity department of the Asiatic Petroleum Company
(part of the Shell
corporation) though continuing his socialist and anti-war involvement, such as exhibiting with the AIA during the Spanish Civil War
.
During World War II
, Boswell was called up in 1941, initially training in Scotland as a radiographer
in the Royal Army Medical Corps
. Although in contact with War Artists' Advisory Committee, which bought some of his work, he was not officially commissioned due to his Communist Party membership. From 1942-1943 he served in Iraq
, rising to the rank of major.
After the war, Boswell returned briefly to Shell, leaving in 1947. He subsequently worked as art editor of Lilliput
magazine until 1950; wrote a book on art in society, The Artist's Dilemma; worked with Basil Spence
as a mural painter for the 1951 Festival of Britain
; designed film posters for Ealing Studios
; and edited the house journal of Sainsbury's until 1971. He also designed the Labour Party
campaign for the successful 1964 general election.
He separated from his wife in 1966, and thereafter lived with Ruth Abel, who in 1967 changed her name to Boswell by deed poll
. He died of cancer in London in 1971.
In 2006, Tate Britain
held a centenary display of his work and The British Museum an exhibition of war drawings in their archives. In that year, Muswell Press published his war drawings from London, Scotland and Iraq: 'James Boswell: Unofficial War Artist', with text by William Feaver.
His pre-war satirical style has been described as "attractively pugnacious" and compared to the work of the German artists George Grosz
and Otto Dix
and to British artist/illustrators such as Edward Ardizzone
. It was an influence on later artists such as Ronald Searle
and Paul Hogarth
. Although much of his work was political satire aimed at exposing class injustice, he also produced work simply portraying everyday life, such as his 1939 series of London lithographs
.
Despite not being an official war artist, he is known for his scenes of life in the armed services, including his overseas service in Iraq
. These, now in the Tate
, The British Museum and Imperial War Museum
, are said to magnificently evoke the atmosphere, boredom and solitude of military life. While in Iraq he also produced a series of fierce surreal
sketches graphically illustrating his view of war more symbolically:
In later life he settled into painting abstract oils and landscapes.
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
-born British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
and socialist
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
.
Life
Boswell was born in WestportWestport, New Zealand
-Economy:Economic activity is based around fishing, coal mining and dairy farming. Historically, gold mining was a major industry, and coal mining was much more extensive than today . However, the region still is home to New Zealand's largest opencast mining operation in Stockton...
, South Island
South Island
The South Island is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand, the other being the more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman Sea, to the south and east by the Pacific Ocean...
, the son of a Scottish born schoolmaster, Edward Blair Buchanan Boswell, and his New Zealand born wife Ida Fair. He was educated at Auckland Grammar School
Auckland Grammar School
Auckland Grammar School is a state secondary school for years 9 to 13 boys in Auckland, New Zealand. It had a roll of 2,483 in 2008, including a number of boarders who live in nearby Tibbs' House, making it one of the largest schools in New Zealand...
, Auckland
Auckland
The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...
and the Elam School of Art before coming to 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...
in 1925 to continue his training at the Royal College of Art
Royal College of Art
The Royal College of Art is an art school located in London, United Kingdom. It is the world’s only wholly postgraduate university of art and design, offering the degrees of Master of Arts , Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy...
until 1929. Although he was dismissed twice from the RCA painting school over conflicts with its then anti-modern stance, his early works were accepted by the London Group
London Group
The London Group is an artists' exhibiting society based in London, England, founded in 1913, when the Camden Town Group came together with the English Vorticists and other independent artists to challenge the domination of the Royal Academy, which had become unadventurous and conservative....
, with whom he exhibited from 1927 to 1932.
