Landscape into Art. Kenneth Clark
Kenneth Mackenzie Clark, Baron Clark of Saltwood (1903-1983)
Category
Books
Date
1949
Materials
Place of origin
England
Collection
Chartwell, Kent
NT 3111661
Summary
The author effectively outlines the growth of landscape painting as an independent art, from the early use of symbols taken from nature to the canvases of such great painters as Constable and Corot, Turner and Van Gogh, Cezanne and Seurat. And today what chances of survival, he asks, has the image of an enclosed garden in an age of slide rules and nuclear power. Book gifted by: Jane and Kenneth Clark Book Inscription Signature: Jane and Kenneth Clark, but not signed Book Inscription: Winston S Churchill with respectful & devoted admiration. Jane and Kenneth Clark. Christmas 1949 Date of Inscription: Christmas 1949
Full description
**The Inscribed Books Collection, to which this book belongs, consists of gift inscriptions on third party books given to Sir Winston Churchill from friends, family, and well-wishers, unsolicited presentation copies of books by strangers, as well as presentation copies from authors who were genuine friends and colleagues. After his death in January 1965, Churchill personally bequeathed the collection via his Will as a testament to his national and international achievements. Kenneth Mackenzie Clark (1903-1983) was a British art historian and patron. Clark was educated at Wixenford School and Winchester College, and won a scholarship to Trinity College, Oxford, where he gained a second class degree in modern history in 1925. His interests then turned to the study of art. His introduction to the severer disciplines of close scholarship and analytic connoisseurship were provided at Oxford by Charles F. Bell, Keeper of the Department of Fine Art, among the drawings and prints of the Ashmolean Museum. There followed two years of concentrated practice and refinement of judgement of works of art together with Berenson in the library at I Tatti and in the great collections of Italy. In 1929 Clark was offered the task of cataloguing the rich hoard of Leonardo da Vinci drawings at Windsor Castle. In 1931 his career took a decisive turn when he accepted Bell's former post, as Keeper of the Department of Fine Art at the Ashmolean and became a full-time professional museum man. Less than three years later, at the unprecedently early age of thirty-one, he was appointed Director of the National Gallery in London (1934–45), and shortly afterwards became also Surveyor of the King's Pictures (1934–44). In 1939, at the outbreak of the Second World War, Clark was responsible for the evacuation of virtually the entire collection from London, ultimately into a cavern in the slate quarries of Manod in north Wales. In the emptied gallery he organized with Dame Myra Hess the very popular and morale-raising lunchtime music recitals that continued despite the blitz, and then a scheme by which he brought back one masterpiece each month for display. He also found time to serve in the Ministry of Information, first as director of the film division and then as controller of home publicity. Perpetually frustrated, however, by ministry bureaucracy, he resigned in 1941. He was made a KCB in 1938, FBA in 1949, CH in 1959, and received a life peerage in 1969 and the Order of Merit in 1976. (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography) The author had been known to Churchill at least since October 1935 when he visited Chartwell with his wife, Jane. During the Second World War Clark had persuaded Churchill to veto the proposal to send the National Gallery’s art collection to Canada but, instead, to store it in a disused slate mine in Wales. (Martin Gilbert: Winston S. Churchill [Official Biography] Vol.VI, page 449.)
Bibliographic description
xix,[1],147,[1]p. 104 plates ; 24 cm. Provenance: Inscribed: "Winston S Churchill with respectful & devoted admiration | From Jane & Kenneth Clark Christmas 1949". Binding: publisher's beige cloth.
Provenance
Publication Details: London: John Murray, 1949 Description: the author effectively outlines the growth of landscape painting as an independent art, from early use of symbols taken from nature to the canvases of great painters such as Constable and Corot; Turner and Van Gogh; Cezanne and Seurat. And today what chances of survival, he asks, has the image of an enclosed garden in an age of slide rules and nuclear power. Gifted By: Jane and Kenneth Clark Inscription Signature: From Jane & Kenneth Clark Inscription: "Winston S Churchill with respectful & devoted admiration" Inscription Date: Christmas 1949
Makers and roles
Kenneth Mackenzie Clark, Baron Clark of Saltwood (1903-1983)