Sir Muirhead Bone (23 March 1876 – 21 October 1953) was a Scottish
etcher
Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other types ...
and
watercolourist
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to t ...
who became known for his depiction of industrial and architectural subjects and his work as a war artist in both the
First
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...
and
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
s.
A figure in the last generation of the
Etching Revival
The etching revival was the re-emergence and invigoration of etching as an original form of printmaking during the period approximately from 1850 to 1930. The main centres were France, Britain and the United States, but other countries, such as t ...
, Bone's early large and heavily-worked architectural subjects fetched extremely high prices before the
Wall Street Crash of 1929
The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, was a major American stock market crash that occurred in the autumn of 1929. It started in September and ended late in October, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange colla ...
deflated the collectors' market. He was well known, if not notorious, for publishing large numbers of different states of etchings, encouraging collectors to buy several impressions.
Bone was an active member of both the
British War Memorials Committee The British War Memorials Committee was a British Government body that throughout 1918 was responsible for the commissioning of artworks to create a memorial to the First World War. The Committee was formed in February 1918 when the Department of In ...
in the First World War and the
War Artists' Advisory Committee The War Artists Advisory Committee (WAAC), was a British government agency established within the Ministry of Information at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 and headed by Sir Kenneth Clark. Its aim was to compile a comprehensive artist ...
in the Second World War. He promoted the work of many young artists and served as a Trustee of the
Tate Gallery
Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...
, the
National Gallery
The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director o ...
, and the
Imperial War Museum
Imperial War Museums (IWM) is a British national museum organisation with branches at five locations in England, three of which are in London. Founded as the Imperial War Museum in 1917, the museum was intended to record the civil and military ...
.
Early life
Muirhead Bone was born in
Partick
Partick ( sco, Pairtick, Scottish Gaelic: ''Partaig'') is an area of Glasgow on the north bank of the River Clyde, just across from Govan. To the west lies Whiteinch, to the east Yorkhill and Kelvingrove Park (across the River Kelvin), and to t ...
,
Glasgow
Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...
. His parents were journalist David Drummond Bone (1841–1911)The Late Mr David D. Bone The Scottish Referee, 27 October 1911 via London Hearts Supporters Club website. and Elizabeth Millar Crawford (1847–1886).
The Bone and his siblings attended the local
Board school
School boards were public bodies in England and Wales between 1870 and 1902, which established and administered elementary schools.
School boards were created in boroughs and parishes under the Elementary Education Act 1870 following campaignin ...
and were placed in apprenticeships from the age of fourteen.James Bone, Muirhead Bone's senior by four years, was apprenticed as a newspaper reporter and went on to become the London correspondent of the Manchester Guardian while
David Bone
Sir David William Bone (22 June 1874''Scotland, Select Births and Baptisms, 1564-1950'' – 17 May 1959) was a Scottish Commodore and author of nautical fiction. His work includes ''The Brassbounder'' about a brassbounder, a young apprentice on ...
, another older brother, joined the navy and eventually became Commander Master of the Anchor Line and was knighted. Muirhead Bone was initially apprenticed as a painter of porcelain and later as an architect's draughtsman and completed a four-year apprenticeship before immediately turning to art.
Bone studied at the
Glasgow School of Art
The Glasgow School of Art (GSA; gd, Sgoil-ealain Ghlaschu) is a higher education art school based in Glasgow, Scotland, offering undergraduate degrees, post-graduate awards (both taught and research-led), and PhDs in architecture, fine art, and ...
, initially at evening classes. There he befriended the artist Francis Dodd and his sister
Gertrude Helena Dodd
Gertrude Helena Bone, Lady Bone ( Dodd; 1876–1962) was a British writer who published during the Edwardian era. She wrote short stories, three novels, and several illustrated collections.
Life
Gertrude Dodd was the daughter of the Methodis ...
, to whom he became engaged in 1898. He began
printmaking
Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand processed techniq ...
in 1898, his first known print was a
lithograph
Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...
and he is now better known for his etchings and drypoints. His subject matter was principally related to landscapes and architecture, which included urban construction and demolition sites, Gothic cathedrals and Norman buildings. The collection of his prints held by the
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
contains a number of works based in South Ayrshire, between 1898 and 1916. In 1900 he tried to run art classes in Ayr, from newly built premises at Wellington Chambers.
