ARCHIVE: Manuscripts, correspondence, and related material.
The Christine Bacheler Nisbet archive
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American “modern primitive” of the 1930s
The largest known archive of material documenting the life and work of this significant American artist, praised by Rothenstein and patronised by Duveen.
Christine Bacheler Nisbet (1902-1991) is equally almost the only known source of information about the artistic creed she and her husband espoused, “Eternalism.” The breadth of correspondence presented here (listed in A, below) reflects Nisbet’s position within the American and British art scene of the 1920s, and also casts important light on the art market practices of the period. The archive not only highlights the specific case of a neglected American “modern primitive” of the early part of the twentieth century, but also presents a study of the difficulties faced by a highly-talented female painter during the period of the Great Depression. The presence in the archive of the artist’s own annotated album of photographic reproductions of her works, some of which no longer survive, allows for the first time a full evaluation of her artistic achievements. The corrected typescript of Nisbet’s unpublished autobiographical novel Germaine brings home with vividness and immediacy the experience of a 1920s American art school education.
Daughter of the Yale educated Reverend Francis Peck Bacheler (1862-1949) of Talcottville, Connecticut, Christine Bacheler Nisbet (hereafter CBN) was the grand-niece of the American landscape artist George Inness (1825-1894). After a dazzling career at Yale and much early success, in 1929 she married the English writer Hugh Ulric Swinscow Nisbet (1897-1987, hereafter HUSN), who at that time was working in New York for the celebrated American bookseller Dr A. S. W. Rosenbach (1876-1956). HUSN’s unwavering faith in his wife’s talent is apparent throughout. In 1934 he wrote to Duveen that “During the five years of our married life I have arranged all my wife’s exhibitions and done everything connected with the publicity and business side of her work. Where I fail is in having no income except from what we earn by our united efforts,” and in the same year he urged the British hotelier T. C. Gordon to commission a work from her, declaring “you would pay for such work only a fraction of what it will be worth in years to come” and “you will be helping someone who is a genius, but who is not yet well known in this country. A great deal of what is known as “Modern” Art is sterile, because the artists who produce it have no vision or link with humanity. I can and do offer you “Modern” Art which is imbued with the eternal quality of the Early Masters.”
A mass of information relating to CBN’s early career is to be found in the present collection, much of it unavailable elsewhere. Examples include a copy of CBN’s application for a 1932 Guggenheim Fellowship (quoted in A below), and a pamphlet issued by her and her husband’s Bacheler-Nisbet Gallery in 1934. The pamphlet describes CBN as: “American by birth and British by marriage. After studying with her cousin, George Inness, Jnr., son of the famous American landscape painter, she attended the Conservatoire at Fontainebleau, painting frescoes under St. Hubert; life painting and compositions under Jean Despajol. In Paris, sculpture with Paul Bartlett; portraits at the Academies Colorossi and Grande Chaumiere. At the School of Fine Arts, Yale University, she completed the four years” course in a year (a record unequalled by any other Art student of either sex at that University), and after twelve months abroad, working alone on figure compositions, she received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree (Yale).” CBN’s main artistic interest, as she stated in an article by George Sommerville Sandilands (1889-1961) in the Eleventh Hour, 20 March 1935, “C. Bacheler Nisbet – A Modern Primitive,” was in “trying to convey a sense of permanence and serenity.”
In 1930 the editor of Vanity Fair, Frank Crowninshield wrote to tell CBN how “terribly impressed” he had been by her first New York solo show, which he has “enjoyed [...] enormously”, and on 7 February 1931 the Hartford Courant reported that since beginning to show “her mature work” eighteen months before, CBN had had her paintings “accepted by the National Academy, New York, Chicago Art Institute, Toledo Museum of Art, Buffalo Academy of Fine Art, Wilmington (Del) Society of Fine Arts, & Pennsylvania Academy. One-man shows include those at the Ferargil Galleries, New York; Vose Galleries, Boston; Arden Galleries, New York; and Buffalo Academy.” Much material relating to these exhibitions (correspondence with gallerists, itemised consignment notices, receipts, authorisations) is present here.
In 1932 the couple travelled with their newly-born daughter Sylvie Aurore to England, where HUSN spent the next two years as caretaker at Compton Castle, Devon (now a National Trust property), the ancestral home of Commander Walter Raleigh Gilbert (1889-1977). The job allowed CBN two exhibitions at the Castle, but required constant hard work for little return from both Nisbets (see the quotations in CBN’s Guggenheim application in A, below), and after an acrimonious correspondence HUSN handed in his notice. Despite this, HUSN would later acknowledge the decisive part Compton Castle played “in rescuing me and my family from the creeping paralysis of the great American Depression”. His account of the period, with photographs and newspaper cuttings, is present in the archive, described at C, below.
