From Sickert to Gertler: Modern British Art from Boxted House
Until June 22; Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

Walter Sickert was an English painter who developed his own take on Post-Impressionism. Tending towards seedy interiors and dysfunctional human relationships, his paintings aren’t remembered for their cheerfulness. More recent claims that Sickert was in fact Jack the Ripper darken the man’s reputation even more.

With that in mind, you might expect “From Sickert to Gertler” to be a gloomy exhibition, but nothing could be further from the truth. Drawn from the private Essex home of Natalie and Bobby Bevan, the art is as warm and welcoming as the party-loving couple themselves.

Bobby Bevan was big in advertising and Natalie was an artist. His parents were also painters, ensuring that the couple was well-connected from the outset. In the words of one writer-friend, their ever-changing collection of pictures from 1946 to 1974 “told of relationships rather than purchases”, reflecting the bohemian social whirl of Boxted House.

Six months after Natalie Bevan’s death, this exhibition gathers together the couple’s collection and hangs it room by room, echoing the original layout: the cluttered sitting-room with its Sickert and Gores; the elegant drawing room with its bold Gertlers; the library filled with paintings by Bobby’s father (Robert Polhill Bevan) and others from the Camden Town Group.

The Camden Town Group (currently the subject of a Tate exhibition) lived by Sickert’s dictum that great art flourished not in the drawing room but in the kitchen and the scullery. Following in the footsteps of the French Impressionists, the group sought to paint modern, often urban, life. But the majority of the works here, particularly those of Robert Bevan, depict a dreamy rural idyll.

Counting Bevan’s 16 paintings to Gertler’s three and Sickert’s one, the title of the show is something of a red herring. Gertler’s paintings are big, brash and bordering on kitschy. His voluptuous portrait of Natalie at 18 is packed with symbols of bounteous fruitfulness, and that of his mother is positively pneumatic. The third painting, Still Life With Aspidistra, is a new acquisition of the gallery’s; a porcelain figurine in the shade of an over-hanging aspidistra takes on monumental qualities.

Sickert’s painting, The System, depicts a tense gambler with wild, loose dashes of paint doing little to disguise the artist’s spontaneous under-drawing. It’s a far cry from Robert Bevan’s tightly-composed village scenes and horse-sales. Though a friend of Bevan’s, Sickert refused to write the introduction to a posthumous catalogue of his work, citing irreconcilable differences of principle.

Bevan failed to make a living out of his art, and recognition has been limited since his death. Aside from occasional lapses into the twee, his work has the refreshing qualities of the Scottish Colourists, JD Fergusson, in those square-cut trees, and SJ Peploe, with his chalky, multi-faceted still lifes.

Cabinets of ephemera, full of mirth and merriment, reflect the upbeat atmosphere of the couple’s paintings. A formal card invites the Bevans to a Judgement Day Party. Letters contain amusing anecdotes, and photographs show the lavish decor of Boxted House dotted with mad-cap mobiles and trinkets. This exhibition won’t change your life, but it should at least brighten up your afternoon.

Catrìona Black, Sunday Herald 23.03.08