In 1901 Bone moved to London, where he met
William Strang
William Strang (13 February 1859 – 12 April 1921) was a Scottish painter and printmaker, notable for illustrating the works of Bunyan, Coleridge and Kipling.
Early life
Strang was born at Dumbarton, the son of Peter Strang, a builder, an ...
,
Dugald MacColl
Dugald Sutherland MacColl (10 March 1859 – 21 December 1948) was a Scottish watercolour painter, art critic, lecturer and writer. He was keeper of the Tate Gallery for five years.
Life
MacColl was born in Glasgow and educated at the Univ ...
and
Alphonse Legros
Alphonse Legros (8 May 1837 – 8 December 1911) was a French, later British, painter, etcher, sculptor, and medallist. He moved to London in 1863 and later took British citizenship. He was important as a teacher in the British etching rev ...
, and became a member of the
New English Art Club
The New English Art Club (NEAC) was founded in London in 1885 as an alternative venue to the Royal Academy. It continues to hold an annual exhibition of paintings and drawings at the Mall Galleries in London, exhibiting works by both members and a ...
. He held his first solo exhibition at the Carfax Gallery in 1902. Bone was also a member of the
Glasgow Art Club
Glasgow Art Club is a club for artists and lay members with an interest in the arts, that has become over the generations "a meeting place for artists, business leaders and academics". They moved to
Chiswick
Chiswick ( ) is a district of west London, England. It contains Hogarth's House, the former residence of the 18th-century English artist William Hogarth; Chiswick House, a neo-Palladian villa regarded as one of the finest in England; and Full ...
and had their first son, Stephen, in 1904, and their second son, Gavin, in 1907. Bone continued to visit Ayr, producing the notable prints of Ayr Prison in 1905 and a series based on the view of the Ballantrae Road in 1907.
First World War and interbellum
During the First World War,
Charles Masterman
Charles Frederick Gurney Masterman PC (24 October 1873 – 17 November 1927) was a British radical Liberal Party politician, intellectual and man of letters. He worked closely with such Liberal leaders as David Lloyd George and Winston Church ...
, head of the British War Propaganda Bureau, acting on the advice of
William Rothenstein
Sir William Rothenstein (29 January 1872 – 14 February 1945) was an English painter, printmaker, draughtsman, lecturer, and writer on art. Emerging during the early 1890s, Rothenstein continued to make art right up until his death. Though he c ...
, appointed Bone as the first official British war artist in May 1916. Bone had lobbied hard for the establishment of an Official War Artists scheme and in June 1916 he was sent to France with an honorary rank and a salary of £500. Although thirty-eight years old at the outbreak of war, Bone was spared from certain enlistment by his appointment. Bone's small, black and white drawings, and their realistic intensity, reproduced well in the government-funded publications of the day. Where some artists might have demurred at the challenge of drawing ocean liners in a drydock or tens of thousands of shells in a munitions factory, Bone delighted in them; he was rarely intimidated by complex subjects and whatever the challenge those who commissioned his work could always be sure that out of superficial chaos there emerged a beautiful and ordered design.
Commissioned as an honorary
second lieutenant
Second lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces, comparable to NATO OF-1 rank.
Australia
The rank of second lieutenant existed in the military forces of the Australian colonies and Australian Army until ...
, Bone served as a war artist with the Allied forces on the Western Front and also with the Royal Navy for a time. He arrived in France on 16 August 1916, during the
Battle of the Somme
The Battle of the Somme ( French: Bataille de la Somme), also known as the Somme offensive, was a battle of the First World War fought by the armies of the British Empire and French Third Republic against the German Empire. It took place bet ...
and produced 150 drawings of the war before returning to England in October 1916. Over the next few months Bone returned to his earlier subject matter, producing six lithographs of shipyards on the Clyde for the
War Propaganda Bureau Wellington House is the more common name for Britain's War Propaganda Bureau, which operated during the First World War from Wellington House, a building on Buckingham Gate, London, which was the headquarters of the National Insurance Commission b ...