1934 saw an unsuccessful attempt at founding a gallery at the couple’s home in Reigate, Surrey, as well as “The original statement on Eternalism”, which HUSN first mentioned in print in his dedication to CBN of his book “Thoughts on the Purpose of Art”. Apart from a commission for a mural at a London hotel, and an appreciative article by G. S. Sandilands (in which he describes her as a “Modern Primitive”), things now went quiet for CBN. By 1939 she was working as “cook-general” at Sharpitor Youth Hostel, Salcombe, Devon, where HUSN was warden. An exhibition she held here in June of that year garnered reviews in the local papers, but the pressure of work at the hostel (“In three weeks, she prepared 1,100 meals for visitors”) appears to have dampened her creative spirit, and although B below contains a number of examples of her work from the 1940s, it is with the 1930s that she fades out of artistic view. The couple would remain in Salcombe for the rest of their lives.
The collection is in good overall condition, on aged and worn paper, with occasional slight damage.
A. Album titled “Christine Bacheler Nisbet. Art Record 1929 – 1939. With a Preface by the compiler.”
Substantial 4to folder, containing 132 letters to CBN and HUSN from 60 correspondents; some drafts of HUSN’s replies; printed catalogues, price lists, and other material relating to exhibitions featuring CBN; and a mass of newspaper cuttings of reviews and articles relating to CBN from British and American newspapers. Assembled by HUSN in January 1978.
Correspondents: Lester K. Ade (1892-1975), Principal, Connecticut State Board of Education [2]; John G. Agar (1893-1934), New York attorney; Olive Benthall; Beatrice Brown Berry, executive secretary, National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors; Peyton Boswell (1879-1936), editor, The Art Digest [2]; Ruth Allen Boynton, National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors [2]; Frank Brangwyn (1867-1956); Berta N. Briggs (1884-1976), president, National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors [2]; Oliver F. Brown, director, Leicester Galleries, London [2]; William Alanson Bryan (1875-1942), director, Los Angeles Museum [3]; Doris Chapman (b.1901); John Christie [2]; Hilda Cochrane (d.1982, wife of Hon. Mrs Ralph Cochrane), director of the Wednesday-Thursday Gallery, which staged CBN’s first London solo show [2]; Frank Crowninshield (1872-1947), editor of Vanity Fair; Josephine Droege, National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors; Joseph Duveen, Baron Duveen (1869-1939) [5]; Jim Ede [Harold Stanley Ede] (1895-1990), Tate Gallery curator; A. C. Goodyear, president, Southern Kraft Manufacturers” Association; Thomas Crawford Gordon, hotelier, for whose set of apartments, Mount Royal, London, CBN executed a mural [4]; Captain David Henry Graeme (b.1874) of Fonthill, Shaldon, regarding CBN’s painting of his three children [3]; Howard Greenley (1874-1963), American architect; Robin Guthrie (1902-1971), British artist; Hiram J. Halle (1867-1944), businessman, inventor and philanthropist [8]; Robert B. Harshe (1879-1938), director, Art Institute of Chicago [7]; Arnold Haskell (1903-1980); William Mathews Hekking (1885-1970), director, Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo [4]; Beatrice Howe (assistant to Hekking, above); Edward Alden Jewell, art critic, New York Times; Rex Nan Kivell (1898-1977), director, Redfern Gallery, London; Ernest Alfred Knight of Syon House, East Budleigh, Devon [4]; Christine Lillian, president, San Francisco Society of Women Artists [2]; Katherine McKinnon (for Mrs Stevens Riviere), secretary to Mme Riviere, Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio [5]; James Goodwin McManus, Secretary, Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts; Muriel McNary, secretary, L. C. Wertheim Ltd; Emma Fordyce MacRae (1887-1974), American artist; Ruth Averell Meigs, director, Arden Gallery, New York [8]; Cuthbert Powell Minnigerode (b.1876), director of the Concoran Gallery, Washington D.C.; Henry Allen Moe (1894-1975); Alonzo Franklin Myers (b.1893), director, State Board of Education, Connecticut; H. W. Morgan, secretary to Lord Duveen; Clement F. Pitman; Frederic Newlin Price, director, Ferargil Gallery, New York [4 + page of accounts]; Mme Georges Henri Riviere [Nina Spalding Stevens] (1877-1959); W. Graham Robertson (1866-1948); Meyrick R. Rogers, director, City Art Museum of St Louis [4]; Sir William Rothenstein (1872-1945) [3]; Edward B. Rowan, director, Little Gallery, Cedar Rapids, Ohio; Michael Ernest Sadler (1861-1943), Master of University College, Oxford [2]; A. M. Simpson, assistant secretary, Architectural League of New York; Marie Sterner, New York gallerist (1880-1953); Margaret Sullivan, William Macbeth Incorporated; W. C. Thompson (for Robert C. Vose, among telegrams below); Paul Vellacott; Thelma von Seeth [8]; Lucy Wertheim (1883-1971), English gallerist [8]; Daphne Weymouth (Lady Weymouth) [Daphne Fielding, English novelist] (1904-1997); Reginald Howard Wilenski, English art critic (1887-1975); Sir Robert Witt. With telegrams from: Ferdinand Kuhn, New York Times journalist; Robert C. Vose (1873-1964), Boston gallerist; Malcolm Vaughan, American art critic; Malcolm Ward, American art critic.
