The Camden Town Group in Context

Purchased by Robert Ross at the Carfax Gallery, London, May 1912 (1), for the Contemporary Art Society; presented to Tate Gallery 1917.

Sickert used a thin piece of off-white wove paper probably taken from a sketchbook for this study. The drawing is executed in two types of pencil. The outline of the figure was initially sketched in with a soft pencil line. Hatched strokes were then applied with the same pencil to indicate areas of shadow. The artist then used a softer darker pencil to add the highlights and to indicate the key structural points in the composition. The image is enclosed within a drawn rectangle that is angled at a slant to the edges of the paper and was probably applied by the artist during or after the drawing was executed. There are several inscriptions in the margins that seem to have been written by Sickert: ‘Fatigue’ is handwritten in pencil below the image as perhaps the original title of the work; the number ‘41’ is also inscribed in pencil in the top margin; and part of what appears to read ‘Ero’ is handwritten in pencil on the right edge, the rest of the inscription having been trimmed away at some point in the drawing’s history. There are traces of the outline of the image in a dark material on the back of the paper, which does not appear to be original drawing but may be the impression of the drawing made by placing a sheet of carbon paper behind it to transfer the image onto another piece of paper (see Tate N05095). Two pin-holes along the top edge indicate that the paper was either pinned to a board or had something pinned to it and might also be related to this technique.

The subject of this drawing is a man, wearing a waistcoat and soft flat cap, seated on a bed with his elbows leaning on his knees in an attitude of abject exhaustion and depression. His slumped pose clearly relates to that of the male figure in the oil painting, Dawn, Camden Town c.1909 (fig.1),1 Walter Sickert’s main contribution to the third and last Camden Town Group exhibition in December 1912. The picture, which was displayed under the abstruse title, Summer in Naples, depicts a naked woman on an iron bedstead looking at the back of a fully dressed man seated beside her, and is closely related to the sequence of works known as the ‘Camden Town Murder’ series. Taking as their context the brutal 1907 murder of a prostitute, Emily Dimmock, in Camden Town, the paintings paired a nude female with a clothed man to disturbing psychological effect, and attracted the lion’s share of media attention in coverage of the exhibition.2 Newspaper reviews of Dawn, Camden Town, for example, described the work as an ‘ugly, sensitive, bitter and accomplished artistry’,3 concerned with the ‘musty, flabby realities’ of ‘unstimulating realism’.4 The consensus was that Sickert was presenting a study of lower class life. Critics variously interpreted the male figure as ‘a British navvy’,5 ‘a colourless male creature’,6 ‘a quite recognisable British working-man’,7 and ‘an ordinary street-corner loafer ... suffering from some kind of internal discomfort’.8 In the painting the role of the man is translated as something sordid and disaffected, the paying client in a sexual transaction. The combination of the dark and patchy tones of Sickert’s characteristic painterly style, the juxtaposition with the corpulent nudity of the woman, and the perceived griminess of the bedroom interior are interpreted as analogous to social degradation. In the drawing, however, the same motif of the man seated on a bed carries a different quality, free from moral ambiguity. The body language of the working class male here seems suggestive of physical or mental tiredness and wretchedness, the result of a lifestyle of manual labour and economic hardship. This is reinforced by the title, Despair, and the word, ‘Fatigue’, inscribed by the artist at the bottom of the sheet.9

Following the example of his mentor Edgar Degas, the process of drawing represented a key but varied component in Sickert’s working practice. At times his sketches formed the structural basis for a finished painting and were created with the idea and composition already in mind, ready to be squared-up or otherwise transferred directly from paper to canvas, as in, for example, Study for ‘Ennui’ (Tate T00350). At other times, however, Sickert’s drawings were integral to the evolution of a motif as he constantly arranged and rearranged his models, sketching rapidly in pencil, pen and ink or charcoal in search of the most effective combination. The art historian Wendy Baron notes that the setting for the painting, Dawn, Camden Town, and therefore by association for the drawing, Despair, may be Sickert’s ‘Wellington House Academy’,10 a room on the corner of Granby Street and 247 Hampstead Road, which the artist once described as ‘my theatre’.11 Like many of his rented studios, he probably chose the place for its aesthetic qualities, relishing its authentically shabby features and the way that the light was filtered through grimy windows. For a time here he was also fascinated by the perspective of floorboards,12 as in, for example, Home Life, Camden Town (The Freeman Spogli Collection).13 It was in this studio that the artist created many of his most famous paintings dramatising the domestic interior, such as Ennui (Tate N03846). Sickert manipulated the space like a stage-set with props to create the perfect backdrop for his characters, providing instantly recognisable indicators regarding the social status of the room’s inhabitants.14 This careful dressing of the background was described by the writer Virginia Woolf as

Although in Despair the details of the interior are sparse, they are nevertheless extremely evocative, the bare wooden floorboards and the utilitarian frame of the bed on castors mirroring the man’s blue-collar costume of rolled-up shirt-sleeves, waistcoat and cloth cap. The nature of the relationship between the drawing and the finished oil, Dawn, Camden Town, is not clear. Although it is likely that it was executed with the Camden Town Murder theme in mind, the existence of another study featuring the same man in a pose unrelated to the paintings suggests that it was part of a sequence of sketches dating from the same sitting. Wash and Brush-up (British Museum, London),16 a sketch in black and white chalk on magenta paper, depicts the man standing at table washing his hands in a shallow basin with his back turned to the viewer. The identity of the model is unknown but the slimness of his physique confirms that it is not Hubby, the artist’s usual choice of male sitter at this time.

Sickert was an accomplished draughtsman using a wide variety of techniques to suit his purpose. Despair employs swiftly drawn lines using both the point and the side of the pencil lead to create a range of tonal marks. The hard outline of the curve of the man’s back and the angularity of his face and arm contrast with the softness in the creases of his shirt and cap. The artist has created a third textural quality using vigorous hatching to denote the shadow within the palm of the sitter’s hand and the dark fabric of his trousers. There is also a neat frame drawn around the image, which Baron has suggested may be evidence of Sickert’s intention to publish.17 Sickert possibly considered sending Despair to the New Age, a weekly London periodical to which he regularly contributed drawings between 1910 and 1914. In addition to aesthetic and cultural issues the New Age had a socio-political agenda and featured commentary from major social critics from opposing sides of the political divide. Many of Sickert’s sketches which appeared there were concerned with snapshots of urban life and domestic labour, for example, Pail of Slops,18 which depicts a young female servant carrying a bucket. However, despite the apparent suitability of the subject matter and the linear quality of the drawing, Despair seems to have remained unpublished. It was first exhibited at the Carfax Gallery in 1912 at a solo exhibition containing fifty other drawings.19 As the art historian Anna Gruetzner Robins has pointed out, the majority of these sketches depicted intimate interior scenes, although Despair was unusual in its focus on a single male figure instead of a combination of men and women.20