's ''Britain's Efforts and Ideals'' portfolio of images which were exhibited in Britain and abroad and were also sold as prints to raise money for the war effort. He visited France again in 1917 where he took particular interest depicting architectural ruins. Two volumes of Bone's wartime drawings were published during the war, ''The Western Front'' and ''With the Grand Fleet''. He was an active member of the
British War Memorials Committee The British War Memorials Committee was a British Government body that throughout 1918 was responsible for the commissioning of artworks to create a memorial to the First World War. The Committee was formed in February 1918 when the Department of In ...
and helped select which artists received commissions from the Committee.
After the Armistice, Bone returned to the type of works he produced before the war, and was influential in promoting fellow war artists
William Orpen
Major Sir William Newenham Montague Orpen, (27 November 1878 – 29 September 1931) was an Irish artist who worked mainly in London. Orpen was a fine draughtsman and a popular, commercially successful painter of portraits for the well-to-do in ...
and
Wyndham Lewis
Percy Wyndham Lewis (18 November 1882 – 7 March 1957) was a British writer, painter and critic. He was a co-founder of the Vorticist movement in art and edited ''BLAST,'' the literary magazine of the Vorticists.
His novels include ''Tarr'' ( ...
. He began to undertake extensive foreign travels, visiting France, Italy and the Netherlands, which increasingly influenced his work. In 1923 he produced three portraits of the novelist
Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, ; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Poles in the United Kingdom#19th century, Polish-British novelist and short story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in t ...
during an Atlantic crossing. An extended visit to Spain in 1929 resulted in the folio ''Old Spain'', a collaboration with his wife who wrote the text, which was published in 1936. In the inter-war period he exhibited extensively in London and New York, building up a considerable reputation. Bone received a
knight
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the Gr ...
hood in the 1937 Coronation Honours for services to art and he served as a Trustee and on the committees of several institutions including the Tate, the National Gallery and the Imperial War Museum.
Second World War
At the outbreak of the Second World War, Muirhead Bone was appointed a member of the
War Artists' Advisory Committee The War Artists Advisory Committee (WAAC), was a British government agency established within the Ministry of Information at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 and headed by Sir Kenneth Clark. Its aim was to compile a comprehensive artist ...
and also became a full-time salaried artist to the Ministry of Information specialising in Admiralty subjects. He produced scenes of coastal installations, evacuated troops and portraits of officers. However, following the death of his son Gavin in 1943, he decided not to continue with the Admiralty commission but he did remain an active Committee member until the end of the war. His other son, Stephen Bone, was subsequently appointed to the vacant Admiralty position.
Death
Bone died on 21 October 1953 in
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
. He was buried in the churchyard adjacent to the St. Mary's Church, Whitegate at
Vale Royal
A vale is a type of valley.
Vale may also refer to:
Places Georgia
* Vale, Georgia, a town in the Samtskhe-Javakheti region
Norway
* Våle, a historic municipality
Portugal
* Vale (Santa Maria da Feira), a former civil parish in the municipali ...
* ''The Yellow Book'' (1897), (Contributor),
* ''Portfolio'' (1899),
* ''Glasgow'' (1901),
* ''Children's Children'' (1908)
* ''Glasgow: Fifty Drawings'' (1911),
* ''The Front Line'' (1916),
* ''The Western Front: Drawings by Muirhead Bone'' (1917), with an introduction by Gen. Sir Douglas Haig and text by C.E. Montague.
* ''Merchant Men-at-Arms'' (1919) by his brother David Bone
* ''With the Grand Fleet''
* ''The London Perambulator'' (1925), by his brother James Bone
* ''Old Spain'', (1936), with Gertrude Bone,
* ''The London Perambulator'' (1938),
* ''Days in Old Spain'' (1938), with Gertrude Bone
* ''London Echoing'' (1948),
* ''Merchant Men Rearmed'' (1949), by his brother David Bone
* ''The English and their Country'' (1952),
* ''Came to Oxford'' (1952), with Gertrude Bone