Drafts of letters from HUSN to: T. P. Bennett & Son; Briggs; Bryan; Hon. Mrs Ralph Cochrane; Editor of the Daily Telegraph [3]; Miss Droege; Duveen [2]; T. C. Gordon [4]; Harshe; D. M. Macdonald; Moe; Price [2]; Madame Riviere; Mrs Van Gelder; von Seeth; Voss. Among HUSN’s drafts are long letters to: D. M. Macdonald of the Lefevre Gallery, London, 21 October 1933, pushing for an exhibition, and Josephine Droege of the Argent Galleries in America, 28 October 1933. This last is particularly informative, as it gives details of the CBN’s activities at Compton Castle: “You might think, from the above, that life is one long round of painting. Actually she has done all this in between her daily work of cooking all our meals and those of the Castle’s owner and his friends, who come down much too frequently! She has also had practically entire charge of the baby since her nurse left early in September, and has helped me in the house and garden, where I grow all our vegetables. During the summer months we also have to give teas to thirsty tourists who come at all hours except on Tuesdays when we are supposed to have the day off. In fact, if she were not the person she is, there would have been no creative work at all.” The letter continues with the conditions of the Castle (“We have no electric light or gas, and only one tap.”).
Among the catalogues and price lists of shows featuring work by CBN preserved in the volume are the following for solo shows of: paintings, 14 November 1925. Wadsworth Athenaeum Annex, Hartford, Connecticut; pencil drawings, 8 November to 16 December 1929. Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo Fine Arts Academy; paintings. 3 to 16 March 1930. Ferargil Galleries, New York (“First one-man show in N.Y.”); paintings. 2 to 14 June 1930. Robert C. Vose Galleries, Boston; paintings, drawings, portraits, murals. September 1934. Bacheler-Nisbet Gallery, Reigate, Surrey. Also an invitation to an exhibition of drawings, 9 to 28 April 1934, at the Medici Society (with a positive review in The Times, 18 April 1934, describing the “distinct flavour” of CBN’s work, “which may be described as “Franciscan.”“).
The album contains cuttings of reviews and features (1929 to 1934) from a wide range of English and American newspapers: American Art News; Art Digest; Boston Sunday Herald; Brooklyn Eagle; Chicago Tribune; Daily Sketch; Fontainebleau Alumni Bulletin; Fontainebleau News; Hartford Courant; Hartford Times; International Studio; Los Angeles Saturday Night; Musical Leader; New York American; New York Art News; New York Evening Post; New York Gotham Life; New York Herald Tribune; New York Social Calendar; New York Sun; New York Times; New Yorker; Oakland Tribune; Paignton Observer; Parnassus; Pasadena Star News; Reno Nevada Gazette; San Francisco Call; San Francisco Chronicle; South Manchester, Connecticut, Herald; Surrey Mirror; The Times of London; Torbay Herald & Express; Torbay Standard; Western Guardian; Western Morning News.
Photographs of the artist accompany three articles in the Western Morning News: 14 September 1932 (with HUSN), 25 April 1933 (posing in front of her portrait of the three Graeme children), 26 September 1933, 7 June 1939. Among the highlights are articles in: ONE, New York Evening Post, 22 October 1930, ‘she Used to Paint Pretty Sunsets, but Now She Uses Her Brushes Differently. Worked by Herself Till She Developed Original Technique. And She Can”t Remember Drawing Before She Was 3 Years Old”. TWO, Western Evening News, 14 September 1932, “Realism in Art. Young American’s remarkable Work. Exhibition at Compton Castle”. THREE, 26 September 1933, “Peasant Life in Art. Exhibition at Compton Castle. Atmosphere of Soil Depicted”. FOUR, Julia Older in Hartford Courant, 19 November 1933, “Former Talcottville Girl Now Distinguished Painter Lives in English Castle. Married to Promising Author, Mrs. Christine Bacheler Nisbet Lives In Romantic Devon. British Critics Laud Her Work. Her Paintings Have Been Widely Exhibited – She Has Many Famous Friends in England”. FIVE, Western Morning News, 7 June 1939, “This Salcombe Artist Paints Her Thoughts”.
