A queer arrangement

The second major show at Charleston’s new gallery in Lewes, Dorothy Hepworth and Patricia Preece, an Untold Story, raises more questions than it answers.

Dorothy Hepworth and Patricia Preece, undated, photograph © Dorothy Hepworth Estate

But they are intriguing questions, like: Can fascinating subject matter make up for mediocre artwork? Is visionary painter Sir Stanley Spencer considered so saintly that his sometimes sinister behaviour is beyond reproach? And: have we reached Peak Bloomsbury?

Here’s the story behind the show, in a nutshell. Dorothy Hepworth and Patricia Preece met at the Slade in the 1920s and became a lesbian couple, spending four years in Paris before moving to Cookham. Dorothy was the better artist, but shy and retiring; Patricia was gregarious, and physically striking. They decided to pool their talents: Dorothy would paint the paintings, sign them with Patricia’s name, and Patricia would front the operation, and promote the work.

It worked: Roger Fry became a fan, exhibitions were held in swanky Mayfair galleries, and ‘Patricia Preece’ paintings were bought by the likes of Virginia Woolf and Kenneth Clark.

So far so interesting: the Charleston curator has decided to honour the artists’ pact, and has labelled every artwork as being by ‘Dorothy Hepworth and Patricia Preece’. The trouble is: only a handful of the works are of any great merit. Hepworth was clearly talented, but not talented enough to justify a solo show so long after her death. A lot of the paintings are too dark (in tone, rather than theme); the sitters often look rather wooden, their poses terribly contrived. It’s the artists’ fascinating ‘Untold Story’ that props the whole affair up.

There are two paintings that stand out as being far superior to the others, both portraits of Patricia, both painted by Stanley Spencer. Spencer’s involvement in the Hepworth and Preece’s lives is rather glossed over here: sadly only half the ‘untold story’ gets told. Spencer fell in love with Patricia, and, having divorced his artist wife Hilda, married her, suggesting that the four painters (himself, Hilda, Patricia and Dorothy) live together in an artistic menage a quatre. Patricia agreed, it seems, understanding this queer arrangement would lead to financial security for her and Dorothy… but only as long as she didn’t have to have sex with Stanley. On their honeymoon, in St Ives, he forced the consummation of the marriage anyway, after which they never slept under the same roof again.

Has this unseemly part of the story, one wonders, been left out to appease the Stanley Spencer Foundation, in order to facilitate the loan of the two artworks that so lift the show out of mediocrity?

Dorothy Hepworth, Girl in Blue, undated, oil on canvas © Dorothy Hepworth Estate. Image courtesy Private Collection

As for Peak Bloomsbury… Well. As my esteemed colleague Colin Gleadell has pointed out, that Bohemian set has never been more popular, their anything-goes sexual philosophy coinciding with the identitarian zeitgeist currently driving huge swathes of the contemporary art market. Major fashion houses are buying into the brand. There will be a dedicated Bloomsbury auction at Bonham’s later this month, and a Vanessa Bell solo show at Courtauld Gallery in May. London Art Fair honoured Charleston with a prime-position mini gallery at this year’s Fair. And now Charleston has this second, rather magnificent space in Lewes, 10 miles from their HQ, to showcase artists related to Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant and co.

And yet: Dorothy Hepworth and Patricia Preece: An Untold Story has very little to do with Bloomsbury (which is probably why Roger Fry is given as much space as Stanley Spencer in the captions). The Charleston connections are tenuous: Hepworth and Preece never even visited the Sussex farmhouse. We’re hardly scraping the barrel here, but it must be asked: is there enough Bloomsbury-related art material out there to sustain the bubble of popularity currently surrounding the privileged bohemian set?

That said, I would recommend this show, for all its faults. A few of Hepworth’s pieces do cut the mustard, the curators have collected some great photographs and other paraphernalia, and the story, though only half told, truly is an absorbing tale. If you want full disclosure, buy Denys J Wilcox’s exhibition-accompanying monograph The Secret Life of Dorothy Hepworth aka Patricia Preece in the giftshop afterwords. Oh, and while you’re in the building, check out the accompanying exhibition upstairs – Duos - featuring the work of various artist collaborators, such as Jake and Dinos Chapman, Rottingdean Bazaar, Bob and Roberta Smith with Jessica Voorsanga and, inevitably, Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant.

Winter highlights: UK public galleries