THE GROSVENOR AND THE NEW GALLERIES
In the autumn of the year 1876 we were invited to Sir Coutts Lindsay’s
Scottish seat at Balcarres, where Joe’s collaboration with Mr. C. E.
Hallé as Director of the Grosvenor Gallery in Bond Street was fixed and
led later to the long co-operation of these two friends in their New
Gallery Exhibitions.
Sir Coutts’s venture was to start in the following May, and there was
much to discuss and settle at that shooting party; yet not so much as
to interfere with plenty of fun by the way.
It was on this visit that Prince Leopold was a guest at the house
and I vividly recall a series of _tableaux vivants_ got up for his
entertainment, in which Joe played a part he was often to fill
later--that of stage manager, combined on this occasion with the office
of _Dresser_, in which capacity he “corked” a moustache on
His Royal Highness’ face for an impersonation of Charles I.
There were anxious moments--such as when the Prince’s tights did
not arrive from Edinburgh, or when Sir Arthur Sullivan, after nobly
seconding Joe’s efforts with his incidental music, flatly refused to
abandon his cigar at a late hour to play waltzes; or again, on the
following Sunday morning when--the crimson cloth being laid ready
at the Episcopalian Church--a belated telegram arrived from Windsor
commanding H.R.H.’s attendance at Presbyterian worship. But I think
Joe’s unconventional and merry wit--even in those early days when he
might have felt strange in that kind of society--helped away many a
little ruction, and the fun that he made of himself as “one of the
lower middle class” little used to the ways of great houses was much
appreciated by Arthur Sullivan, “Dicky Doyle” and others claiming
kinship with the “Bohemians,” yet used to the habits at which he
pretended to be alarmed.
I can see the twinkle in the eye with which he stoutly declared that a
French Chef did not necessarily beget a sure taste in the hosts, and
the corroboration given to his statement by the sight of some twenty
docile people eating a salad that had been mixed with methylated spirit
in mistake for vinegar without turning a hair.
I think Arthur Sullivan--who was an _habitué_--expostulated with the
butler about it, when the cause of the “odd taste” was run
to earth and laid to the account of the kitchenmaid.
These Balcarres days began for us that series of social gatherings so
well known later as the Grosvenor Gallery Sunday afternoons, at which
Lady Lindsay presided over a company including all the most notable
people in Literature and Art, to say nothing of the “beaux
noms,” courtiers and politicians in her more exclusive set.
Those most entertaining parties and the Private Views both at the
Grosvenor Gallery and, later on, at the New Gallery in Regent Street,
were among the season’s features of that period, and invitations
to both of them were eagerly sought by all classes of Society.
Especially in the earlier years the vagaries in dress assumed by some
of the women of the “Artistic” and Theatrical Set were, and
I fear often justly, matters for merriment to those of the fashionable
world who fitly displayed the last modes from Paris; and I hear again
the softly sarcastic tones of a society lady commenting on the clinging
draperies of a pretty artist “finished by a pair of serviceable
boots.”
Yet there were those among the leaders of the _élite_ who chose to
wear garments following the simpler and more graceful patterns of some
bygone era; and I am bound to say that these were often among the most
beautiful toilettes present and those which Joe then most admired.
But much strenuous work preceded the days of the Private Views. Early
in the career of the Grosvenor Gallery, Joe, steeped in the work of the
Old Masters of which he had made such a special study, persuaded Sir
Coutts Lindsay to have an exhibition of their drawings--culled from the
great collections of England; and many a pleasant visit did he have to
fine country houses on this quest.
Once he arrived after a night journey at the seat of Lord Warwick just
as the men of the house-party were met in the hall for the day’s
“shoot,” and I can fancy the merry excuse with which he
surely fitted the occasion as he presented himself bare-headed, having
left his hat in the train when he sleepily changed carriages at the
junction; luckily he was well provided with natural covering.
Plenty of his Celtic persuasiveness must have come into play--both on
this occasion and on those when the fine shows of Paintings by Old
Masters were made--in cajoling the owners to lend their priceless
treasures, and I recollect one or two very anxious moments over
transport, etc.
