Walter John Bayes (31 May 1869 – 21 January 1956) was an English painter and illustrator who was a founder member of both the
Camden Town Group
The Camden Town Group was a group of English Post-Impressionist artists founded in 1911 and active until 1913. They gathered frequently at the studio of painter Walter Sickert in the Camden Town area of London.
History
In 1908, critic Frank ...
and the
London Group
The London Group is a society based in London, England, created to offer additional exhibiting opportunities to artists besides the Royal Academy of Arts. Formed in 1913, it is one of the oldest artist-led organisations in the world. It was form ...
and also a renowned art teacher and critic.
Biography
Early life
Bayes was born in
St Pancras, London, the second of four children to Alfred Walter Bayes, a painter and etcher who exhibited regularly at the
Royal Academy, and Emily Ann Fielden. Walter's sister,
Jessie, was a designer in the Arts and Crafts style and his younger brother was the sculptor
Gilbert Bayes.
Walter Bayes attended the Quaker School at Saffron Waldon and then
University College School
("Slowly but surely")
, established =
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, president =
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, head = Mark Beard
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before beginning work in a solicitor's office. He did not enjoy the work and in 1886 began to take evening classes at the City and Guilds of London Institute in Finsbury before studying full-time at the
Westminster School of Art
The Westminster School of Art was an art school in Westminster, London.
History
The Westminster School of Art was located at 18 Tufton Street, Deans Yard, Westminster, and was part of the old Royal Architectural Museum.
H. M. Bateman described ...
.
In 1894 he spent a short period of time studying at the
Academie Julian in Paris.
Career
By the turn of the century Bayes had already exhibited a landscape painting at the Royal Academy, in 1890, and had exhibited at 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 ...
in 1892.
Later during the 1890s Bayes began teaching, first at the City and Guilds of London Institute, later at Bolt Court School of Art and then at the
Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts. He also started writing on art theory and criticism with regular columns in ''Outlook'', ''Saturday Review'' and ''Weekend Review''. He continued to paint, mostly landscapes in oil and watercolour but also developed an interest in theatre design. The first work by Bayes purchased by a major British gallery was ''Top o' the Tide'' which the
Walker Art Gallery
The Walker Art Gallery is an art gallery in Liverpool, which houses one of the largest art collections in England outside London. It is part of the National Museums Liverpool group.
History of the Gallery
The Walker Art Gallery's collection ...
acquired in 1900.
In 1901 he had painted scenes for a production
Henrik Ibsen's ''John Gabriel Borkman'' and in 1911 would exhibit both costume and scenery designs.
In 1906 Bayes became the art critic of ''Athenaeum'' in place of
Roger Fry
Roger Eliot Fry (14 December 1866 – 9 September 1934) was an English painter and 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 developme ...
.
In 1908 Bayes was one of the initial eighty artists to join the
Allied Artists' Association
The Allied Artists Association (AAA) 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.
Its purpos ...
formed by
Frank Rutter
Francis Vane Phipson Rutter (17 February 1876 – 18 April 1937)"Rutter, Frank V. P.", ''Who Was Who'', A & C Black, 1920–2007; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2007. Retrieved froukwhoswho8 August 2008. was a British art critic, curat ...
. At the first Allied Artist's Association exhibition Bayes met
Walter Sickert
Walter Richard Sickert (31 May 1860 – 22 January 1942) was a German-born British painter and printmaker who was a member of the Camden Town Group of Post-Impressionist artists in early 20th-century London. He was an important influence on d ...
, who invited him to attend the regular weekly meetings of the
Fitzroy Street Group
The Fitzroy Street Group was an organisation created to promote and support artists. It was established in 1907 by Walter Sickert and merged in 1913 with the Camden Town Group to form the London Group.
Overview
In 1907 Walter Sickert formed the ...
. When the
Camden Town Group
The Camden Town Group was a group of English Post-Impressionist artists founded in 1911 and active until 1913. They gathered frequently at the studio of painter Walter Sickert in the Camden Town area of London.
History
In 1908, critic Frank ...
was formed in 1911, Bayes was ideally placed to become one of its founding members, as they also met frequently at Sickert's studio.
Bayes exhibited work at all three Camden Town Group exhibitions and, in 1913, became a founding member of the
London Group
The London Group is a society based in London, England, created to offer additional exhibiting opportunities to artists besides the Royal Academy of Arts. Formed in 1913, it is one of the oldest artist-led organisations in the world. It was form ...
.
[ He also exhibited at the Franco-British Exhibition of 1908.] In the 1910s, a constant theme of Bayes's work were direct oil sketches of his wife and his sons.
World War I
During World War I, Bayes continued to teach at the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts, which was close to the Elephant & Castle tube station
Elephant & Castle is a London Underground station in the London Borough of Southwark in south London. It is on the Bank branch of the Northern line between Kennington and Borough stations, and is the southern terminus of the Bakerloo line, t ...
on the London Underground. This was to be the site of one of Bayes's best known works, ''The Underworld: Taking cover in a Tube Station during a London air raid''. The scale and composition reflects Bayes's pre-war work as a theatre designer and creates the impression that the viewer is passing through the station, and past the cast of characters on the platform, as if on a train. The picture was shown at the 1918 Royal Academy show and purchased by the Imperial War Museum, who asked Bayes if he would do a further work for the Ministry of Information. Bayes spent some time in Devon in 1918 preparing for what became ''Landing Survivors from a Torpedoed Ship''. This painting was earmarked by 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 ...
for a proposed, but never built, national Hall of Remembrance. When that project was cancelled the painting was given to the Imperial War Museum but was destroyed by fire in 1977.
Later career
In 1918 Bayes was appointed Principal of the Westminster School of Art, a post he was to hold until 1934. From 1927 to 1939 Bayes was a lecturer in Perspective at the Royal Academy Schools
The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purpo ...
and when he left Westminster in 1934 he continued teaching as a visiting lecturer at Reading University
The University of Reading is a public university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as University College, Reading, a University of Oxford extension college. The institution received the power to grant its own degrees in 192 ...
until 1937.[ Early in ]World War II
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 opposing ...
Bayes submitted works to 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 ...
for purchase but was refused. In May 1942, however WAAC offered Bayes a short commission to produce a large oil painting on the subject of the air raids that had resulted in damage to parts of Buckingham Palace in 1940 and 1941. The resulting painting, ''Battle of Britain: Parachutists from an enemy aircraft brought down in an apparent attempt to bomb Buckingham Palace'', led to further war-time commissions. During the war Bayes was a prolific contributor to the Recording Britain scheme, producing numerous views of interior locations that often focused on leisure activities and people eating and drinking. He produced 29 watercolours of London for the project, 23 of Essex and 20 of other areas, including seven drawings of Oxford. In 1944 Bayes became Director of Painting at Lancaster School of Arts and Crafts, finally retiring in 1949, aged eighty.[
]
Published works
* 1927: ''The Art of Decorative Painting'',
* 1931: ''Turner: a Speculative Portrait''
* 1932: ''A Painter's Baggage''
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bayes, Walter
1869 births
1956 deaths
19th-century English male artists
19th-century English painters
20th-century English male artists
20th-century English painters
Académie Julian alumni
Alumni of the Westminster School of Art
British war artists
English art critics
English illustrators
English male painters
Painters from London
People from St Pancras, London
Sibling artists
World War I artists
World War II artists