Augustus Edwin John (1878 - 1961). Oil on Canvas. Measure 42 1/2"in H x 28 1/2"in W and 48"in H x 34"in W. Augustus John was born in 1878 in Tenby, on the Welsh coast. His father was a prosperous and eminently proper lawyer. When John insisted on going to art school, his father dubiously packed him off to the Slade School of Art in London with a tiny allowance and a heavy load of advice. Out of sight of home, John grew a beard, took to parting his russet hair in the middle and wearing golden earrings. He visited Paris in 1898 and returned there every year. John remembers that in his student days at London's Royal Academy, he was "enslaved" by two famous Americans who had great successes in London, Whistler and Sargent. John learned from both and came to paint personalities just as brilliantly, charmingly and revealingly as his masters had. He placed his technique at the service of his subject matter, and this instinct, which most modern painters scorn, is the first essential of portraiture. In 1901 he married Ida Nettleship; from 1901 to 1902 he taught art in Liverpool. In 1903 he met Dorelia McNeil who joined John and Ida in a menage-a-trois, until the death of Ida in 1907. He had a total of nine children, and at first carried his growing family about with him in a caravan. He made a habit of dropping in on gypsy encampments; the gypsies represented everything his father had tried to warn him against. To the most militant admirers of modern art, there is something baffling in John's brilliance: his painting was a whole lifetime behind the times. He lived all his life across the Channel from Picasso and Matisse, and yet he was never influenced in any way by their modern art. In 1903 he had his first exhibition, shared with his sister, Gwen. From 1901 until 1904 he served as Professor of Painting at Liverpool University and from 1911 until 1914 he worked with George Inness in Wales. In 1921 he was elected an Associate Royal Academician; in 1928 he was named Royal Academician, but was always out of step with their conservatism. In 1938 he resigned and in 1940 he was re-elected. His enemies called him a great ham actor; his cronies bedecked his name with legends, most of which centered around his prowess in pub and boudoir. He lived in Manhattan for a while, lunching regularly at the Colony Restaurant, partying all over town at night. John tried to be indifferent to money, but it bothered him; it would keep pouring in. His genius for portraiture was evident from the start; the wealthy and the near-great begged for the chance of being immortalised by him. His posh commissions enabled him to set up his family in a rambling guest-filled country house on the Avon River. He died in 1961.

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