Dublin people

Friday, August 29th., Dublin.

Hired a taxi for 3 hours and went with O'Connor and Bodkin to search quays in the pouring cold rain. I bought four pictures, two lacquer tables and 3 fine Victorian vases. I went to bed at 5 p.m. and got up at 7 to go to Bodkin's. Good dinner. Goodish talking. Especially from old Miss Purser who had known Marie Bashkirtseff intimately and now, at 75, owns a stained glass factory in Dublin and bosses it herself. 

Sarah Purser (1848 - 1943) was an Irish artist. She was born in Kingstown (now Dún Laoghaire) in County Dublin, and educated in Switzerland and afterwards studied at the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin and in Paris. She worked mostly as a portraitist but was also associated with the stained glass movement, founding a stained glass workshop, An Túr Gloine, in 1903. Some of her stained glass work was commissioned from as far as New York. Through her talent and energy, and owing to her friendship with the Gore-Booths, she was very successful in obtaining commissions, famously commenting"I went through the British aristocracy like the measles." Sarah Purser became wealthy through astute investments, particularly in Guinness. She was very active in the art world in Dublin and in 1923 she became the first female member of the Royal Hibernian Academy.

For O'Connor, see also, 'Understanding Einstein' - March 29th., http://earnoldbennett.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/understanding-einstein.html

Bodkin is acquiring fine pictures for songs. Fancy getting a Diaz in Belfast for a song. He has a magnificent Bloemart, and a Domenico Feti. And he knows a deuce of a lot. He saved me from buying an alleged oil painting in the style of Poussin by suspecting that it was merely painted on an engraving. The dealer who was quite honest took the backing to pieces and we all examined it, and it was painted on an engraving. Last night's was a mixed dinner - I really believe the first I have been to in Dublin.

Professor Thomas Patrick Bodkin (1887 – 1961) was an Irish lawyer, art historian, art collector and curator. Bodkin was born in Dublin, and graduated from the Royal University of Ireland in 1908. He practiced law from 1911 until 1916 while collecting art privately. Bodkin left the legal profession in 1916 to become a Governor of the National Gallery of Ireland, being appointed Director in 1927. He also served in 1926 on the committee that commissioned the design of the new coinage of the Republic of Ireland. Bodkin was founding Director of the Barber Institute of Fine Arts in Birmingham from 1935 until 1952, where he acquired the nucleus of the collection described by The Observer as "the last great art collection of the twentieth century". 

We had a tremendous day today. Journalism & politics in the morning. Race course in the afternoon. Theatre (Irish plays) at night. The Irish race course is very Parisian in appearance, & there are heaps of well-known English people in the train of the Viceroy. Nevertheless the big officials are always followed about and protected by detectives. The English still hold Ireland only by force of arms, & beneath all the gaiety, luxury, honest justice, order, etc. there is always this feeling. 

See also, 'Lady jumpers' - August 27th., http://earnoldbennett.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/lady-jumpers.html

Understanding Einstein

Tuesday, March 29th., Cadogan Square, London.

I went by bus to Trafalgar Square, and into the National Gallery, and stayed there for an hour, and greatly enjoyed Nicholas Poussin's "Nativity", which is the most amusing "Nativity" I have ever seen; and I came out with the required idea, which I shall begin to write tomorrow.

James O'Connor came in. I walked up to Piccadilly with him. He said: I only heard indirectly of the change in your circumstances, my dear Arnold. My wife would much like to call. She is very fond of babies." We travelled by bus together to Sloane Street.  

The Rt. Hon. Sir James O'Connor, PC (1872 – 1931), was an Irish barrister and judge He was appointed Solicitor-General for Ireland in 1914, and Attorney-General for Ireland in 1917. He served briefly as a High Court judge, then as a Lord Justice of the Irish Court of Appeal from 1918 to his enforced retirement in 1924. After a period of practice at the English Bar he returned to Ireland and was admitted as a solicitor, a decision which caused some controversy. Maurice Healy described him as a man of great ability but with no respect for the traditions of the Irish Bar: a failure as a Law Officer, but a good High Court judge and even better as an appeal judge.

Home at 2.45. Corrected a Sunday Pictorial article. Decent sleep. I then wrote 400 words of an Evening Standard article by 4 o'clock.

This article will start from a reflection that the centenaries of Newton and Beethoven are now safely over. I dislike centenaries which are dangerous to one's peace of mind, as they give rise to a stream of twaddle, the sight and sound of which make one feel awkward, constrained, and lower one's estimate of human nature. Reading some of the tributes to Beethoven , I had some of the terrible qualms of humiliation and self-consciousness which visit me when I have to cross arms and join hands and sing Auld Land Syne. Newton was better handled and his centenary leads me to thinking about Einstein. I could desire to assist at the centenary of Einstein, but heaven will no doubt decide against me. Here I am, violent but grey-haired, endowed with a fair sanity and general intelligence, and a passion for knowledge - and after all these years I understand little more of the relativity theory than a clever hall-porter.

Then Michael Morton called by appointment. He told me that he thought he could sell the film rights of "Riceyman Steps" to the Gainsborough people (Hitchcock, producer) for £2,500. I told him to go away and do it. 

Gainsborough Pictures was founded in 1924 by Michael Balcon and was a sister company to the Gaumont British from 1927, with Balcon as Director of Production for both studios. Whilst Gaumont-British, based at Lime Grove Studios in Shepherd's Bush produced the 'quality' pictures, Gainsborough mainly produced 'B' movies and melodramas at its Islington Studios. Both studios used continental film practices, especially those from Germany, with Alfred Hitchcock being encouraged by Balcon -- who had links with UFA -- to study there and make multilingual co-production films with UFA.

This morning I read a Russian short story before leaving the house on the idea-quest, to inspire me. It did inspire me. Dorothy and I played Haydn after dinner.