THE GROSVENOR AND THE NEW GALLERIES

In the autumn of the year 1876 we were invited to Sir Coutts Lindsay’s Scottish seat at Balcarres, where Joe’s collaboration with Mr. C. E. HallÉ as Director of the Grosvenor Gallery in Bond Street was fixed and led later to the long co-operation of these two friends in their New Gallery Exhibitions.

Sir Coutts’s venture was to start in the following May, and there was much to discuss and settle at that shooting party; yet not so much as to interfere with plenty of fun by the way.

It was on this visit that Prince Leopold was a guest at the house and I vividly recall a series of tableaux vivants got up for his entertainment, in which Joe played a part he was often to fill later—that of stage manager, combined on this occasion with the office of Dresser, in which capacity he “corked” a moustache on His Royal Highness’ face for an impersonation of Charles I.

There were anxious moments—such as when the Prince’s tights did not arrive from Edinburgh, or when Sir Arthur Sullivan, after nobly seconding Joe’s efforts with his incidental music, flatly refused to abandon his cigar at a late hour to play waltzes; or again, on the following Sunday morning when—the crimson cloth being laid ready at the Episcopalian Church—a belated telegram arrived from Windsor commanding H.R.H.’s attendance at Presbyterian worship. But I think Joe’s unconventional and merry wit—even in those early days when he might have felt strange in that kind of society—helped away many a little ruction, and the fun that he made of himself as “one of the lower middle class” little used to the ways of great houses was much appreciated by Arthur Sullivan, “Dicky Doyle” and others claiming kinship with the “Bohemians,” yet used to the habits at which he pretended to be alarmed.

I can see the twinkle in the eye with which he stoutly declared that a French Chef did not necessarily beget a sure taste in the hosts, and the corroboration given to his statement by the sight of some twenty docile people eating a salad that had been mixed with methylated spirit in mistake for vinegar without turning a hair.

I think Arthur Sullivan—who was an habituÉ—expostulated with the butler about it, when the cause of the “odd taste” was run to earth and laid to the account of the kitchenmaid.

These Balcarres days began for us that series of social gatherings so well known later as the Grosvenor Gallery Sunday afternoons, at which Lady Lindsay presided over a company including all the most notable people in Literature and Art, to say nothing of the “beaux noms,” courtiers and politicians in her more exclusive set.

Those most entertaining parties and the Private Views both at the Grosvenor Gallery and, later on, at the New Gallery in Regent Street, were among the season’s features of that period, and invitations to both of them were eagerly sought by all classes of Society. Especially in the earlier years the vagaries in dress assumed by some of the women of the “Artistic” and Theatrical Set were, and I fear often justly, matters for merriment to those of the fashionable world who fitly displayed the last modes from Paris; and I hear again the softly sarcastic tones of a society lady commenting on the clinging draperies of a pretty artist “finished by a pair of serviceable boots.”

Yet there were those among the leaders of the Élite who chose to wear garments following the simpler and more graceful patterns of some bygone era; and I am bound to say that these were often among the most beautiful toilettes present and those which Joe then most admired.

But much strenuous work preceded the days of the Private Views. Early in the career of the Grosvenor Gallery, Joe, steeped in the work of the Old Masters of which he had made such a special study, persuaded Sir Coutts Lindsay to have an exhibition of their drawings—culled from the great collections of England; and many a pleasant visit did he have to fine country houses on this quest.

Once he arrived after a night journey at the seat of Lord Warwick just as the men of the house-party were met in the hall for the day’s “shoot,” and I can fancy the merry excuse with which he surely fitted the occasion as he presented himself bare-headed, having left his hat in the train when he sleepily changed carriages at the junction; luckily he was well provided with natural covering.

Plenty of his Celtic persuasiveness must have come into play—both on this occasion and on those when the fine shows of Paintings by Old Masters were made—in cajoling the owners to lend their priceless treasures, and I recollect one or two very anxious moments over transport, etc.

