John Piper
British, 1903 - 1992
The sad event of Charles Pipers death in 1925 freed John from his obligation to the family business; there was no one to stop him now. After getting over the years events namely that of his father's death he picked himself up and did what he should have done a long time ago and left Piper, Smith and Piper and went to sign up with the Royal College of Art in south Kensington. His talent was recognised but he was turned down because he did not have enough experience of drawing the nude. The rebuff was softened by being told to go to the Richmond School of Art, and to try again later. With the help of Richmond Art School after one year he was accepted into the Royal College. What this move did for Piper is a matter for debate in which there is a marked divergence of views. Piper thinks that he got a lot from the college, and names a number of people who were around the place at that time whom he learned things from which he is still grateful, among them Charles Mahoney, Morris Kestleman, and Tom Monnington. Kestleman in particular has his doubts about this, partly because he feels very strongly that the things that are very important to an artist are not too teachable, and partly because the school was a very dead and boring school at the time.
From website: http://www.johnpiper.fsnet.co.uk/
John Egerton Christmas Piper, was born in Epsom in 1903, he was the son of a wealthy solicitor that had his own business. John Piper's brothers worked in the business and it was expected that John would work there also, but John had other ideas, he wanted to pursue a career as an artist; and this is where his personal hardships began. It seems that his father thought that John becoming an artist was a ludicrous idea and dismissed it and John was sent to work in the family business (Piper, Smith & Piper).
The sad event of Charles Pipers death in 1925 freed John from his obligation to the family business; there was no one to stop him now. After getting over the years events namely that of his father's death he picked himself up and did what he should have done a long time ago and left Piper, Smith and Piper and went to sign up with the Royal College of Art in south Kensington. His talent was recognised but he was turned down because he did not have enough experience of drawing the nude. The rebuff was softened by being told to go to the Richmond School of Art, and to try again later. With the help of Richmond Art School after one year he was accepted into the Royal College. What this move did for Piper is a matter for debate in which there is a marked divergence of views. Piper thinks that he got a lot from the college, and names a number of people who were around the place at that time whom he learned things from which he is still grateful, among them Charles Mahoney, Morris Kestleman, and Tom Monnington. Kestleman in particular has his doubts about this, partly because he feels very strongly that the things that are very important to an artist are not too teachable, and partly because the school was a very dead and boring school at the time.
To start with John made his money by writing Art reviews and columns for magazines, this he did not enjoy but paintings were not selling at the time. By this time John Piper had been asked to join a group of artists that called themselves "the Seven and Five" and to exhibit with them. Included in the group were Ben Nicholson, Henry Moore, Ivon Hitchens, Frances Hodgkins , Barbara Hepworth, and Winifred Nicholson. John Piper was now part of an elite English movement in modern painting.
Around about this time World war II broke out and everything was rationed, so it must have been hard to get hold of luxury items such as canvas, oil paints, brushes, paper and also there would have been no spare money to be spent on buying art. The Government had set up a scheme for art and it was called "The war artists scheme" In this scheme artists were paid to paint, probably by the hour or by the canvas on a 9-5 basis. Murals would have been painted and perhaps the artist's work would have been used for propaganda in some cases, or to boost Morale. John Piper was involved in this scheme as was Henry Moore and nearly every artist that had not signed up. Some obviously did go to the frontline to see first hand what was going on but others recorded the events at home. John Pipers paintings were mainly of derelict buildings or buildings that he anticipated getting bombed.
It was from this time that Piper found his favourite motif of devastated architecture. Colour, texture and perspective heighten the dramatic effect of his romantic topographies, which have wide appeal.
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