Frank Budgen profile 1962 ©Rosemarie Streuli 1

Frank Spencer Curtis Budgen (1 March 1882 – 26 April 1971) was an English

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

, writer and socialist activist acquainted with the author

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...

Life

Born in Crowhurst,

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

, Budgen spent six years at sea before working in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

as a postal worker. He changed jobs a number of times before travelling to

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

in 1910 to study painting. He supported himself there by working as a model for the Swiss sculptor August Suter (1887-1965) and became acquainted with the French writer

Blaise Cendrars Frédéric-Louis Sauser (1 September 1887 – 21 January 1961), better known as Blaise Cendrars, was a Swiss-born novelist and poet who became a naturalized French citizen in 1916. He was a writer of considerable influence in the European mod ...

and the Swiss poet and translator Siegfried Lang. At the invitation of August Suter he moved to Switzerland shortly before

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. Here he was employed by the British government at the Ministry of Information, an institution established in

Zürich Zürich () is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zürich. It is located in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zürich. As of January 2020, the municipality has 43 ...

for "the spread of British propaganda in neutral countries." He returned to London after the war, where he remained until his death. Budgen was a member of the Socialist Labour Party and eventually its general secretary. He translated and published the first cheap edition of ''

The Communist Manifesto ''The Communist Manifesto'', originally the ''Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (german: Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei), is a political pamphlet written by German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Commissioned by the Comm ...

'' with Lily G. Aitken. Budgen never lost contact with his Swiss friends and paid several visits to Switzerland to meet August and Paul Suter as well as Siegfried Lang. He was a guest of honour at the first James-Joyce-Symposium in Dublin in 1967. Frank Budgen was married to Joan Budgen (11 June 1896 – 16 April 1977) with daughter Francine. Joyce and Budgen spent much of the war in the same city, Zurich, and similar social circles of artists, writers and musicians. According to Budgen's 1934 memoir ''James Joyce and the Making of Ulysses'', Joyce regularly discussed aesthetic matters with him, often referring to the content of Joyce's ''

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man ''A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man'' is the first novel of Irish writer James Joyce. A ''Künstlerroman'' written in a modernist style, it traces the religious and intellectual awakening of young Stephen Dedalus, Joyce's fictional alter ...

'', ''Ulysses'' and ''

Finnegans Wake ''Finnegans Wake'' is a novel by Irish literature, Irish writer James Joyce. It is well known for its experimental style and reputation as one of the most difficult works of fiction in the Western canon. It has been called "a work of fiction whi ...

''. The last of these three, Budgen stated, Joyce referred to at the time as ''Work in Progress''; indeed a number of the conversations he reports as having had with Joyce imply that the author was working out the form and content of this work in part by arguing with Budgen. Budgen produced several portraits of Joyce. One from 1919 is held by the National Gallery of Ireland and was used as the frontispiece of his 1934 memoir. Joyce scholar Clive Hart wrote about him:

One of Budgen's many fine qualities was a gift for making new friendships with people of all ages. Although he used occasionally to grumble about the unfortunate effects of technological progress on the quality of life in London and elsewhere, he never failed, even in his last years, to welcome new life, new experience. In his thirties, when he and Joyce were closest, Budgen must have been a most stimulating companion. Even in his eighties he was an excellent man at a party, enjoying the company of people of all kinds, being lionized by many of the men and by virtually all of the women, talking with zest, listening (as few people do) with equal zest. It was when he was in the company of a number of his friends that one saw most clearly the vigorous, intelligent, endlessly curious man whom Joyce had known.

Frank and Francine Budgen are buried at the graveyard of St George’s Church, Crowhurst, Surrey.

Paintings and drawings

*
St Peter's Church, Belsize Park
', (1900)

Burgh House Burgh House is a historic house located on New End Square in Hampstead, London, that includes the Hampstead Museum. The house is also listed as Burgh House & Hampstead Museum. Brief history Burgh House was constructed in 1704 during the r ...

and Hampstead Museum *''Finnegans Wake'', oil, Fales Library & Special Collections, Bobst Library, New York University
Selfportrait of Budgen with James Joyce
(1918), Zurich James Joyce Foundation *Portrait of James Joyce, oil on canvas, d. 1919, National Gallery of Ireland. *Portrait of James Joyce, oil, undated. Lockwood Memorial Library, State University of New York. *16 charcoal drawings of human figures, male and female, an oil painting of James Joyce, and a series of three oils of James and Nora Joyce are owned by the

Harry Ransom Center The Harry Ransom Center (until 1983 the Humanities Research Center) is an archive, library and museum at the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in the collection of literary and cultural artifacts from the Americas and Europe for the pur ...

at the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

Literary works

*''James Joyce and the Making of Ulysses'' with a portrait of James Joyce and four drawings to Ulysses by the author, 1934 * ''Myselves When Young'' (London: Oxford UP, 1970)

Recording

*''My Friend James Joyce - a spoken appreciation'', Decca Record Co., London 1961

References

External links

Digital copy
of ''James Joyce and the making of 'Ulysses', and other writings'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Budgen, Frank 1882 births 1971 deaths 20th-century English painters English male painters People from Surrey Socialist Labour Party (UK, 1903) members Ulysses (novel)