But this first ambitious Exhibition of _Drawings_ exceeded, both in
bulk and excellence, anything previously attempted in London and
attracted the enthusiastic attention of all connoisseurs; the hanging
and cataloguing involved immense labour, and I was proud to be allowed
to take a small share in the last part of the work--an opportunity in
which I learnt much which I have never forgotten.
When, some few years later, my husband and Mr. Hallé started their
independent enterprise in Regent Street, their sole responsibility made
the work none the less arduous though naturally less hampered.
The first task--exciting as it was--was a Herculean one, for the New
Gallery was practically built upon the site of an old fruit-market, and
an anxious winter was that, lest it should not be completed in time
for an opening with the other May Exhibitions. But completed it was
and handsomely; though the last touch, the gilding of the rails of the
gallery which overhung the Central Court, was only finished through Joe
inducing the frame-gilders to work with the builders’ men--an
infringement of custom which, it seemed, only the affection which they
bore him induced them to overlook.
The effect of that Central Court with its fountain fringed with flowers
and its arcade panelled with fine, coloured marbles, was one of the
sensations of the day, and deserved the praise of a critic: “It
is an Aladdin’s Palace sprung up in the night.” Joe has
spoken of this first Exhibition in _Eminent Victorians_; suffice it,
therefore, to say that the Burne Jones and Watts’ pictures were
the distinguishing features, as they always were so long as these great
men survived.
As years went on, the collecting of works among the lesser artists for
the modern yearly Exhibition became more and more irksome to Joe, and
the rounds that he and Mr. Hallé used to make to the artists’
studios were something of a penance to him.
Not only were they physically fatiguing, but the difficulties of
choice, of obtaining what they desired and of refusing what they
didn’t desire without undue offence to the artist, taxed the
patience of both directors and, I think, Joe’s wit was often
needed to turn a dangerous corner.
“Good isn’t the word,” he once answered to a
sympathiser who asked him what he said when confronted with a
thoroughly bad picture; and, although this too transparent form of
salve may not really have been uttered, I am told that the kindly chaff
which he would sometimes expend upon the shameless offer of a poor
painting from a man who knew what he was doing but meant to send his
best work to take its chance elsewhere, was such as might not have
“gone down” from anyone else but Joe Carr.
Yet there were pleasant hours even on these days of weary rounds. In
each of the districts visited the directors were sure to count at
least one firm friend, anxious to lighten the road; in Kensington
it was Burne Jones, who, speaking of his young daughter, wrote on
one occasion: “In my wife’s absence, Margaret dispenses middle-class
hospitality with a tact and finish worthy of a higher sphere.” In
St. John’s Wood it was Alma Tadema--most hospitable of hosts--always
ready with a bottle of his best wine and some funny tale uttered in
his quaint English, and admirably seconded by his charming wife at the
long, narrow table loaded with old Dutch silver and lovely curios.
And upon the onerous occasions of the varnishing days when the
positions on the line were supposed to be the right of every exhibitor,
these and other leaders in the world of art would often “stand
by” even when some incensed young gentleman--these were usually
young gentlemen--would go the length of removing his picture in a
four-wheeler.
Many were the humorous incidents that used to be told to me! A
favourite and out-spoken assistant was once asked what he thought of
the position of a small picture which was being tried above a larger
one; to which his reply was: “If you ask me, Sir, I think
it looks like a tom-tit on a round of beef.” Apparently the
directors thought so too for the picture was removed and hung in a
corner, or perhaps in the balcony above the Central Court--a place even
less coveted by the ambitious.
Little however did _I_ know of these prickly passages, specially
at that momentous first opening, when a kind supporter of the new
enterprise presented me with a beautiful old brocade dress in which I
took my share of receiving the crowds of visitors at the entrance of
the Hall: and I don’t think that, when the varnishing day was
past, the two directors bothered their heads much about the prickly
passages or even about the Press opinions. Joe’s optimism was
always irrepressible and when his task at the New Gallery was over, he
would turn, on the following day--with something perhaps of relief--to
one of the many other sides of his full life.