Review of good book on art historian, museum director and television star Sir Kenneth Clark.
After Oxford University, Clark studied with the powerful art connoisseur and proponent of “tactile values,” Bernard Berenson, in his picture-crammed Villa I Tatti outside Florence. K (as he was called) learned a lot from BB’s conceited and insincere monologues, and from his ability to juggle a wife and mistress in the same household. But he perforce ignored BB’s mercenary relations with the devious art dealer Joseph Duveen, for whom he attributed dubious works to major artists in exchange for bountiful fees.
At Oxford Clark had met the university graduate Jane Martin, “a friendly, unpretentious girl, and attractive in a vivacious way,” and married her in 1927 (46). Jane both worshipped and tormented her husband, devoting her life and social talents to him, but indulging in temper tantrums and alcoholic binges. In the late 1930s Jane noticed a sudden change in Clark’s attitude, perhaps a lack of sexual interest, that heralded the first of his many love affairs. Sex was not Clark’s prime motivation—he rejected one frisky woman as “too lecherous”—but “enjoyed writing to his girlfriends and basking in their admiration” (243). His mistresses “were divided between grand society ladies, with whom his liaisons were flirtatious, and artistic women with whom he had affairs” (243). The latter included the actress Irene Worth and the wives of complaisant artist friends: Myfanwy Piper and his
Friends were fascinated by Clark’s character. Indulging in contrived modesty and ironic self-deprecation, he exclaimed that his “whole life has been a harmless confidence trick” (2). At Oxford he gave the impression of being “incredibly learned, fastidious, almost cold” (36). The novelist Anthony Powell remembered him as “intensely ambitious, quite ruthless, ready for a brilliant career” (36). Graham Sutherland thought “he was elegant, a Renaissance prince. But I was also frightened of him because he didn’t suffer fools gladly” (52). He impressed the diarist James Lees-Milne, who wrote, “I have always regarded him as the greatest man of my generation… [He] Was a proud, aloof man with a gracious manner that did not put one at ease. But whenever he gave praise one felt that God Almighty had himself conferred a benediction” (401).
Clark always maintained a salutary balance between administrative duties and dutiful writing—sometimes on the cushioned seat of his parked Bentley. He thought a good art historian should have a sound knowledge of documents, sympathetic imagination when responding to works of art and commitment to telling the truth. Rejecting Berenson’s notion of connoisseurship, Clark studied the function of a work of art: why and in what circumstances was it painted, what does it represent and mean?
Clark’s first appointment, in 1931, was Keeper of Fine Art at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, where he increased the gallery space and made important purchases of Italian and English pictures. In 1934, at the astonishing age of thirty, he became director of the National Gallery in London. King George V and Queen Mary wanted him to be Surveyor of the King’s Pictures—the royal collection had 7,000 paintings, the National Gallery owned a mere 2,000—but Clark felt he couldn’t take on two demanding jobs. Determined to secure his services, the king and queen, on an unprecedented visit to the National Gallery, made an offer he couldn’t refuse.
Reckoned to be a brilliant director, Clark was the first to buy Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings for the Gallery. When World War II broke out he foresaw the danger and safely stored all the art in underground caves in north Wales. In wartime London, when there was no music, art, theater or cinema, he led the cultural resistance to Hitler. He organized concerts in the Gallery by the pianist Myra Hess and other leading musicians and, though the orchestra wisely ignored him, even conducted Leopold Mozart’s Toy Symphony.
With the paintings safely stored, Clark became the head of the Film Division of the propagandistic Ministry of Information. The Treasury gave him the formidable sum of £770,000 for the difficult task of keeping up morale during the military defeats in Europe. Clark also ran the War Artists Advisory Committee, which led to an acrimonious clash with the rebarbative Wyndham Lewis. The artist was paid £300 in advance for a painting of
After the war Clark continued his public triumphs. He was instrumental in the creation of the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. Coached by Irene Worth when he became chairman of the newly established Independent Television Authority, he gave a pioneering series of talks that answered the question
Clark’s most accomplished work,
I first saw the television series
In 1953 Clark had bought Saltwood Castle and its contents, near Hythe in Kent, for £28,000. The ancient fortress devoured his cash and he was forced to sell many of his paintings to maintain it. He had eight indoor staff, and three men to cater to Jane’s interest in gardens, entertained lavishly and lived well beyond his income. He also kept his favorite Mars bars locked in a safe. During his lifetime Clark built a separate house on the grounds and gave the castle to his older son. Alan Clark, Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet minister, was a notorious seducer and wildly indiscreet diarist. When I visited the crenellated towers of Saltwood in 1979, the witty and urbane Alan, who’d replaced most of the art with antique racing cars, proudly guided me around.
Jane had a severe stroke in 1973. When she died two years later the hopeful string of mistresses queued up to marry the man who’d inexorably progressed to a knighthood, Companion of Honour, Life Peerage (he also served well in the House of Lords) and finally achieved the ultimate prize: the Order of Merit, limited to the twenty-four most distinguished intellectuals in the kingdom.
In 1977 the sly seducer surprised his family, friends and lovers by marrying Nolwen Rice, a twice-married French-American widow, whom he’d met briefly in France. Nineteen years younger than Clark, she came equipped with an alluring seventeenth-century château in Normandy. She held her own in fierce power struggles with all her emotional and financial rivals, and as Clark’s health failed eventually took control of his life. He left a fabulous estate of £5,315,000, as well as an art collection, which sold at Sotheby’s in 1984 for £9 million, on the strength of Turner’s
Stourton concludes: Clark “was uniquely balanced between the worlds of scholarship, creativity and power…. His influence on the formation of so many institutions that offer the public greater access to art, theatre, opera and design is unparalleled—the only comparison can be with Maynard Keynes” (403).
The author has no competing interests to declare.