Master Jasper Kingscote
Glyn Warren Philpot (1884–1937)
Worthing Museum and Art Gallery

Transcript

Master Jasper Kingscote is 1933 oil painting by the British artist Glyn Philpot. It was painted shortly before the artist’s death from a stroke in 1937, when he was only 53. The sitter, Master Jasper is a fashionable young Englishman lost in thought. It’s a tragic picture in many ways, not only because the artist was in the declining years of a career, ruined by scandal, but his sister Jasper would also be dead a few years later. He was sadly killed in Dunkirk in 1940, fighting the Nazis in the Second World War. There’s a sense of the exotic about some of the loose brushstrokes of the painting. Most exaggerated in the background. Artist Glyn Philpot was a bit of a rebel who broke from the regimented style of traditional British portraiture, which was often dark, heavy and a bit stiff. Instead, he was excited by the work of European artists such as Picasso and Matisse and the French Impressionists, who were famous for exploring the effects of light and shadow, which you can see in the way the folds increases of his trousers are depicted. The Impressionists also drew inspiration from traditional Japanese art and Philpot borrows techniques like the almost cartoonish brown lines that you can see outlining the figure and furnishings. It’s a very light and loose style that shows his incredible skills. The artist himself was a member of London’s Royal Academy and was quite celebrated in his day. He was also gay, which was illegal and considered scandalous back then, and as well as earning a good living painting commissioned portraits. In his more personal work, he often explored male beauty, which sometimes included male nudes, Brighton Museum actually has a loving cup that once belonged to Philpot and his male partner. Although the homosexuality in Philpot’s paintings was covert, highly coded and very tame by today’s standards, a couple of these paintings caused such a scandal at the Royal Academy that they had to be withdrawn, and Philpot’s career and reputation was left in tatters. It’s tragic that his last years were spent in financial hardship, but in many ways he was way ahead of his time.