“This Art Record”, HUSN writes in his typewritten preface (4to, 3 pp) to the album, “evolved out of a heterogeneous mass of letters, press clippings, catalogues and other art material, stored in odd files, desk drawers and boxes throughout the 39 years since the final item appeared in print, June 7, 1939.” HUSN takes the credit for the amount of material “preserved despite the bouleversement of the Great Depression and the far greater destructiveness of the War and its consequences”. The album is, he explains, “an Art Record, not a diary”, although “it does include a few interviews and letters that have also to do with our personal life”. The preface lists, over one and a half pages, eighteen of the “entries in chronological order that may be worth attention” (the first eight, USA, 1929-1932; the last ten, England, 1932-1939). The list gives details of invitations, awards, exhibitions (including “one-man” shows), election to membership, commissions, catalogue, article, reviews, beginning with the two following: “1929, on[wards]. The letters of Sir Joseph, later Lord, Duveen and his purchase of the paintings, “Ermenonville” and “Loisy” in 1934. | 1929. The first invitations received by the artist – to show a number of drawings at the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy and a painting at the Annual Exhibition of the Art Institute of Chicago.” It ends with “1939. Exhibition at Sharpitor Youth Hostel, Salcombe, of New Paintings & Drawings, June 6-25. June 7, in the Western Morning News an article, with photograph: “THIS SALCOMBE ARTIST PAINTS HER THOUGHTS. | With the coming of World War II the Art Record (up to 1939) ends. | URIC NISBET”.
The correspondence begins shortly after the couple’s marriage, with HUSN working for Rosenbach’s in New York. Through his employment he makes the acquaintance of Sir Joseph Duveen, whom, in an early exchange he urges to visit an exhibition by CBN at the Ferargil Galleries. This invitation sets the pattern of HUSN’s tireless promotion of his wife.
Among the correspondence casting important light on the art market practices of the period, is a 1930 telegram from the Boston gallerist Robert C. Vose, giving his terms as “NO CHARGE FOR GALLERY TWENTY PERCENT COMMISSION ON SALES YOU PAY TRANSPORTATION ANNOUNCEMENTS AND ADVERTISING”. HUSN replies with a long letter discussing terms, followed by a page listing 21 of CBN’s paintings and 18 of her drawings, each with dimensions and price (20 May 1930; folio, 2 pp). A similar “Advance List” of eighteen paintings was sent by HUSN to the Toledo Museum of Art.
A batch of the correspondence relates to a theft of CBN’s work from an American public gallery. In 1931, W. A. Bryan, director of the Los Angeles Museum informs CBN that two of her works have been ‘stolen from the walls of the gallery where your exhibition was on display in the Museum”, adding that “the Los Angeles Museum does not carry insurance covering its own exhibits nor those on loan-deposit, feeling that the institution ordinarily is as safe as it is possible to make an exhibition museum since we have a fireproof building with adequate fireproof protection and continuous guard service night and day”. “We are at an entire loss to account for this other than that their small size must have appealed to the sneak thief as presenting a favorable opportunity to take them from the wall and hide them under his coat, thus making away with them unseen, although the gallery attendant was on duty. [...] My hope was that this theft might be a “college prank” and that the missing paintings would be returned before this, but as they have not, I am taking the first opportunity after my return to my office, to inform you of the regretable occurrence and to inquire what terms you would make with a view to arranging a settlement that would be satisfactory to you.”
The same year of 1931 brings further difficulties. In May HUSN protests to the president of the National Association of Women Painters that one of his wife’s paintings, chosen for a London exhibition, has not only had “the outer margins [...] removed, but also the piece underneath the lower edge, and the canvas has been roughly tacked onto the back of the stretcher. Not content with this, the framer (?) has knocked the paint off the lower left hand corner, i.e. the reduced size corner. [...] I feel that the person responsible for this damage had absolutely no right to interfere in any way with a canvas sent out under the terms of the Exhibition”. The letter meets with an unsympathetic response from the Association’s president Berta N. Briggs: “All of us who sent out paintings un-framed had to run the risk of damage being done to them when they were framed in London, and I believe we all faced that possibility squarely.” A year later UN writes to H. A. Moe that “there will be no new canvases. But we are living on my salary of £2 per week and it is only by providing teas for visitors that we are able to afford outside help for an hour or two a day. In consequence my wife is eternally busy with household or maternal duties. The time goes so quickly she has not the freedom necessary for serious painting.”