He joined the Communist Party
Communist party
A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...
in 1932, switching from oil painting
Oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments that are bound with a medium of drying oil—especially in early modern Europe, linseed oil. Often an oil such as linseed was boiled with a resin such as pine resin or even frankincense; these were called 'varnishes' and were prized for their body...
to illustration and establishing himself as a left-wing
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...
artist in the 1930s. He was a co-founder of the Marxist
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
and anti-Fascist
Anti-fascism
Anti-fascism is the opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals, such as that of the resistance movements during World War II. The related term antifa derives from Antifaschismus, which is German for anti-fascism; it refers to individuals and groups on the left of the political...
pressure group, the International Organization of Artists for Revolutionary Proletarian Art (later called Artists' International Association
Artists' International Association
The Artists International Association or AIA was an organization founded in London in 1933 out of discussion amongst Pearl Binder, Clifford Rowe, Misha Black, James Fitton, James Boswell, James Holland and Edward Ardizzone, the first meeting took place in Misha Black’s room at the Seven...
- the AIA), and contributed Hogarthian
William Hogarth
William Hogarth was an English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic and editorial cartoonist who has been credited with pioneering western sequential art. His work ranged from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects"...
satirical prints to the Left Review
Left Review
Left Review was a journal of the Writers' International established in 1934 and continued until 1938.The first issue published a position statement by the Writers' International, declaring Britain's economy and culture were in a state of collapse, and invited responses...
, for which he was art editor, and Daily Worker
The Morning Star
The Morning Star is a left wing British daily tabloid newspaper with a focus on social and trade union issues. Articles and comment columns are contributed by writers from socialist, social democratic, green and religious perspectives....
.
Around 1933 he married the artist Elizabeth (Betty) Soars. In 1936 he joined the publicity department of the Asiatic Petroleum Company
Asiatic Petroleum Company
Asiatic Petroleum Company was a joint venture between the Shell and Royal Dutch oil companies founded in 1903. It operated in Asia in the early twentieth century. The corporate headquarters were on The Bund in Shanghai, China. The division tested the limits of corporate liability in the Lennard's...
(part of the Shell
Royal Dutch Shell
Royal Dutch Shell plc , commonly known as Shell, is a global oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the fifth-largest company in the world according to a composite measure by Forbes magazine and one of the six...
corporation) though continuing his socialist and anti-war involvement, such as exhibiting with the AIA during the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
.
During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Boswell was called up in 1941, initially training in Scotland as a radiographer
Radiography
Radiography is the use of X-rays to view a non-uniformly composed material such as the human body. By using the physical properties of the ray an image can be developed which displays areas of different density and composition....
in the Royal Army Medical Corps
Royal Army Medical Corps
The Royal Army Medical Corps is a specialist corps in the British Army which provides medical services to all British Army personnel and their families in war and in peace...
. Although in contact with War Artists' Advisory Committee, which bought some of his work, he was not officially commissioned due to his Communist Party membership. From 1942-1943 he served in Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
, rising to the rank of major.
After the war, Boswell returned briefly to Shell, leaving in 1947. He subsequently worked as art editor of Lilliput
Lilliput (magazine)
Lilliput was a small-format British monthly magazine of humour, short stories, photographs and the arts, founded in 1937 by the photojournalist Stefan Lorant. The first issue came out in July and it was sold shortly after to Edward Hulton, when editorship was taken over by Tom Hopkinson in 1940....
magazine until 1950; wrote a book on art in society, The Artist's Dilemma; worked with Basil Spence
Basil Spence
Sir Basil Urwin Spence, OM, OBE, RA was a Scottish architect, most notably associated with Coventry Cathedral in England and the Beehive in New Zealand, but also responsible for numerous other buildings in the Modernist/Brutalist style.-Training:Spence was born in Bombay, India, the son of Urwin...
as a mural painter for the 1951 Festival of Britain
Festival of Britain
The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition in Britain in the summer of 1951. It was organised by the government to give Britons a feeling of recovery in the aftermath of war and to promote good quality design in the rebuilding of British towns and cities. The Festival's centrepiece was in...
