GLYN PHILPOT: FLESH AND SPIRIT

PALLANT HOUSE GALLERY

Until October 23

Suddenly Glyn Philpot – 100 years ago the darling of London society for his Veronese-style portraits of the rich and the titled – is again getting the attention he deserves.

But not for the society portraits that made him rich.

Glyn Philpot
Siegfried Sassoon, 1917. Oil on canvas

A major retrospective of the artist’s oeuvre, curated by Pallant House Gallery director Simon Martin at the swish Chichester gallery, has garnered four and five-star reviews in the broadsheet newspapers, and for good reason.

Martin has been researching Philpot for over 20 years, and has produced a stunning exhibition which examines the many contradictions in the artist’s life, which played out in his work.

A homosexual in a period when homosexuality was illegal, Philpot had a predilection for painting the male figure, and particularly dignified portraits of black sitters, and ‘came out’ as a Modernist in 1931, sacrificing his reputation and fortune to explore new artistic forms. After moving his studio to Montparnasse, and exploring Christopher Isherwood-era Berlin, he ‘went Picasso’ thus dropping out of favour with most of his patrons. In this period, in the handful of years before his premature death in 1937, he produced the most interesting work of his career.

Mr Philpot, in effect, changed trains, and the exhibition (Flesh and Spirit, until October 23) charts this fascinating journey, bringing together scores of works, many of them previously unseen for many decades (including, notably, a portrait of Paul Robeson, as Othello).