After the Nisbet’s move across the Atlantic in 1932 HUSN writes enthusiastically back to Josephine Droege of Argent Galleries of his wife’s new English patrons Knight (“a prominent English collector” who is “extraordinarily enthusiastic” about CBN’s work) and Graeme, but a copy of CBN’s application for a Guggenheim Fellowship in February of the same year puts matters in a different light. She gives her occupation as “Caretaker’s wife” at Compton Castle near Paignton, South Devon (described in a telegram from its owner Commander Gilbert to HUSN as having “THIRTEENTH CENTURY PLUMBING NO BATH TELEPHONE OR ELECTRIC LIGHT”). Responding to a request for details regarding her “project”, she writes in autograph: “It is difficult to be concise. I want time more than anything – time to think and work, and time for my husband to write. I should gain much information if I could spend more time travelling in Europe and going to Italy to study at first-hand Giotto’s frescoes, after which I would settle down for about 10 months to continue my creative work. AT PRESENT WE ARE LIVING ON A SALARY OF £2-- A WEEK SO THAT I GET ONLY A FEW INTERRUPTED HOURS A WEEK FOR MY ART, THE REST OF THE TIME BEING SPENT LOOKING AFTER OUR BABY DAUGHTER, COOKING FOR OURSELVES AND THE OWNER WHEN HE COMES TO STAY AND KEEPING ORDER IN THE HABITABLE PART OF THE CASTLE.” Accompanying the application are four typed folio pages of CBN’s “accomplishments” from her school day’s to the point of writing, containing a mass of unknown biographical information. Of her aims she writes: “I am intensely interested in trying to portray the unity between simple peoples and the soil. The problems of composition, and of combining with my love of Nature its mental as well as its physical characteristics, have kept me busy and mainly discouraged for the past five years. That perfect balance is to be found: I see glimmers of it occasionally.” The list also contains all her exhibitions, both solo and group shows, up to that point. Despite support from the Nisbets” friends, the application is unsuccessful, and UN writes bitterly to Henry Moe at Guggenheim: “I realise how useless it was for us to spend our time and, more seriously, our money in sending over examples of my wife’s work. The term Creative was responsible, also my incurable faith in the ability of others to recognize the qualities which constitute genius. [...] I don”t ask you to agree with me. I write this as a record for the future. | Of course her work would have benefited tremendously with the help of a Fellowship, but in any case it will go on. The struggle now is not to create, but to exist.”
Successful participation in a show at Wertheim’s in London in 1932 is reflected in a number of letters, including seven from Lucy Wertheim herself. The correspondence also includes a long (4to, 4 pp) and savage analysis of Wertheim’s character by the artist Doris Chapman, beginning: “Mrs Wertheim is a sincere lover of painting in her way, but her real pleasure lies in feeling herself to be a benefactor of struggling artists. Therefore the poorer and less educated painters are encouraged at the expense of others. This would be all to the good, perhaps, if romantic circumstances were not encouraged in preference to talent and if the high hopes raised in <?>, clerks and so forth were in any way fulfilled. Unfortunately several have given up their jobs in order to paint under the protection of Mrs Wertheim and have been left for some new genius with disastrous results. [...] Pictures are ‘sold” and not paid for, are sent away on “hire purchase” and disappear. Accounts are wrongly added up. [...] The richer and more important the prospective buyer the more certainly will he be driven out by excessive attention. [...] As she failed completely to carry out this side of the agreement – my works lying unseen in the stock room to make way for newer enthusiasms – I asked to terminate the contract. She tore it up in a passion.” Following this letter Wertheim herself writes to HN (21 June 1933), offering to include her work in exhibitions of “artists who confine themselves to my gallery”: “It is tragic the number of very fine artists like your wife who find it so difficult to get their work in circulation. I have a score or more attached to my gallery who should be famous – yet the public are slow to recognise their talent. I do what I can!” This is followed by a graceful letter from Arnold Haskell, urging CN to work on lithographs.
In 1933, having been sent a book with one of CBN’s illustrations, Sir William Rothenstein expresses an interest in seeing more of her work. “I have just been looking over the photographs. They are all interesting. A is the composition I like most – the figures being placed against a beautiful background, wh. leads the eye naturally to the horizon. Next comes B, & then C. The sentiment through all the designs is very personal. I cd wish the execution a little less mannered. I hope Mrs Nisbet will forgive the criticism.”
