Lucian Freud and Benton: the development of an artistic genius

I was therefore extremely pleased that the owner of Freud’s painting entitled Man in a Black Scarf, 1939, generously agreed to lend the oil for the first time for public display as well as other items including two unique photograph albums previously owned by Benton End student Denis Wirth-Miller. These photographs capture youth and sun. They now seem rather poignant, a moment on a summer’s afternoon in the garden at Benton End in 1941, a respite from a world war impacting on everyone’s lives. Students in these photographs include Freud, Robert Davey, Bettina Shaw-Lawrence, Denise Broadley and Joan Warburton who are shown lolling on the grass, doing headstands, holding pet lambs, dressing up, smoking, and smiling, accompanied by a rare early photograph of Lett who seems to be thoroughly enjoying their company.

Man in a Black Scarf portrays John Jameson, a family member of the drinks’ distillers company. Jameson was a life model at the School in October 1939 and is recorded in the Benton End’s School Attendance Register, held at Tate in the Cedric Morris Archive: this Register assisted in authenticating the oil as a work painted by Lucian Freud. You can read more about the decades-long authentication process in this article by Lanre Bakare for The Guardian.

At Benton End students had formal life drawing classes on the first floor in a large studio with a teaching method comprising gentle suggestions on colour, form and composition by Morris and Lett. Students reported that the feedback was frequently contradictory. Freud said ‘He (Morris) didn’t say much but he let me watch him at work. Cedric taught me to paint and more importantly to keep at it’.

The 1946 School prospectus stated that Benton End consisted of seven months tuition, five days a week, 10am to 5 pm, closed from October 31 to 1 April. The School encouraged professional and amateur artists to attend for whatever period they could spare, from the locality in Hadleigh or further afield from London. The fees were expensive but Lett frequently waived them for assistance with book keeping, gardening help or other chores at Benton End. In general, the students drew and painted what they saw around them, models, friends, visitors, flowers, plants and vegetables from the garden at Benton End, Mediterranean ceramics, as well as wildlife, especially birds and the many animals in Morris’s menagerie. When the weather was good they would paint in the garden or be sent on day trips by Morris to paint sea and landscapes.

With war now declared in 1939, Lett, who was the driving force in administering the School, found it increasingly difficult to source life models (and indeed students) so he relied on contacts and friends. The records also show how he haggled over fees and travelling expenses for life models and he presumably secured John Jameson, who lived in London, to sit for a few days before the School closed for the winter.

By placing, for the first time, this early Freud work alongside portraits by Morris the impact of Morris’s work on Freud becomes apparent. The unflinching, sometimes confrontational gaze, large eyes, half length format, thick paint, rough handling, and darkly vivid colour are clearly visible in both artists’ work.  Man in a Black Scarf was painted when Freud was just sixteen, a phenomenal achievement, and an indication of Freud’s immense skill and ability to absorb and then develop everything he was observing to further his expertise.

In the exhibition this painting appears in a studio section with Morris’s easel loaned by Gainsborough’s House, Morris’s portraits from the 1930s and 1940s, together with a rich selection of drawings by Freud, Warburton, and Lett. It was also particularly interesting to secure early drawing books with illustrations of birds and flowers, owned by Freud, published in Germany by Insel Buchherei, possibly given to Freud by his parents which he carefully studied and which travelled to Benton End with him.

This painting by Freud of Man in a Black Scarf is just one artwork among a wide selection in the exhibition demonstrating the independent and pioneering judgment as a principle of working life which was a tenet of Benton End. Close observation, deep knowledge of materials, a refusal to accept received ideas about painting, teaching, gardening , cooking were all at play at Benton End and Man in a Black Scarf encapsulates this shared methodology.

Benton End: A Paradise of Pollen and Paint is open until 20 September.