But this first ambitious Exhibition of Drawings exceeded, both in bulk and excellence, anything previously attempted in London and attracted the enthusiastic attention of all connoisseurs; the hanging and cataloguing involved immense labour, and I was proud to be allowed to take a small share in the last part of the work—an opportunity in which I learnt much which I have never forgotten.

When, some few years later, my husband and Mr. HallÉ started their independent enterprise in Regent Street, their sole responsibility made the work none the less arduous though naturally less hampered.

The first task—exciting as it was—was a Herculean one, for the New Gallery was practically built upon the site of an old fruit-market, and an anxious winter was that, lest it should not be completed in time for an opening with the other May Exhibitions. But completed it was and handsomely; though the last touch, the gilding of the rails of the gallery which overhung the Central Court, was only finished through Joe inducing the frame-gilders to work with the builders’ men—an infringement of custom which, it seemed, only the affection which they bore him induced them to overlook.

The effect of that Central Court with its fountain fringed with flowers and its arcade panelled with fine, coloured marbles, was one of the sensations of the day, and deserved the praise of a critic: “It is an Aladdin’s Palace sprung up in the night.” Joe has spoken of this first Exhibition in Eminent Victorians; suffice it, therefore, to say that the Burne Jones and Watts’ pictures were the distinguishing features, as they always were so long as these great men survived.

As years went on, the collecting of works among the lesser artists for the modern yearly Exhibition became more and more irksome to Joe, and the rounds that he and Mr. HallÉ used to make to the artists’ studios were something of a penance to him.

Not only were they physically fatiguing, but the difficulties of choice, of obtaining what they desired and of refusing what they didn’t desire without undue offence to the artist, taxed the patience of both directors and, I think, Joe’s wit was often needed to turn a dangerous corner.

“Good isn’t the word,” he once answered to a sympathiser who asked him what he said when confronted with a thoroughly bad picture; and, although this too transparent form of salve may not really have been uttered, I am told that the kindly chaff which he would sometimes expend upon the shameless offer of a poor painting from a man who knew what he was doing but meant to send his best work to take its chance elsewhere, was such as might not have “gone down” from anyone else but Joe Carr.

Yet there were pleasant hours even on these days of weary rounds. In each of the districts visited the directors were sure to count at least one firm friend, anxious to lighten the road; in Kensington it was Burne Jones, who, speaking of his young daughter, wrote on one occasion: “In my wife’s absence, Margaret dispenses middle-class hospitality with a tact and finish worthy of a higher sphere.” In St. John’s Wood it was Alma Tadema—most hospitable of hosts—always ready with a bottle of his best wine and some funny tale uttered in his quaint English, and admirably seconded by his charming wife at the long, narrow table loaded with old Dutch silver and lovely curios.

And upon the onerous occasions of the varnishing days when the positions on the line were supposed to be the right of every exhibitor, these and other leaders in the world of art would often “stand by” even when some incensed young gentleman—these were usually young gentlemen—would go the length of removing his picture in a four-wheeler.

Many were the humorous incidents that used to be told to me! A favourite and out-spoken assistant was once asked what he thought of the position of a small picture which was being tried above a larger one; to which his reply was: “If you ask me, Sir, I think it looks like a tom-tit on a round of beef.” Apparently the directors thought so too for the picture was removed and hung in a corner, or perhaps in the balcony above the Central Court—a place even less coveted by the ambitious.

Little however did I know of these prickly passages, specially at that momentous first opening, when a kind supporter of the new enterprise presented me with a beautiful old brocade dress in which I took my share of receiving the crowds of visitors at the entrance of the Hall: and I don’t think that, when the varnishing day was past, the two directors bothered their heads much about the prickly passages or even about the Press opinions. Joe’s optimism was always irrepressible and when his task at the New Gallery was over, he would turn, on the following day—with something perhaps of relief—to one of the many other sides of his full life.