An important item in the collection is the copy (8vo, 3 pp) of the original typescript (Reigate, 1934) of the Nisbets” “Eternalism” manifesto, described by the couple as “the basis of our outlook in Art and Literature”. Dating from the same period is a long (8vo, 2 p) typed “Explanation of an oil painting entitled The Heathen in his Blindness” by “P. St. Vaast” (HUSN’s pseudonym). This was advertised at the time of the launch of the couple’s Bacheler-Nisbet Gallery, of which the catalogue, from September 1934, is also present here. The gallery – situated in the front room of the couple’s house in Reigate, Surrey – did not arouse much interest. In May of that year HUSN wrote despondently to Lord Duveen, complaining that “the inhabitants of this district” were not showing “any inclination to support or visit my Gallery”. Regarding CBN, he writes: “If I were to tell you the inside story of her labours I fear that you might not believe me, for I do not suppose there is another artist in the world who can create life size figure compositions entirely without models and, at the same time, cook the meals, wash and iron, and look after a baby!” Later in the same letter he wrote: “In New York three of her canvasses were bought in 1930 from the Ferargil Gallery for 500 dollars each. Her drawings used to fetch up to 85 dollars, and over here they have been sold up to £7-7-0 a piece. Last year I sold 2 canvases for 30 guineas each and 1 for 20 guineas. She received £110. for a portrait of three children, and £76. for some panel drawings in a dining room and bathroom. I have photos of these, and all the rest of the work may be seen at my Gallery (which, I should add, is the front room of our house). [...] During the five years of our married life I have arranged all my wife’s exhibitions and done everything connected with the publicity and business side of her work. Where I fail is in having no income except from what we earn by our united efforts.” Duveen purchased two of CBN’s paintings, writing (21 September 1934) “you may be sure that if I have the slightest chance of placing anything in your way, I shall be only too happy”.
A batch of the correspondence relates to CBN’s 1934-5 “Mount Royal Mural”, executed for a “new apartment hotel at the Marble Arch, London”. According to a note by HUSN, the mural was “Painted over, or obliterated, by new owners of the building before or during World War II.” A detailed black and white photograph of the mural is present in B, below.
B. Album of photographic reproductions of CBN’s work, 1927 to 1946.
Black landscape folder. Dimensions 37 x 27 cm. The album itself is worn and shaky, with cover detached, but the material it contains is in fair condition. Some of the smaller prints towards the end of the volume have become detached, but only one is lacking (“The Strangers”, New York, 1929).
In white ink on black cover, with illustration of the couple’s monogram: “Please return to H. U. S. Nisbet”. Containing photographs and details of fifty works by CBN. The prints, ranging in size from around 25 x 18 cm to 11 x 15 cm, are usually laid down one to a page on the rectos of 41 leaves. Accompanying details (title, dimensions, where and when exhibited) are usually neatly written out in white ink on the album’s black pages. (For example, “Man With A Sack”, “Paris 1927-28”, “Canvas 28 inches by 36 inches”, “Exhibited:- WILMINGTON [DEL] Nov. 1929. National Assn. Women Painters & Sculptors 39th. Annual Exn. FERARGIL, 1930. VOSE, 1930. LOS ANGELES, 1930. OAKLAND, 1931. SAN FRANCISCO 1931. COMPTON CASTLE 1933”.) Tipped in at the front of the volume are four 4to pages of typed “Press Notices” from newspapers ranging from the Brooklyn Eagle to The Times of London. Tipped in after this is a 4to typed page of “Explanatory Notes” on “The Work of C. Bacheler Nisbet, 1927-1934”. A few items relating to some of the works is included. These\ include: typescript of a congratulatory telegram from the “International Studio” art critic Malcolm Vaughan to CBN on her painting “Respite” winning the National Arts Club Prize in 1929; and a newspaper cutting describing the 1933 “Great Symbolic Painting” of “The Heathen in his Blindness” (based on the “Explanation” by “P. St. Vaast” in A above), together with an advertisement for the exhibition of the painting at the Bacheler-Nisbet Gallery, June 1934, in which it is said to be “Dedicated to the Snobs, Money-grubbers, and all other unimaginative, unspiritual, and self-satisfied people who, by their present blindness and moral cowardice, have brought about the present state of the world.” Notable among the photographs is one (27 x 21.5 cm) of a 1935 work “obliterated” before the Second World War, the 12 x 11 foot “Mural, Curved Panel” entitled “London Street”, executed by CBN for Gordon’s Mount Royal apartment block (see A above). This photograph, and the much less detailed 10 x 13 cm image in Studio magazine of June 1935 (also present), may be the only two reproductions of the work that survive.
Loosely inserted at the rear of the volume are five Bacheler family photographs. Three are 28 x 35 cm, captioned in pencil on the back: “Francis Peck Bacheler (Peck – for Anne Peck 1st woman mountain climber – professional – his mother’s mother?)”, “Rebecca Hope Fuller Bacheler (Talcottville Comm. house before being moved)”, “R. H. F. B. on I believe her Golden Wedding”. Also 19 x 24 cm studio photograph of CBN’s parents and two other family members, and 11 x 16.5 cm print of “Muriel Teddy Bobby Frances”.