; designed film posters for Ealing Studios
Ealing Studios
Ealing Studios is a television and film production company and facilities provider at Ealing Green in West London. Will Barker bought the White Lodge on Ealing Green in 1902 as a base for film making, and films have been made on the site ever since...
; and edited the house journal of Sainsbury's until 1971. He also designed the Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
campaign for the successful 1964 general election.
He separated from his wife in 1966, and thereafter lived with Ruth Abel, who in 1967 changed her name to Boswell by deed poll
Deed poll
A deed poll is a legal document binding only to a single person or several persons acting jointly to express an active intention...
. He died of cancer in London in 1971.
In 2006, Tate Britain
Tate Britain
Tate Britain is an art gallery situated on Millbank in London, and part of the Tate gallery network in Britain, with Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It is the oldest gallery in the network, opening in 1897. It houses a substantial collection of the works of J. M. W. Turner.-History:It...
held a centenary display of his work and The British Museum an exhibition of war drawings in their archives. In that year, Muswell Press published his war drawings from London, Scotland and Iraq: 'James Boswell: Unofficial War Artist', with text by William Feaver.
Works
He made many drawings of life in Britain during the 1930's and perceptive sketches of life in war-time Britain.His pre-war satirical style has been described as "attractively pugnacious" and compared to the work of the German artists George Grosz
George Grosz
Georg Ehrenfried Groß was a German artist known especially for his savagely caricatural drawings of Berlin life in the 1920s...
and Otto Dix
Otto Dix
Wilhelm Heinrich Otto Dix was a German painter and printmaker, noted for his ruthless and harshly realistic depictions of Weimar society and the brutality of war. Along with George Grosz, he is widely considered one of the most important artists of the Neue Sachlichkeit.-Early life and...
and to British artist/illustrators such as Edward Ardizzone
Edward Ardizzone
Edward Jeffrey Irving Ardizzone, CBE, RA was an English artist, writer and illustrator, chiefly of children's books.-Early life:...
. It was an influence on later artists such as Ronald Searle
Ronald Searle
Ronald William Fordham Searle, CBE, RDI, is a British artist and cartoonist, best known as the creator of St Trinian's School. He is also the co-author of the Molesworth series....
and Paul Hogarth
Paul Hogarth
Paul Hogarth, OBE, RA was an English artist and illustrator. He is best known for the cover drawings that he prepared in the 1980s for the Penguin edition of Graham Greene's books....
. Although much of his work was political satire aimed at exposing class injustice, he also produced work simply portraying everyday life, such as his 1939 series of London lithographs
Lithography
Lithography is a method for printing using a stone or a metal plate with a completely smooth surface...
.
Despite not being an official war artist, he is known for his scenes of life in the armed services, including his overseas service in Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
. These, now in the Tate
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...
, The British Museum and Imperial War Museum
Imperial War Museum
Imperial War Museum is a British national museum organisation with branches at five locations in England, three of which are in London. The museum was founded during the First World War in 1917 and intended as a record of the war effort and sacrifice of Britain and her Empire...
, are said to magnificently evoke the atmosphere, boredom and solitude of military life. While in Iraq he also produced a series of fierce surreal
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
sketches graphically illustrating his view of war more symbolically:
"a bestial farce conducted by bulls. These Orwellian animals, often dressed in generals' uniforms, heave their obese bulk through page after page. They ride on the backs of exhausted Tommies, pause with a watering-can to sprinkle a flower-pot containing the grotesquely dismembered skeleton of a soldier and sit on a hideous pile of corpses and ruined buildings while they type out a mass of documents which sail ridiculously into the sky. Sometimes they play at doctors and press a telescope to their ears in order to inspect a truncated, headless body held up with callous unconcern by two horned orderlies. And then they turn into bespectacled priests who ram a huge graveyard cross into a hapless soldier's mouth. The flow of imagery is as prodigal as it is remorseless, suggesting that Boswell treated these sketchbooks as a cathartic outlet for all his deepest loathing of war"
In later life he settled into painting abstract oils and landscapes.