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Sir John Lavery, R.A., R.H.A., R.S.A.
1856-1941
study for the tennis party
signed, inscribed SKETCH FOR LARGE PICTURE and dated 1885
oil on board
24 by 58.5 cm., 9 1/2 by 23 in
The present picture is the sketch for what has been traditionally regarded as Lavery's most celebrated work, The Tennis Party, (fig.1, Aberdeen Art Gallery). It was painted at Cartbank, Cathcart, near Paisley in Renfrewshire during the summer of 1885, portraying the newly fashionable recreational activities of the sons and daughters of the opulent middle class industrialists of an area which had become famous throughout the world for its wool and fine thread manufacture.
Lawn tennis was invented in 1874 by Major Walter Wingfield when he took out a patent for a portable court. It was quickly adopted by the All England Croquet Club at Wimbledon which laid down several permanent grass courts. The game's popularity immediately spread throughout the Empire and within a short time it had taken root in North America with the Staten Island Cricket and Baseball Club. Lawn tennis outstripped other health-giving outdoor pursuits, popularly promoted during the eighties, along with woollen underwear, by Dr Jaeger. It was frequently seen to provide good opportunities for supervised social contact between young people. Like the other Glasgow School painters, Lavery realized that his patrons were drawn from the industrialist cadres involved in the clubs, and shortly after his return from Grez-sur-Loing, he took the decision to make them and their new leisure persuit the subject of a major work. He recognized this phenomenon not only in the tennis sequence of 1885, but also in his portrayal of Paisley Lawn Tennis Club in 1889 (Paisley Museum and Art Galleries, Renfrewshire Council).
In later years Lavery reflected that The Tennis Party was 'generally considered - and I think fairly -... 'to express his debt to French teaching'. He continues; "Although I had only seen Bastien-Lepage on one occasion, on the Pont des Arts, where I was presented to him by a fellow student, I had never forgotten his advice on figures in motion. Pointing to people passing he said, 'Always carry a sketchbook. Select a person - watch him - then put down as much as you remember. Never look twice. At first you will remember very little, but continue and you will soon get complete action.' From that day I became obsessed by figures in movement, which resulted finally in The Tennis Party and drew attention to what became known as the Glasgow School" (John Lavery, The Life of a Painter, Cassell, London, 1940, p.57). Lavery was not overstating the case when he declared the importance of his great early work, which, after its initial airing at the Royal Academy (no.740), was extensively toured, before first being acquired by the Neue Pinakothek, Munich, in 1901, and then being purchased by Sir James Murray for donation to Aberdeen Art Gallery in 1926.
It was however the 'French' aspect of the work which initially challenged British critics. Lavery confirms the current fascination with the training of visual memory, advocated by Jules Bastien-Lepage, in emulation of the influential mid-century theorist, Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran. By the mid-eighties Lecoq's ideas about visuality had been conflated with Impressionism and the analysis of movement and spatial elision permitted by photography. Bastien-Lepage advised Lavery to encourage his eye and brain to operate like a camera - at first he would remember little, but eventually he would see complete action. The immediate effect of this advice is almost more apparent in the present work than in the finished canvas. Although less complex than the final picture, the 'Sketch' is a complete statement in itself, anticipating the spatial theatre of The Tennis Party. Lavery lays out the mise-en-scene, mapping the full extent of the court, between the hedged entrance on the left and the high fence on the right. Within this space the protagonists could be positioned and their movements co-ordinated. Almost three years after the painter's death the principal player, Alix MacBride, who was two years younger than Lavery, and was therefore twenty-seven when the picture was painted, recalled that it represented 'no special occasion but was just a composition in which at odd times my sister, a cousin and I posed for the principle (sic) figures - and in these old tennis days we had a good number of friends coming about us and the other figures were taken from some of them.' Miss MacBride continues, 'The help of critics was not wanting either. Arthur Melville, James Guthrie, Teddy Walton and others used to come to Cartbank in those days - and the 'Tennis Party' underwent many changes before it resulted in the very fine picture it is today' (letter dated 18 Dec '43, coll. Aberdeen Art Gallery). Some of the 'changes' to which Miss Macbride refers are obvious from the comparison of the present sketch with the finished work. In the final version, the positions of the two players on the left have been reversed and a man smoking a pipe is added, along with a young girl in black stockings. Miss MacBride's right arm is extended in the Aberdeen painting and another six spectators have been added at the rear of the court. Despite the fact that the male player running to receive the ball is in strong sunlight in the Sketch, its overall effect suggests a slightly duller day than that of the finished painting, supporting the proposition that it was painted on the spot, as a vibrant piece of plein air naturalism.
The ambience to which Miss MacBride alludes, greatly appealed to the painter. He concentrated specifically upon her movement in two closely related works, A Rally (watercolour, Glasgow Art Gallery) and Played!! (private collection), both of which were painted at the same time. The activities at the periphery of the game were portrayed in The Tennis Match (formerly Whitford and Hughes) and Beg Sir! (unlocated). And it is likely that when The Tennis Party went to Aberdeen in 1926, Lavery was prompted to return to the subject, painting tennis matches at Trent Park in Middlesex, in Florida and the Hotel du Beau Site, Cannes.
Lavery's confidence in addressing the Paisley middle classes undoubtedly derived from his strong sense of the direction of modern French painting. In his autobiography he cites a number of instances when he became aware of the Impressionist/Naturalist commitment to 'modern life' subjects. For this reason in 1885, he was prepared to abandon the costume-pieces which had occupied him a few years earlier, and at this time he also forsook the contemporary rustic scenes which were still the stock-in-trade of his Glasgow School comrades. It was for his avant-garde tendencies that George Moore hailed The Tennis Party at the Paris Salon as 'a work of real talent' (The Hawk, 8 May 1888, p.259). The Sketch for 'The Tennis Party', therefore represents an important departure, the consequences of which were replayed throughout Lavery's entire career. It is not surprising that the painter should have given the picture to an important friend and art amateur, Patrick Smith Dunn who was governor and later chairman of Glasgow School of Art from 1893 to 1929.
Provenance:
Patrick Smith Dunn, a gift from the artist, and thence by descent
Sale, Sotheby's, London, 22nd November 1983, lot 67
Exhibited:
London, Spink and Son, Sir John Lavery, R.A. 1856-1941, 1971, no.17;
Edinburgh and London, The Fine Art Society, Belfast, Ulster Museum, and Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland, Sir John Lavery R.A. 1856-1941, 1984, no.16a, illustrated in the exhibition catalogue.
Literature:
Kenneth McConkey, Sir John Lavery, 1993, Canongate, Edinburgh, pp.42-47, pl.46, illustrated.