C. Typescript account of the Nisbets” stay at Compton Castle, Devon, 1932 to 1933, titled “English Castle by Ulric Nisbet”
In black 4to folder, with label on front reading “ENGLISH CASTLE | Ulric Nisbet”. All texts clear and complete. Fair, on lightly-aged paper. Comprising an account by HUSN of the two years spent by the Nisbets at Compton Castle in Devon, together with newspaper cuttings, letters and other material including the correspondence between HUSN and the Castle’s owner Commander Gilbert relating to HUSN’s resignation as the Castle’s caretaker. The volume contains: Typescript (4to, 17 pp) of “English Castle by Ulric Nisbet”, marked by HUSN “Complete version”, preceded by “Prologue” (4to, 1 p), and followed by the typewritten catalogues of the exhibitions by CBN at Compton Castle in 1932 and 1933; the first titled “Catalogue of the Exhibition of Creative Art by C. Bacheler Nisbet. Compton Castle. September 13-26, 1932” (8vo, 4 pp), and the second titled “Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by C. Bacheler Nisbet. Monday, September 25, until Monday, October 9, 1933” (4to, 2 pp). The catalogues are followed by a typewritten key (4to, 2 pp) by HUSN to CBN’s painting “The Heathen in His Blindness” (first shown in the second of the two Compton Castle exhibitions), signed in type “Pierre St. Vast. September, 1933.” The leaves of typewritten text are interspersed with pages carrying eleven captioned photographs of CBN, HUSN and their young daughter; four captioned photographs and two postcards of Compton Castle; a reproduction an “old engraving” of the Castle; an engraving “From a drawing by J. [sic] Bacheler Nisbet, who is holding an exhibition of her pictures at the Castle” (reproduced in the Paignton Observer, 28 September 1933); and newspaper cuttings relating to CBN’s shows at the Castle in 1932 and 1933 from: Hartford Daily Courant; Paignton Observer; Torbay Herald & Express; Western Guardian; Western Morning News, Plymouth; Times, London. In the prologue HUSN describes his “instantaneous nostalgic regression” at the sight of a newspaper cutting (The Times, 20 September 1951, present in the volume) relating to Compton Castle: “I gazed at the grim old place with extraordinary interest and a sudden surge of affection that was natural enough, for it had played a decisive part in rescuing me and my family from the creeping paralysis of the great American Depression.” At the end of the volume is an appendix containing two Autograph Letters Signed from Gilbert to Nisbet (16 and 20 November 1933) and a copy of HUSN’s typewritten letter of resignation from the position of the Castle’s caretaker (18 November 1933; 4to, 2 pp). In the first letter Gilbert requires an explanation of an article in the Daily Express (17 November 1933) regarding Compton Castle and HUSN’s Cambridge gay friend the Anglo-American Anglican priest Richard Blake Brown (1902-1968). A copy of the long article (“Curate who wants to come back. Writing Novels in a castle. “I made a fool of myself”) is also present. Gilbert writes “I object strongly to this abuse of your position as caretaker – and though I have not said so before I thought that the articles in the press at the time of your wife’s exhibitions were in equally bad taste.” HUSN defends himself combatively. Of Blake Brown he writes “If, after considering the above, you still wish Mr Brown to leave, please let me know, and he will get a room out as soon as it can be arranged. He happens to have just paid for a room at a Torquay hotel for an unemployed acquaintance from London who needed a holiday. Mr. Brown cannot afford to be so generous to himself.” It is “the genius in the work” that inspired the tone of the articles about his wife, who “has done a thousand things for you that she need not have done, and so have I. We came here as caretakers with definite duties; we have been used, in addition, as servants.” He concludes, before handing in his notice, “The tone of your letter of 16th reveals the outlook that prompted it. That outlook is not ours.”
D. Account by HUSN of the early years (1934 to 1936) of the Nisbets” child Sylvie Aurore
Autograph Manuscript (4to, 112 pp) by HUSN titled “Quite Another World. Sylvie – from three to five & one half, July 1 1934 – July 30 1936”. In pink folder. Text clear and complete. On lightly damp-stained paper, in worn folder. Comprising extracts relating to the Nisbets” daughter Sylvie Aurore Nisbet and other matters, including CBN’s art, copied out from HUSN’s diaries. Followed by account (4to, 1 p) of ‘sylvie’s first Christmas”, and a printed chart of “The Tiny First Milestones”, with the child’s age, height and weight filled in by CBN. The last entry gives a taste of the tone of the manuscript: “July 30 [1936]. The sun was shining through a slight mist. It seemed to be the day for which we had been waiting, so off we went to Brighton. And what a day of joy S. had, train and tram rides, a ride on Gracie, a little brown donkey, a ride with C. in a little brown petrol-driven boat htat wouldn”t go properly, cocoa outside a cafe, then several hours on the beach close to the West Pier, paddling and bathing and making a sand & stone wall, with driver and slot machines, and to chase pigeons, then tea in the same cafe, and a taxi ride to the station, and a rest on the seat of the compartment withher head on papa’s lap. God indeed watched over us, for S. had her fingers in the train door just as I was going to slam it at starting time, and I noticed them. And a stone fell within a foot of C. on the beach (thrown by someone?). These things I shall always remember.”
