WALTER SICKERT

 

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SUNDAY Feature ART of Architecture -by Gautam Shah

Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942) was a British painter and printmaker. He was an Impressionist and part of the Camden Town Group of London. Unlike other members of Camden group, Sickert was famous in his lifetime. He is considered a prominent figure in the transition from Impressionism to Modernism.

In 1883, Sickert travelled to Paris and met Edgar Degas. He was impressed by the Degas use of pictorial space. Yet he developed own style of Impressionism with sober colouration. Following advice by Degas, he abandoned ‘the tyranny of nature’ and began painting in studio relying more on remembrances or impressions. He painted in heavy impasto and narrow tonal range, but disliked the use thick oil-paints -‘as the most un-decorative matter in the world’.

Sickert's renderings were denounced as ugly and vulgar, and choice of subject matter was deplored as too garish for art. Sickert showed recurring interest in sexually provocative themes. Sickert was a cosmopolitan and eccentric, who often favoured ordinary people and urban scenes as his subjects. His work includes portraits of well-known personalities and in later years images formed from own and press photographs. His range of subjects includes domestic interiors, portraits, town scapes and theatrical subjects. In later part of life he developed many eccentric habits and became a celebrity with stunts. He changed his name and appearance.

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