E. Typescript of CBN’s unpublished autobiographical “Germaine. A novel by Yohe Bowles”
Interesting and entertaining autobiographical novel, full of life and energy, describing the adventures of “Germaine Grey” as a young art student in 1920s Paris, Rome, London and at the “Hanover School of Art” in her native New York. 4to, 345 pp. Undated, but apparently written before CBN’s marriage in 1929. Original typescript, with pencil emendations by CBN. Each page on a separate leaf with blank reverse. Lacking page 339, but otherwise with all text clear and complete. Fair on aged paper, with wear and chipping to extremities, particularly among last few leaves. With two striking black and white cover illustrations (both 4to) by CBN, both heavily shaded, both worn and aged. The first carries the title “germaine” at the head and “a novel by yohe bowles” at the foot, beneath which, in pencil “Return (please) to: Christine Nisbet <...>. Shows a young and stylish Germaine, portfolio under arm, walking along a windy cliff edge in clogs. The second, with “germaine” at head, shows Germaine, palette in hand and beret on head, wearing a painter’s smock, in room with canvases and bust similar to the Venus de Milo. Culminates with the destruction of Grey’s painting “The White Cow”, along with a Picasso, a Cassat and a Segonzac, in the “new gallery in which the art collector Dr. Wilhemstein has recently hung his collection” – “If the painting hadn”t been destroyed I might have had fame . . . there is nothing cheap, now, in the legacy I am left. It is a legacy of the spirit and of the mind, it is a will to justify that fleeting glimpse into a world beyond the horizon of words! . . .” Germaine’s father Dr. Grey (clearly based on CBN’s own father) refuses to agree to her returning to Paris: “My daughter, I will be quite frank. I find your attitude toward your art, toward society and toward life, hopelessly, I might say criminally, confused.” The following gives a good example of the dialogue: “Mike turned to face her and she noticed that with his left hand he was pressing his right to his chest – the gesture was unnatural. | “Why do you look at me like that?” he shouted suddenly, dropping his hands and coming towards her. | “I can”t see your face,” Germaine steadied herself, and said with dawning horror, “Your shirt Mike. It’s growing and spreadind, the dark place, it’s, is it, - blood?” | Mike opened his hand, | “This little razor blade helped me to bear your words; the physical pain made me forget, slightly, the torture of what you were saying.” He walked toward her and put the blade in her hands, “Here, keep it as a momento.” | The front door closed behind him. | Germaine turned over the blade. It felt warm, and a faint sticky mark lay across her palm.”
F. Manuscript of CBN’s (and HUSN’s?) unpublished children’s book “Julie”, with her illustrations
4to, 17 pages. Each page on a separate leaf with blank reverse. Text and eleven striking and attractive line drawings in pencil, with one skilfully coloured and one full-page. Undated. In good condition on lightly-aged paper. The story concerns the adventures of nine-year-old Julie Elizabeth Hamilton and her friends, two “little colored children who lived farther out in the woods. The girl, Sissie, was two. She dressed in a flour sack covered with red roses. Her brother Beanie was five. He wore a flyer’s helmet winter and summer. He would walk into Julie’s house and shake hands with everyone and say, “Kin-yer-spare-enny-aigs?”“
G. Typescripts of CBN’s unpublished children’s books ‘solittle Pottsblitz” and “Adventures of Ashydash [both under the pseudonym “Tania Osokin”, with her illustrations
Bound together in a folio folder of black card, with typed labels on the cover, the text of the first story covering six folio pagers, and that of the second nine folio pages. Neither dated. The full title of the first story is ‘solittle Pottsblitz. The story of a naughty little mouse, who became good”. Loosely inserted are eight striking and well-finished black ink folio illustrations, backed on card, each signed “Nisbet”. While retaining CBN’s strong style, the negative silhouettes in the illustrations are broadly reminiscent of a simplified version of the wood engravings of Clare Leighton. Each story has a title stating that it is ‘submitted by” HUSN, from his New York address of 62 East 83rd Street. HUSN’s calling card from this address is also present, indicating that the items were produced before the Nisbets” move to England in 1932. Apart from a representation of a lion, the illustrations show a little girl, her family, and animals, in a country background. Some of the tracings interleaving the illustrations carry pencil drawings by CBN.
H. Miscellaneous children’s drawings by CBN
Three 8vo tracings of line drawings by CBN, with accompanying text (by HUSN?), featuring anthropomorphic animals, a sleeping girl and a children’s bedroom.
(#4653794)
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